With all the shopping over the holiday it has caused me to think about how our expectations as a customer shapes how we ultimately view the overall transaction or  interaction with the company, and of course how they affect your decision for future business with them. When you purchase a product or service you have expectations for its delivery and for its use.  Some of these expectations are set by the marketing and advertising for the service or product. If I were to go into Burger King for example, a Canadian fast food chain that professes you can “have it your way”,  and they forced me to eat a burger with pickles and onions, my expectations would not be met.  On the other hand some expectations are based on our past experience.  I recently vacationed to Punta Cana to the Melia Caribe Tropical resort, I had been there two times in previous years, so I expected great food at a variety of a la carte restaurants as I had experienced before. I was immensely disappointed as four of the a la cartes were closed for renovation and another had been designated a “paid” restaurant. 

Still other expectations are set at point of sale.  Have you ever purchased a product or service that didn’t live up to the features outlined by a sales staff? Or perhaps the delivery of that service or product was not as was agreed upon at the time of the sale. I recently purchased some appliances from Sears, paid an extra fee for Saturday delivery so that my appliances would arrive before I moved in and before the Gas guy came in to set up a Gas line to my kitchen. Sears did not deliver on Saturday, and when they did deliver on Wednesday they took off the front door and asked us to put it back on as they were behind on that day’s deliveries.  Not only did they fail to deliver on their promises, they ensured that the next time I make a major purchase it won’t likely be at Sears since my expectations are very low for their ability to meet my requirements of service.

By meeting or exceeding a customer’s expectations a business has the ability to increase the chances of a repeat purchase  and positive word of mouth.  You can more often meet expectations by:

1) Improved and frequent communication with customer

I ordered a sofa from Joshua Creek furniture in Oakville. It was to arrive within 4-6 weeks. When I hadn’t heard from them I phoned for a status update.  They called the manufacturer of the sofa and discovered that the leather I had chosen was back-ordered and was expected in the following week. Joshua Creek followed up numerous times over the course of the next few weeks to keep me in the loop as to when to expect my new sofa. 

Constant communication allows you to reset expectations, as well as to continually gauge the state of your relationship with the customer. It also gives you an opportunity to proactively amend the situation before it goes off the rails again.

2) If you mess up, admit it and make amends.

Joshua Creek didn’t meet the delivery date and to make up for it they volunteered to deliver the sofa for no cost. In fact, the owner himself delivered it and also offered a leather cleaning package. All this was done, without my having to complain, or escalate to someone else in the business.

Have a process in place for frequent errors and mistakes. Doing this empowers your staff to make decisions quickly at the time of the customer issue without having to wait for management approvals or asking the customer to sit on hold only to explain the issue again to a supervisor.

3) Actively set realistic expectations at the beginning of the relationship with your customer

Too often staff are poorly trained especially in a retail environment. They don’t understand product features or have the information they need to properly explain the service they are offering.  This means that they don’t set realistic expectations for the customer.  At the beginning of the post I talked about a recent trip to Punta Cana where I was very disappointed in the lack of a la carte restaurants. Had the resort communicated their renovations and ensured cost savings were in-line with the decrease in service -  I would have no need to be unhappy during my vacation and certainly wouldn’t feel it was necessary to write the resort afterwards with my negative opinion of their service. 

By training staff and empowering them to say “I don’t know” – along with a process to find out the correct information means they will more frequently set proper expecations and make realistic promises from the beginning.

Communication, empowerment and training can go a long way to ensure you meet your customers expecations – no matter how they come by them. Of course even better than meeting expectations is exceeding them!

How do ensure your customers go away happy? How do you exceed their expectations?