Expectations: “Make Or Break”
When you promise to do something, you set an expectation…
… that you will deliver.
A company’s brand sets expectations about the quality of product, service and staff. For a well-known brand (choose your favourite), you will expect to pay a certain price for a product of a certain quality and receive a certain standard of service from staff with a certain level of training, product knowledge and ability.
When your expectations are exceeded, you have a great experience. You then do one/more/all of the following:
- Buy more/more often/both;
- Write a letter of appreciation;
- Tell as many people as you can about your wonderful experience.
When they aren’t met, you have a problem. You then do one/more/all of the following:
- Think nothing more about it and give them another chance;
- Resolve never to deal with that organisation again;
- Complain to the Customer Service Department
- Tell as many people as you can about your awful experience.
The problem is, many organisations aren’t aware that they’re setting an expectation. For example:
- The quality of a website may raise (or lower) expectations about quality of product and service.
- Having an email address for enquiries indicates that you welcome questions and that you will answer them (promptly).
I recently had two bad experiences with vendors in a country usually associated with efficiency, high standards of service and educated, well-trained workers (this is NOT the case with many countries). In both cases, I sent email enquiries to the designated enquiries email addresses and never received a response. I checked my “Spam” and “Junk” inboxes to ensure that replies hadn't been directed there by my email filters - no joy. To receive no reply (after several weeks’ waiting) has lowered my esteem of the two providers concerned.
For all I know, my enquiries never reached the organisations, or the right people within the organisations, or maybe even haven’t reached the top of the pile of all the other enquiries flooding in. They might even have been mislaid or “lost in the clutter”. Whatever happened, I still feel let down. My expectations weren’t met.
Is this typical of the country concerned? I suspect not. Is it typical of the companies concerned? Difficult to say. The problem is that expectations weren’t met and a view has been formed as to the efficiency and effectiveness of those organisations.
In some cases, expectations are necessarily low, i.e. that product/service/staff knowledge will be poor. This is because, in the past, expectations were never met, and word got around. Those organisations will have an “uphill struggle” now to achieve credibility even if their product/service is superior because of their failure to manage expectations in the past.
What are you doing to manage expectations effectively?
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy to offer solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Selling, Strategy, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 07:38
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