Managing customer expectations
- Andrew Giffiths
- 29 January 2008
Best-selling small business author Andrew Griffiths’s motto for a successful approach to the power of expectations is to say it will be ready by Friday and deliver it by Wednesday.
If you want to build a hugely successful business, regardless the industry you’re in, you must learn the power of managing customer expectations.
In the modern business climate, customers have become incredibly demanding because they have more choice than ever. If a business can’t meet their expectations, they’ll go elsewhere. Customers have total power – and they’re not afraid to use it.
Very few businesses meet or, ideally, exceed, customer expectations. In the past this has been acceptable because people had lowered expectations (dare I mention telcos, banks, and airlines), but with the advent of the internet and the resulting increased competition, this flaccid notion just doesn’t work anymore.
Customers have expectations at every level of their interaction with a business. The marketing gurus call these interactions ‘touch points’, whether they’re face to face, over the phone, online, or by mail order. To meet and exceed these expectations we need to know what our customers expect from us – and that means we need to communicate with them.
One of the biggest reasons people stop using a business is because the business over promises and under delivers. It’s very simple. But there are simple ways to manage and exceed customer expectations:
1. Talk to your customers and clarify what they expect. What are their main issues and what can you possibly do better?
2. Overestimate how long it will take to deliver: tell them it will be ready Friday, knowing it will be ready on Wednesday.
3. Be proactive – don’t wait for your customers to contact you.
4. Don’t be bullied by demanding customers in to over promising – it always backfires.
5. If you say you will do something, do it!
6. Review every aspect of your business to determine what you can do to exceed expectations. Even better, get an external person to do the review. Fresh eyes will see what you can’t.
7. Be clear on the information you’re giving your customers. Is it factual and accurate?
8. Communicate! Customers hate it when they don’t know what’s going on.
9. If there is a problem, contact the customer as soon as possible.
10. Go the extra mile. Often the tiniest extra service can totally exceed a customer’s expectation and therefore their experience.
Now, how do we apply this when it comes to doing business online? Again, it’s simple – apply the same principles. Be clear in your online communication, respond quickly, don’t leave your customers waiting in a cyber queue and get feedback wherever possible.
Have an external company review your site for customer expectation management. Have your business mystery-shopped – online, face-to-face, or over the phone. Use SMS to update clients with short, but informative messages. This sends a clear message that you’re making an effort to meet and exceed expectations and they will appreciate it.
Master these tactics and the bush telegraph will keep the customers rolling in.
