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Business owners understand that it is the customer that pays the bills and salaries of its employees. This fact keeps business owners in tune with the importance of managing customer expectations.
After all, a business is there to solve customer problems and to provide products and services that the customer expects.
Much of what customers expect is a great service experience.
A customer service strategy is the best first step in creating a culture that supports great customer service.
This strategy requires having a good understanding of who your customers are what they want, and creating systems and processes to meet their needs.
This is the foundation for a strong service organization.
What is meant by customer expectations?
Another important aspect of the customer experience is helping to manage their expectations.
What this means is helping to prepare the customer for what their customer experience will be.
Often, customers come into the environment for the first time, and if they are not familiar (i.e., air travel, healthcare, auto repair) with the service process, they can have preconceived ideas about what to expect.
And often, the customer experiences something completely different – which can negatively impact their perception of the organization.
This makes it important to help prepare the customer for what the experience will be.
For example, a patient who enters an emergency room might have expectations to be seen immediately (the term emergency implies this).
This is often not the case because there can be peak times of the day when there are many patients to serve.
An emergency room that is service-oriented will be proactive and help the patient understand what the process is and what to expect through the experience.
This can be done through verbal communication at check-in, perhaps a looping video, or an informational pamphlet in the waiting room.
Preparing the patient for what to expect can minimize the frustration a patient will have with long wait times.
There are other things that can be done to create a friendly waiting environment.
For example, having beverages available, a hostess to help with communication, healthcare-related training videos, television, and plenty of reading material.
Setting Customer Expectations
I recently had two personal experiences with service expectations.
The first one demonstrated the wrong way, and the second showed the right way to set customer expectations.
The first example is a doctor’s appointment.
The appointment was scheduled for 3:45 p.m.
I arrived at approximately 3:40 p.m., did my paperwork, and was asked to sit in the waiting room.
Around 4:00, I was called back to the examination room.
The nurse took my vitals and said, “The doctor is with another patient, and you are next, so she’ll be in shortly….”
Well, in my mind, shortly meant a few minutes, maybe 15.
The clock ticked, and I heard conversations in other rooms, and I waited and waited and waited.
Finally, at 5:00 I opened the door, stuck my head out, and said, “Did you forget me” to the nurse.
She said, “oh no, would you like a drink of water?” I said, “No I would like to be seen so I can go home.”
I went back into the room, and at 5:30, the doctor finally came in.
She did apologize for the wait, but the apology didn’t feel heartfelt, and I was angry.
Where they failed was, first of all, to tell me I was the next patient when clearly I was not.
The second was their patient assignment process was bad. Otherwise, this would not have happened.
Third, they did not define how long of a time “she’ll be in shortly” was. Therefore, my expectations were very different from the actual experience.
My second example is I had an airline ticket booked and needed to make a change, so I called the Southwest Airlines customer service line.
I went into an automated answering system that said the wait time would be 8-14 minutes.
I was at work, so I put the call on speakerphone and went about my business. To my surprise, someone attended to me in 3 minutes, not 8 or 14.
I was pleasantly surprised and happy with the outcome. If I had to bet, I would say that it was probably intentional that the wait time was less than they prepared me for.
They didn’t promise me that there would be no wait, but they did prepare me and helped me manage my expectations. This is the right way to do it! Kudos to Southwest Airlines!
3 Tips to Help Manage Customer Expectations
1. Set the Experience Expectation
Manage the customer’s expectations by helping to prepare them for the experience.
Take the time to explain the process to help the customer know what to expect.
For instance, it would have been helpful if the person who checked me in would have told me that there would be a few minutes wait until I would be taken to the exam room, and that the nurse would then take my vitals before the doctor would see me.
This would have helped me prepare. Also, the nurse who said the doctor would be in “shortly”, might have clarified what that meant.
Or, if the doctor got an emergency call, the nurse should have returned and updated me on the wait so I would have understood why the wait was taking so long.
Setting the expectation means managing the customers’ assumptions of what will take place.
2. Provide Wait Distractions
No one likes to wait, but there are ways to help the customer pass their time.
Disney does a great job of this by providing entertainment while you wait and setting wait time expectations longer than the actual time.
As for the doctor’s office, a few magazines or some helpful educational videos may have helped to pass the time.
I personally like soothing background music instead of hearing the ticking of the wall clock as I wait.
3. Communicate Changes
Even the best of processes fail sometimes. Be aware of the customer and communicate changes as soon as you are aware of them.
It may not make the customer happy, but they will be thankful for being kept in the communication loop.
For instance, someone should have been aware of me waiting. Perhaps the doctor had an emergency – who knows?
I would have greatly appreciated having been kept in the loop for the delays in the service I received that day.
The bottom line, most people are reasonable, and if they understand what to expect, they will respond positively.
Finally, the goal of any customer service system is to have a seamless, quick, customer-friendly process. Pay attention to the questions customers ask so you are aware of their needs.
All systems should be managed through a quality management system and constantly reevaluated to find ways to improve the process.
Does anyone have other examples of setting customer expectations?