There is an article in the recent Harvard Business Review with a tag “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers “ written by three colleagues from The Executive Board.
The premise of the article, based on considerable research, is that exceeding customer expectations "during service interactions...makes customers only marginally more loyal than simply meeting their needs."
My 2 cents about this topic
The marketing industry spends huge amounts of money to build product/service awareness, build brands, and obtain new customers. Yet any service interaction where the customer's most basic expectations of problem resolution are not met can easily destroy any future business potential with that customer and maybe even with their whole social network. Perhaps part of the problem is that chanting "Exceed expectations!" as a service motto sounds a lot sexier than "Just fix the problem ASAP.If a company messes up, my expectation is a quick resolution. That's all. If they provide any extras I would see that simply as making up for -their- blunder rather than be awestruck by having my expectations surpassed.
Once when I complained about a meal a friend commented that it was rude to say that their food not taste good. Have we reached a point where consumers are held hostage by the service provider and must confirm their satisfaction just because they asked if the service was satisfactory? I see it a few places, but thankfully not all.
Some interesting 'Food For Thought'. In my experience many companies struggle to meet the expectations of their customers, not because they're trying to exceed them but because they just don't know what the customer's expectations are. Companies spend enormous amounts of time and energy (profit) trying to provide quality services based on what they think customers want, the problem is 9 times out of 10 the customer doesn't actually value the 'extra'.
Companies set their own service expectations in the market, so what "meets" is for Lufthansa airlines is very different from what "meets" is for Wal-Mart. I would agree that the first step for a company is to understand what customer expectations actually are (ideally for themselves and their competitors) and use that as a baseline for where to target service levels. This helps companies to understand what things are perceived internally as "delight moments" but are, in fact, just cases of meeting expectations in the customer's eyes...and it helps pinpoint those activities and investments that really are above and beyond so that their discrete impact can be measured and assessed. To exceed customer's expectations we need to find out first what their expectations are. Companies and their Senior Executives need to do more to create better two way conversations. But more importantly, they then need to act on the information not just pay lip service. That will result in delighting your customers.
Have a Great Week Ahead...
Your Partner and Companion
DC*
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