Principle Four: Great Customer Experiences Set and then Meet Expectations.

CustomerExperience.io is happy to share with you our third interview with Matt Watkinson author of Amazon bestseller and CMI’s Management Book of the Year 2013 -The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences. Matt has joined us for 10 weeks in which we will explore each one of this ten principles and add on exclusive insights.

This week, CustomerExperience.io will uncover Matt Watkinson’s fourth principle behind great CX — setting and then meeting customer expectations. This article will show you how and when to set and meet expectations along the whole customer journey to make the experience the best it can be.

Happiness equals reality minus expectations

According to a study by Accenture, a massive 68 per cent of electronic goods returned to shops are not actually broken, but simply do not meet customers’ expectations. Accenture’s study serves highlights the importance of keeping pace with consumers’ rising expectations for service. Matt expresses that the only measure of an experience that really matters is how the real world compares to customers’ expectations.

This is even more important taking into account that our memories of past experiences are used to set expectations for the future. Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman confirmed this in his study, revealing the critical role of memory in the context of experience. As a result, the memories we have of a customer experience are crucial because it affects the likelihood of repeat businesses. Therefore, expectations should be viewed by businesses as a golden opportunity to build a reputation for reliability and trustworthiness.

The next sections of the article will help you learn how and when expectations get set and met throughout the experience.

Expectation mapping

According to Matt, a key reason why companies struggle to manage customer expectations is because of the organisational silos and divisional structures in the business. As we move along our customer journey, each stage is often presided over by a different department with different motives, so we often end up with conflicting experiences. We often find ourselves seduced by a fantastic advert only for the product to disappoint, or enjoy a great product only to find out that the customer service is terrible — different teams, different motives. We have written about the impact of organisational silos in an interview with Jeanne Bliss, the CEO of CustomerBliss.

In order to provide a great customer experience, we need to look at the customer experience as one long journey, and a continuous process of setting and meeting expectations. Since we have already broken the customer journey down into broadstages containing smaller steps, all we need to do is model what the customer expectations are at the beginning of each stage or step. Matt shares that to do this, all businesses need is a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet with three columns ( you can alsodownload the worksheet available on Matt Watkinson’s website). Then, in the first column you would add the name of the stage or step of the customer journey, in the second column you would put the “existing expectations” and in the third column you would put “set expectations”.

Before engaging in this exercise, let’s determine what the difference is between “existing expectations” and “set expectations”.

• Existing expectations — the ones that the customer has already when they commence this stage of the experience, for example when customers arrive at an airline’s website, they expect to be able to search for flights.
• Set expectations — the ones that arise as the result of an interaction, for example once customers have checked in online for their flight, they expect that they will not have to queue to check in at the airport terminal.

Make somebody responsible for the customer experience

In the same way that a building needs an architect or a movie needs a producer, the customer experience requires ownership and leadership. While titles can vary, this leadership position is often carried by the Chief Customer Officer. In fact, according to arecent study by the CCO Council, “the Chief Customer Officer is becoming a staple of modern business.” The annual study reveals that more established brands are hiring C-level professionals who will lead the charge to resolve customer issues, create profitable customers and drive the company-customer relationship. However, as CustomerExperience.io has written in the past, before appointing a CCO, businesses need to first ensure these key factors are in place.

Conclusion

Matt Watkinson’s fourth principle behind great customer experience emphasized the need for businesses to set and then meet the expectations of their customers. Since our memories of past experiences are used to set expectations for the future, the memories we have of a customer experience are crucial and key to repeat business. Expectations are powerful and often poorly handled, making expectation management a golden opportunity for creating a competitive advantage. Finally, somebody at the highest level of the organisation needs to be responsible for the customer experience strategy and ensure the customer-centric culture of the organisation.

We hope you have enjoyed our article and look forward to Matt Watkinson’s Principle 5: Great CXs are effortless.

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