If Expectations Are So Important….

By Rowan Jackson

If expectations are so important, why don’t you measure them?

The concept of meeting expectations has been around for decades. Executives talk about them when describing their organisation’s goals. When asked what these expectations are they frequently do not know. Not surprising then that very few organisations actually measure them, although it has been possible to do so for a long time.

So why is this?

Here are a few thoughts:

Whenever the topic of expectations comes up many talk about “setting” expectations. This shows that they do not really understand the concept. It’s not about setting expectations but being aware that all of us have expectations of a product or service or company even before we buy.

These expectations are set based on many factors. They are in our minds whenever we buy. Factors like referrals, advertising, public relations, web reviews and personal observations by people we trust all influence our expectations about a particular offering before we buy (or not!).

Expectations cross over a service or product area, especially when the same brand is involved. Having been a frequent user of Virgin Atlantic Airways, I expect similar levels of efficiency in Customer Service with Virgin Trains, Virgin Money and Virgin Media. Unfortunately, that is not the case!

Needs are not the same as expectations. Frequently we see companies mixing up the two, when they are very different.

The challenge here is understanding expectations with precision. Imagine your world without expectations. You can’t. Expectations are a fundamental aspect of human transactions. Suppose you enter a shop to purchase something. You will have expectations about the item you intend to buy, and expectations about the sales experience you are about to have. These expectations have two flavours.

• One is called predictive. This is what you think the experience will be, based on your previous experience or that of others.
• The other flavour is called ideal. This concerns your desired experience.

The secret is to focus on ideal expectations. Once the ideal expectations of a group of customers (or employees) have been gathered and sorted, a one-page map emerges: the groups’ collective desired experience. Please note that this is valid for employees and the employee experience as well.

If you are planning on meeting clients’ expectations, then your focus needs to be on the ideal variety. And, if you are going to exceed them, it helps to know, precisely, where you are today in meeting them. This is like the captain of a ship or an aeroplane setting off on a long journey. The exact location of their start point is critical to navigating the journey, they cannot do the journey without it.

When consumers have used multiple versions of a similar service, for example insurance, the experience that we have had, good or bad, transfers across from one provider to another. Instinctively we compare providers. When one is better than the other then we may switch to the better one. This is why organisations must constantly improve the experience they provide to customers. If they do not, they will end up with no customers at all. In order to improve the customer experience continuously we need to understand three things:

1. Firstly, what did they expect in the first place? This gives us the baseline, but it only works if we apply a degree of rigour to the process. Gathering expectations is not a task for the fainthearted or the amateur. You cannot assign the task to a few salespeople or a marketing junior. They need to understand the process and be properly trained.
2. Secondly, analysing what you discover is also a skilled job. We have invested in an AI platform to do it and have applied specific analytical principles that tell us the weighting of expectations. We know that some are more important to customers than others and you certainly know need to know which ones they are.
3. Finally, there is the issue of sorting out the ones that really matter. One recent project had several hundred expectations that were whittled down to 57 – in the event, only the top 24 were used in the next stage of research.
4. If your continuous improvement programme is going to be based on expectations, then not only do you have to know what they are but also how well you perform against them. This requires bias-free methods that diagnose which expectations have the largest performance gaps and therefore the areas for improvement that need your priority focus. When you invite your customer to score your performance you can also ask them to score your competitors.
5. Lastly, the result of this discovery work needs to be presented to your executive team. The insight belongs to them; they need to use it to make important decisions on what to invest in, as guided by your customers. This is a facilitated conversation, led by an expert. Sometimes the insights are uncomfortable and need experts to handle them and your team.

If you would like to learn more get in touch.