Setting customer perspectives and expectations
Over the years, I’ve been as guilty as many of you in having trouble finding any semblance of a work and personal/family life balance, with work dominating the bulk of my time and effort. And, like most of you, I truly loved what I was doing and believed that the world would end if I weren’t 150% actively involved in everything every day.
It wasn’t until some years ago that I experienced a medical life crisis that opened my eyes to just how screwed up my priorities had become, and I continue to try to get that missing balance back in my life. I’m still as passionate about my work as I ever was, but I’ve made that commitment to re-focus more on my personal life and my family. I’m still a work in progress but making headway.
But enough of my philosophizing.…
Charting the Course
As part of my early recovery efforts to find some balance and dedicated time with my wife, I made reservations on a 21-day Viking river cruise, traveling from Basel, Switzerland, to Amsterdam, with extended stays in Amsterdam and Paris. For one of the first times in our married life (now clocking in at 48 years!), we planned an all play/no work/no kids, one-on-one time away.
Viking Cruise Lines heavily promotes their river and ocean cruises in print, digital, TV and radio. Their glossy and polished ads and videos set very high expectations on what to expect from the services provided and what you would see and do.
Never having been on a river cruise before, but based on all of this marketing, as well as some positive endorsements from friends who had already been on their cruises, I was excited to start finalizing our plans. When I called Viking’s sales office to get more specific information, pricing (these cruises aren’t inexpensive!) and tried to make a reservation 10 months out, I found that there was very limited room availability left. It wasn’t that they didn’t have a lot of ships on the Rhein River route sailing in both directions, but that these cruises have become so popular that they are close to being sold out a year or two in advance.
So now my expectations kicked up another notch, based on the increasing popularity and difficulty in getting a reservation. Were they that good? Would my expectations be so high that I’d be disappointed by my actual experience?
Setting Sail
Soon after we shoved off from our starting port in Basel, Switzerland, the captain hosted a welcoming cocktail reception for all 180 passengers (that’s max capacity on this ship; they take a concierge approach to cruising). His key point was that he knew that we all had very high expectations before we started the cruise and that it was his and the crews’ mission for the week was to make sure that they exceeded our expectations. And then he reinforced his confident message by saying that 65% of all Viking passengers had sailed with them on an earlier cruise somewhere in the world! An amazing retention rate!
Being the Doubting Thomas that I am, I relished the opportunity to see how they executed to achieve their lofty goal.
Expectations Exceeded
Fast forward to the end of the cruise: Viking hit the ball out of the park and definitely exceeded our very high expectations. In fact, we’ve traveled with them eight more times, including an epic 31-day land/water journey through China, Hong Kong and Tibet, and have yet to be disappointed with any of our Viking experiences. Their entire operation ran with the precision of a Swiss watch, and every member of the crew — from cabin attendant to captain — did everything possible to ensure that guests were delighted. The crew shared a common mission and goal and successfully worked together to achieve it.
That got me thinking about the expectations we, as an industry and individual retailers, establish for our customers and the expectations they have of us.
Let me present a few premises for you to ponder:
- The ability to establish and deliver on expectations lies in the hands of who can best control the expectation and deliver the desired outcome.
- Nature abhors a vacuum; unless you clearly communicate what consumers can expect from you and your products, they will set their own expectations, usually at a level that is too high for you to realistically deliver on.
- Setting high expectations and not achieving or exceeding them is more harmful than not setting expectations at all.
- If you set your expectations and your delivery on them is lower than your customer’s, you are setting them up for disappointment.
Consistency is key. Despite the fact that you may have exceeded consumers’ expectations over an extended period, the one time you disappoint them may be the last time you see them — except for your most loyal customers.
The first question to think about is: Are we even establishing expectations for our consumers? followed by: If so, are we/how are we communicating these expectations to them?
Understand that a focus on communicating plants at a price is a flawed expectation (and a fool’s errand) because the only way you can manage that outcome is to continue to sell at a lower price. However, if you communicate why these same plants at a higher price will benefit your customers (i.e., lifestyle/quality of life enhancements) or how a service you provide will make their lives easier/more productive, or how dealing with you will provide a better experience for them, then you have set achievable expectations; it’s then up to you to deliver on them.
Consider that you have two opportunity groups to tap into to grow your business: your existing customers and those who are not yet buying from you. Your goal with your existing customers is to get them to buy more, more frequently. With your potential customers, your goal is to get them through your door in the first place, and then retain them. The levels of expectations you set may be somewhat different for each group based on their experience with our products, but the need to establish and communicate the expectations remains the same for both groups.
Setting expectations is for the benefit of your customers, providing them with a benchmark to judge you and your products’ ability to perform. By meeting and exceeding these expectations, you will also reap the benefits of your efforts through increased sales, higher customer retention and engaging and developing a new and broader consumer base.
I leave you with this thought: He who establishes and clearly communicates realistic and achievable expectations, and then successfully controls the outcome, wins.
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