The Iron Triangle of Customer Service: Speed, Quality, and Cost | Digital Genius

The principle suggests that, of the three points of the Iron Triangle, you can only have two at a time—not three. Think about it:

• If you provide high-quality support quickly, you would expect it to be expensive to do.
• If you provide quick service by inexpensive means, you might expect it to be of poor quality.
• When you provide high-quality service but don’t spend a ton of money to do so, you probably expect it to be slow.

Luckily for you, these are just assumptions. In reality, customer service is one of the few industries where the Iron Triangle might not have such a secure hold. Let’s break down why that is.

The Iron Triangle is a fallacy

The idea that you can only attain two of these three qualities assumes that you are willing to operate your business by cutting corners. When you presume that offering fast, cheap support is an option, it means you’re comfortable with providing a lower quality offering. But with the state of the world what it is, it’s not an option to offer low-quality service.

Your customers will leave.

Alternatively, many companies try to meet the “good” and “fast” attributes by hiring more customer service reps. The more people you have answering customer questions, the faster and better your service will be…right? Wrong. Have you heard the metaphor “too many cooks in the kitchen”? When you try to solve a problem by adding more people, there’s more complexity and communication added to the mix. Plus, it’s not always possible to hire more people quickly enough to solve the issue.

Ultimately, that leaves good and cheap service as the only viable option. But given the right strategy, good and cheap service doesn’t need to be slow. You don’t need to deliver sub-standard service – all points of the Iron Triangle can be met!

What matters most to your customers?

Although the Triangle doesn’t exist for customer service, it can still be useful to conceptualize your strategy. All three points of the Triangle are essential (and impactful!) for different reasons.

Fast

Out of 3,200 surveyed customers, 88% of customers expect a response from your business within 60 minutes. That is really fast. Some companies are even starting to reward quick answers between clients and their customers because they know it makes for better customer experience. Take, for example, Facebook offering page responsiveness badges, and Airbnb rewarding swiftly responding hosts with priority property views. They understand that people are more likely to continue using their platform if they get an enjoyable experience, quickly.

Take a look at this breakdown from Accenture: