Is Meeting Customer Expectations More Powerful Than Managing Hope?

foreign
customer service and experience expert
and today I'm going to discuss managing
customer expectations so I was recently
at a conference and listened to a
customer service presentation that
mentioned that we must do better than
simply meet our customers expectations
now this speaker shared some stories of
truly amazing service experiences and
then it was my turn to speak now I
didn't want to contradict the speaker
but I needed the audience to understand
that it's impossible to go above and
beyond with customers at every
interaction sometimes meeting
expectations is a perfect experience in
my customer service keynote speeches I
talk about managing the moment the idea
comes from John Carlson and if you've
been following me you'll recognize this
concept every time a customer interacts
with you or your company they have an
opportunity to form an impression
understanding this simple idea is a good
start to developing and or maintaining
your customer service in CX strategy I
believe you must manage expectations and
if you are even the tiniest bit above
average in doing what your customers
expect your customers will love you give
you high ratings and refer you to their
colleagues and friends the key to being
successful with this idea is to be
consistent you want your customers to
say things like they always are so
knowledgeable they are always so helpful
now that word always followed by
something positive typically an
expectation is what you're going for so
back to the idea of just meeting
expectations some people confuse
expectations with hope and here's what I
mean by this if I call someone for help
and leave a message I expect them to
call me back and I hope they will return
the call sooner than later and let's say
I'm called back with in an hour I'm
pleasantly surprised because the person
met my expectation of the Callback and
did it in a time frame that I hoped they
would maybe even a little sooner so most
customers won't analyze the experience
quite this way but it's exactly what
they want or hope for they will however
notice the call was returned quickly and
may say thanks for calling me back so
quickly the return call was expected the
comment about quickly indicated their
expectations were met or even slightly
exceeded and if you do that every time
the customer will use the always word
when they talk about you and describe
the experience by saying they always
call me back quickly so let's flip this
around I believe most customers hope for
a great experience but not necessarily
an over-the-top or above and beyond type
of experience and based on their typical
experience with service laggards they
unfortunately don't have super high
expectations of most company least they
do business with so whenever you meet or
just ever so slightly exceed what your
customers hope for you've created a
positive experience that gets your
customers to say I'll be back well I
hope you enjoyed this short lesson thank
you very much for tuning in this is Shep
hyken reminding you to always be amazing