Meet Customer Expectations

How often have I heard “you need to exceed customer expectations”. I would be happy if businesses just met my expectations.

Last week I called my lawn care company to ask them to look at some brown spots on my lawn. The owner said that a technician would stop by the next day, look at them, and give me a report. The only way that my expectation could have been exceeded would have been to treat the spots so they would disappear.

However, now it is four days later and no technician – no report. Obviously I am irritated with the owner of the lawn care company for not meeting the expectation that he set for me.

Lessons learned.

1. Never commit to something you can not deliver.

2. Always, always deliver as promised.

3. If it becomes impossible to deliver as promised, communicate the fact to the customer in advance and reset the customer’s expectation. But have a really good reason for not being able to keep your original promise.

4. If you really mess up and totally miss delivering as promised, now is the time to not only appologize and deliver what was promised (although late), but go way beyond by giving someting of value as way of appology.

Will Limkemann
Limkemann Business Advisors
440-871-0976
www.neobizadvisor.com