You Can’t Always Get What You Want – So Focus On What You Need

You can have two, but not all three. A project can be good and fast (though it’s probably a more expensive option). Or it can be good and cheap (but it may take a long time to be completed). Or it may be fast and cheap (but you might end up regretting the outcome when you see the low-end result).  

While this is indeed a cliché, it does speak to the fact that there are tradeoffs that people face when conducting business.  In fact, most of the decision points people face aren’t as complicated as  a “pick two of three outcomes”, but rather it’s a more simplified discrete “this or that” choice that needs to be made.   

Spending much of our time in the customer experience space, there is a tradeoff that comes up over and over again where we see companies trying to reconcile the tradeoff of balancing out speed  versus accuracy.  Now there are arguments for focusing on both of these:

• If you are a proponent of doing things fast, you’ll likely focus on the benefits of acting quickly because it allows you to meet or exceed customer’s expectations or that quick results can drive internal productivity which can yield cost savings for the business or because erring on the side of speed is relatively straightforward to assess and you feel it’s better to concentrate on something that’s empirically measurable.
• On the other hand, if accuracy is your goal than you may place emphasis on the connection between delivering the “right” response and solidifying the reputation of your organization or maybe you bought into the message of the tortoise and the hare folktale and believe that slow and steady wins the race.
  
  

What’s interesting is that, when you look at survey data where customers implicitly are forced to choose between speed and accuracy, it’s NOT a coin flip as to which of the two is more critical.  For all the focus on first contact resolution or setting service levels for speed of answer or turnaround time, if forced to live with just one of these positive outcomes ultimately customers are more likely to be happier with a slower response that is right than a fast outcome that is subpar.  This dynamic is seen in all sorts of situations:

• A major medical products distribution company conducted a study of the full customer lifecycle – which included a component capturing feedback tied to product delivery.  Within this section there was one question that gauged satisfaction with the timeliness of the product deliveries (i.e., were products received within the expected time window), and there was another question that captured feedback on the accuracy of the shipments (e.g., were the appropriate products included in the proper quantity and in good condition).  What was interesting in the resulting data is how those who were happy with just one of the two components (essentially, they had to live with the results of a tradeoff) viewed their broader experience with the company.  It was no surprise that those who were happy with BOTH delivery speed and accuracy were the most positive (83% of this group were Very Satisfied with the organization as a whole), and it’s also no surprise that when customers were happy with NEITHER speed nor accuracy of deliveries then their overall perspective plummeted (with levels dropping by nearly one-half – to just 42% Very Satisfied overall).  Now there was some recovery in overall satisfaction when customers were happy with the speed of the delivery even if they were not happy with the accuracy: overall satisfaction of this group rose to 66%. But you know what is better than getting overall satisfaction back into the 60s? It’s the fact that satisfaction levels were over 40% larger among those who said that they were happy with the delivery’s outcome (even if the delivery’s timing was lacking).  For these customers, a slower but accurate delivery was a better outcome than something that showed up on their loading dock in lighting-quick fashion but then was only partially or incorrectly filled once unpacked.
• Or there is the consumer package goods company that measures the post-contact handling experience of consumers who reach out to them via Social Media. In their survey, they gauged satisfaction with process and speed-related components (like the length of time from initial post to company reply or the wait time between responses), and they also gauged outcome components (like assessing whether the remedy that was provided addressed the issue that they contacted about).  When the analysis was conducted, two conclusions were clear: 1) all of these aspects that were being surveyed mattered to their customers; 2) but they didn’t all matter by the same amount, with the outcome-related pieces mattering much more.  Regression analysis of the survey results showed that the appropriateness of the remedy had more than 6x the predictive impact than the speed components when it came to driving whether consumers were ultimately satisfied or dissatisfied with how that company handled their contact. The customers were saying that, of course it would be helpful if there was an expedited back and forth over Social Media, but if the fast turnaround yielded a response that missed the mark then ultimately it was not going to register with the consumer as a positive experience.
• And a third example is a durable goods company which had a core piece of equipment that sometimes broke down and needed to be repaired – and their survey focused on this repair experience.  The survey data for this company showed the same dynamics of the two previous examples (e.g., those satisfied with the accuracy of the repair but not the speed were ultimately more satisfied overall than those who were in the inverse position and the accuracy of the repair had a greater predictive impact on the overall view than did the speed); but in this study they also asked the customer directly: “What Matters Most To You”.  Now not everyone mentioned components tied to speed or accuracy (e.g., there were callouts tied to ease of scheduling the repair or the professionalism of the technician or the cost of the repair), but for every one customer who said that having an expedited repair experience was critical there were nearly three that said that ultimately what mattered to them was that the repair was done correctly (even if it took a bit longer).

So the self-evident takeaway of this speed vs. accuracy debate is that “speed can kill” if it comes at the expense of an accurate outcome.  But there’s a broader underlying takeaway here – which is framed around the fact that tradeoffs like this are not uncommon. Maybe for you it’s not speed vs. accuracy, and instead you’re faced with a choice of whether to position your brand as stable and  familiar or lean and innovative. Or maybe your decision point is how to organize how you support your customers and whether it’s through decentralized support staff that can give high-touch service to a limited number of customers or if it’s having a centralized clearinghouse that can serve more customers in a more efficient (though less personalized) manner. Or maybe your challenge is figuring out how to balance resources between new customer acquisition and serving existing customers. 

Whatever your tradeoff is, what’s critical is that you have a good understanding of the outcome of picking Choice A vs. Choice B.   And how do you do this?  

• You ask: Think about the full customer experience and develop questions that dive into the components across the journey in a way that will be actionable for you and your organization.  
• You measure.  Conduct your surveys with an objective to gain meaningful insights and not just a score.
• You analyze.  View data through a lens designed around taking action in areas that make the most sense for both your organization and your customers.

In a perfect world these sorts of tradeoffs would not be necessary.  But given resource constraints that are part of the day-to-day working world, knowing where to direct your limited time and understanding how best to spend your limited budget is critical to ensuring that you achieve the best possible outcomes.