Clients have demands and expectations. You of course want to deliver the best, but what if the customer has other priorities?
Let this triangle make your life, and the service that you deliver, a lot better.
This week someone told me about THE triangle that would make dealing with customers expectations a lot easier. The model is not new but I sure like to share it with you.
Good, Quick or Cheap
In business, just as in life we need to make trade offs. Trade offs which come with a lot of difficult questions.
To deliver your product or services there are 3 basic expectations which the client could have or that could come to table during negotiations.
- Speed of delivery
- Cost of the product or services
- Quality of the product or services
And here comes the trade off; to guarantee continuity of your business it is difficult to have all of these on the level your client likes them to be.
So here comes the triangle in to play to manage expectations and to create a benefit in negotiations; let the client decide!
Depending on your product, service, skill level or supply chain you can let your client pick one or two out of the three in the triangle.
If the client likes to have a good product and needs it to be delivered fast, this will cost him or her money.
If the clients likes to have a cheap but good product the time of producing it will be probably not in the time frame which the client likes it to be in.
The system is not perfect and depending on the business you’re in not totally accurate. But it does make managing expectations a lot easier.
The downfall of the triangle
Apart from the accuracy of the triangle and if it is sufficient enough, there is another downside to it; there is a TRADE OFF.
Perhaps we don’t like to go cheap if this ruins quality or speed? This then is a choice that you need to make.
If you ask me, manage expectations and then when you deliver go beyond expectations and suprise your client!
Cheers
RJ
