If you are in selling or servicing business, very likely, your organization would have already implemented one or more customer-focused strategies and some form of customer service system. At some point, have probably been asked the question, “Are you meeting your customers’ expectations?”
You would have said, “Yes, we have.” You should not be happy with your answer because today’s organizations must go beyond just meeting customer expectations but work to exceed those expectations. Organizations that take an approach to exceeding customer expectations focus on defining and executing very specific, proactive customer service strategies. Successful organizations are also likely to use technology to assist them in executing these strategies.
This process is not as easy as it sounds – customer expectations are a dynamic feature that ebbs and flows regularly in accordance with a wide range of factors. You may have the greatest selling and servicing teams, but if your customers perceive their needs are not being fully met, your service reputation suffers.
Meeting customers’ expectations
To provide good customer service, you need to understand who your customers are and what they want.
Know your customers
Gather information about as many of your customers as possible. Try to find out what your customers are buying, why they are buying and the frequency of their purchases. When trying to understand their needs, it may be useful to know details such as their lifestyle, occupation and interests. Include any potential customers who have made enquiries about your goods or service. Find out more about researching customers.
Understand your customers’ needs
Each customer will have a different perception of what customer service means to them. If you want to provide good customer service, you should know the needs of the customer and how to fulfil those needs.
Find out how your customers expect you to meet their needs. The expected level of service varies from marketplace to marketplace, industry to industry and, to some extent, from consumer group to consumer group. Research your marketplace and your target markets to find out what your customers expect of your business in your location.
Meet your customers’ needs
Tailor your level of service to suit your customers’ needs. Some businesses work well providing a ‘no frills’ basic level of service while others go beyond customer expectations to achieve a level of service to make their customers say ‘wow’.
Some ways to go beyond customer expectations are: introducing initiatives - for example, customer focus groups, customer survey cards or a suggestion box. These initiatives send a clear message to customers that you are interested in their input suggesting add-ons - for example, ‘Would you like batteries as well?’
Customer expectations analyzed
Understanding the following 6 customer expectations is critical before you set out to measure customer satisfaction.
1. Explicit Expectations - These are formed on the basis of the promises made by the brand at the time of purchase. The brand has complete control over explicit expectations. The customer may have mental targets for product performance, such as well-identified performance standards.
2. Implicit Expectations - These are formed on the basis of the customers’ perception of brand image, stature, reputation and the price premium they pay for a brand. These are far more difficult to gauge and manage. An implicit reference might include wording such as “Compared with other companies…” or “Compared to the leading brand…”
(Most often organizations measure only the explicit commitments. Failure to identify and measure implicit expectations is a big reason for the gap between its understanding of the quality of service rendered and customers’ perception of the service received. Customers’ perception of service will improve only when both these expectations met.)
3. Static Performance Expectations - These concern how performance and quality for a specific product or service are defined. Although each performance measures are unique, general expectations relate to quality of outcome and include: accessibility, customization, dependability, timeliness, accuracy, options, cutting edge technology, flexibility, and user friendly interfaces. Static performance expectations are the visible part of the iceberg; they are the ones we see and -- often erroneously -- assume are all that exist.
4. Dynamic Performance Expectations - These are about how the product or service is expected to evolve over time. Dynamic expectations may be about the changes in support, product, or service needed to meet future business or use environments. Dynamic performance expectations may help to produce “static” performance expectations as new uses, integrations, or system requirements develop and become more stable.
5. Technological Expectations - These focus on the evolving state of the product category. For example, mobile phones are continually evolving, leading to higher expectations of new features. Mobile service providers, in an effort to limit a consumer’s ability to switch to new technology phones, have marketed rate plans with high cancellation penalties for switching providers, but with liberal upgrade plans for the phones they offer.
