While the details differ by individual, I believe each of us shares an innate sense of what “works”. We naturally weigh the products we buy, the experiences we have - even our relationships – against some measure of quality.

Defining quality – that is, what makes us love or appreciate a product or service – is a tough one though. It varies so significantly by the individual, their unique preferences, and the subject itself who is evaluated. That said, I’d suggest that when we value the quality of something, it probably possesses two or more of the following characteristics:

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But how do we create quality? Achieving a well-executed blend of two or more of the above quite frankly takes time. It requires care, thought, planning, and usually going back to the drawing board many times, in the name of doing things right.

There may be others to add to this list, I’m sure. Most of these characteristics only become apparent to us once we own the product or have had the experience. At the same time, what are the attributes that draw us in to purchase? Two that come immediately to mind are:

Price and (perceived) valueThe overall cost (monetary or otherwise) and the expected payoff relative to the investment.

Convenience/availability
How quickly and easily we can obtain the product or experience.

Now let’s compare these concepts against the characteristics we defined for evaluating quality. It almost feels like an abomination, doesn’t it? They’re terms that almost feel to work entirely in opposition to how we measure quality.

In my view, many industries have dug themselves into a hole over the years by perpetuating the notion (and indeed, the expectation) that quality work, quick time to market and low cost can somehow coexist. And of course we needn’t look further than the clichéd “Pick two” model to show this is neither sustainable nor realistic:

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It wasn’t always this way, was it? Though I wasn’t alive 50 years ago, it feels we had a better appreciation that doing something right just takes time. Rushing the process, imposing false urgencies, panicked phone calls at 5 pm on a Friday didn’t happen…or at least they were exceptional cases – not the standard ways of doing business.

Ultimately, I believe that we only have ourselves to blame by reinforcing this behaviour in virtually every part of our lives. We want healthy food, but we want it cheap. We want quality programming on our TV, but we don’t want to pay the absurdly-priced monthly cable bill. We want deeply discounted products, delivered overnight with free shipping. And we want to do it quickly, easily, at 2 am on our carrier-subsidized smartphone using an unlimited data plan using beautifully designed, location-based, voice-activated mobile apps downloaded for free from the freakin’ App Store.

I mean what the heck have we done to ourselves?

So where am I going with all of this? The “slow goods” concept (advocating for a return to concepts like craftsmanship and quality) is something I feel many industries desperately need. And the more time we spend letting time and money serve as our drivers, the acuter this need will become. To be honest, I kind of hate this term, simply because we’ve gotten so delusional that “slow” is synonymous with “inferior”. But that’s precisely the point here. There will always be those content (or forced) to accept substandard products for a discount price, but if we’re serious about producing best-in-class experiences, something’s got to give.

Maybe we’re past the point of return of appreciating quality over quantity. Perhaps we're too far down the instant-gratification-rabbit-hole to correct our course. I'd like to believe it's still possible though.

In the manufacturing world, there are always cheaper materials emerging, new machines and processes that serve to cut production costs, driving unit costs lower. This will always be the case, and I'm all for it. But when we talk about creating quality customer experiences, it’s a different landscape.

I’m suggesting that genuinely great experiences created under the right conditions cannot become commoditized. When we cut corners by not taking the time to plan, design, test and refine experiences, we’re only sabotaging ourselves, disappointing our clients, and – ultimately – our users.

This article was originally published in November 2013