EXPECTATIONS

EXPECTATIONS

One of the most interesting things in business has to do with expectations. In general, satisfied customers are those whose expectations have been met. Usually, satisfied customers become repeat customers and make your business thrive. Your customers expectations include quality, price, timeliness of delivery, and ease of completing the transaction among others. Their expectations are based on their past experience with you and your competitors, what they have heard or imagine and what you tell them. This brings us to the tightrope a business person must walk in order not to oversell his product and/or service and not to undersell it risking loss of sale.

Think about this example. If you go into McDonalds for a meal, you expect to be served in five minutes or less. You should have your food in about one minute after you order it. If not, you would be a dissatisfied customer. Now, if you go to a fine restaurant you expect to wait from ten to fifteen minutes or longer to get your meal after you order. If you get it in this time frame, you are satisfied. In one case, you would be dissatisfied waiting five minutes for a meal and the other you would be satisfied if you received your meal in ten minutes. You have different expectations. Your experience and the company's advertising created your expectations.

A business really wants to be right on the mark with building correct expectations. If you are missing repeat business, it may be because you are overselling your product. It could also mean that your competitors are better than you and are raising your customer's expectations. This all boils down to why it is so important to follow up your sales to find out if your customer's expectations were met.

You could relate all this to dating, too. But, I don't want to go there.