6. Interpersonal Expectations - These reflect the relationship between the customer and the product or service provider. Person to person relationships are increasingly important, especially where products require support for proper use and functioning. Interpersonal expectations include interpersonal sharing of technical knowledge, ability to solve a problem, ability to communicate, reduced time to problem resolution, courtesy, patience, enthusiasm, helpfulness, assurance that they understood customer’s problem and customer perceptions regarding professionalism of conduct, often including image and appearance.
Failing to meet expectations
When a business fails to meet customer expectations, customers do business elsewhere. Poor customer service and the perceived indifference of staff and management account for about two thirds of customers who don’t return to a business.
Customer complaints can alert you if your business is failing to meet customer expectations. Learn more about managing customer complaints.
Some actions you can take to improve customer service are: (1) investigate the areas of issue train staff in customer service and sales skills, (2) rotate staff so they can increase their knowledge of other areas, (3) encourage and support teamwork, (4) review recruitment and selection procedures.
Training
Training your staff is an investment in your business. Your staff are your most valuable asset and making sure they are trained with the skills and knowledge they need is essential for meeting your business goals. Training helps you get the most out of your staff and increases their job satisfaction, which can help you retain staff and avoid the expense of recruitment.
Regardless of what you are selling, you and your sales team can achieve great product sales by been trained and master a set of proven selling skills that focus on confidence, relationship-building, listening, persuasion and product knowledge.
It’s important to include training in your business planning and budgeting. You should also consider whether changes in your business may require you to offer training.
Best practices
Good organizations share a few best practices that they incorporate into their efforts to exceed the expectations of their customers.
Best Practice #1: Listen to your customers
While the importance of listening to your customers is obvious, many organizations fail to fully listen and understand what customers are trying to tell them.
The key to understanding your customer is in providing feedback mechanisms and processes that will enable you to understand more about your customer than they do themselves. Customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups are two popular methods for listening to customers.
Customer satisfaction surveys
Independent customer satisfaction surveys are the first step to measuring your organizations ability to meet and exceed customer expectations for service. It is the most common best practice tool that is used by organizations to capture customer feedback.
Focus groups
Focus groups provide an opportunity to strengthen customer ties by forming stronger one-on-one customer relationships. They provide an opportunity to drill down more deeply into specific issues with customers and to capture levels of understanding not available in a survey format.
Best Practice #2: Set aggressive goals and metrics
Research shows that organizations must push themselves to set aggressive goals and metrics. You may be surprised to learn that your organization can exceed expectations and should therefore set aggressive goals in order to push the organization to peak performance and results for customer satisfaction. Organizations are finding that customers are demanding more customized service and they expect to have a satisfactory experience with your organization when they need service.
Best Practice #3: Innovate with CRM technology solutions
CRM software provides organizations with the technology tools to innovate and improve customer service. Traditional CRM software for customer service was aimed toward the efficient management of customer cases. But as customer service needs have evolved, so too has CRM software.
Best Practice #4: Transform business processes
Transforming business processes is not only about streamlining the number of processes you rely on, but it is also about how you execute them. Often times, customer service employees find themselves relying on word of mouth, informal notes, or luck when applying service strategies. By leveraging innovative technology capabilities can automatically drive consistent interactions across all of their communications channels. For example, Make certain that customers have a process that allows them to call one place, one number, one person and expect not to be transferred or to have to call multiple numbers.
Best Practice #5: Apply lessons learned
As your organization contemplates new customer-focused strategies, changes business processes, gathers customer data, and implements new technologies, consider applying some of the lessons learned.
Ending note
At times, you cannot win them all. You may have to give up on customers that do not perceive you favourably. No matter what you do to please them, their mental baggage will not allow them to appreciate the superior value you bring. Move along and search for other customers, clusters, niches, segments that can and will love what you have to offer.
Trying to be perfect for an imperfect mass market is not pragmatic; looking for customers that can tolerate your imperfections and love what you have to offer is the pivotal strategy for winning.
(Lionel Wijesiri is a retired company director with over 30 years’ experience in senior business management. Presently he is a freelance newspaper feature writer,)
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