Stop Highlighting Unrealistic Customer Expectations

A recent blog post on Harvard Business Review titled, "I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore," was unfortunately very relatable.  The core of the article explored how business conversations have evolved into bits of nonsense (e.g., "synergy", "value-add") that make understanding each other much more of a challenge than anything else.

We all fall victim to the excessive use of acronyms from time to time.  And while I too find myself guilty of using a lot of acronyms, I also related to something else in the piece, because its description ties perfectly to research produced by both the SEC and our sister program, the Customer Contact Council:

"Another term that has lost its meaning is 'Let's exceed the customer's expectations.' …Customers almost universally never experience their expectations being met, much less exceeded. How can you exceed the customer's expectations if you have no idea what those expectations are? I was at a [hotel] a few weeks ago. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end. There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, 'Our goal is to exceed the customer's expectation.'  The best way to start would be to take down that sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do…"

While this was a retail customer setting, the same principle holds true for sales and service organizations.  Attempting to exceed customer expectations is a losing battle. You'll unnecessarily spend resources trying to delight your customers, when research shows that doing so has only a marginal impact on customer loyalty.  

The most economical thing you can do is to simply meet expectations.  And, as in the example above, highlighting your goal of exceeding expectations only brings attention to service that will likely fall short of expectations for most customers.

One of the most important things you can do, then, is to understand your customers' true expectations and then manage them appropriately, while providing service that simply meets those expectations.

Uncovering and verifying customers' expectations is a crucial step in the account planning process, but because reps often make assumptions about what the customer's priorities and expectations are, it's also a step that can go very wrong.

To avoid overpromising and under delivering on relationship benefits, consider implementing a joint expectation-setting and review process that involves the customer and helps you to better understand (and meet) their expectations.

The ultimate lesson to learn from the example highlighted here is that during your sales and service interactions, make sure you're setting an expectation that is easily met.  Going beyond that threshold will put you in a hole that's difficult to climb out of.

SEC Members, visit our newly updated web page on Communicating and Monitoring Account Progress, part of our newly updated Account Planning topic center.

How does your organization try to set reasonable expectations with customers?