MARKETING STRATEGIES: Understand your customers’ expectations

One of the things we have to deal with in selling is to match what our customers expect from us with what we are able to deliver to them in the product and service experience.

Their satisfaction is directly related to what they expect, rather than any absolute measure of what we provide. Thus, understanding how expectations are set and how we can set expectations is a critical part of marketing.

What we forget is that the customer often comes to the purchase decision with an expectation of what they are going to buy. In many cases, this expectation will have been set long before the vendor became involved, if indeed they are involved in the pre-purchase process at all.

The customer will have based their expectation on opinions from friends, family, work colleagues or their own prior experience. They may have also read articles, blogs and various other sites with user experiences.

At this point in their buying process, the vendor may not be involved. Forces over which the vendor has little control are setting expectations.

The vendor can influence the expectations if they have direct contact with the customer. If the customer has read marketing and technical literature from the vendor, seen or tried the product in a demonstration environment or had a discussion with a sales person, the vendor will have direct input into setting expectations. Of course, during this engagement, the vendor does have the opportunity of presenting a different picture of the outcome, helping to set the expectation at a level that suits the vendor.

But at some point in the buying process, the customer will have come to an understanding of what they expect to receive from their purchase. Having selected the vendor, it is now up to the vendor to decide how they perform the service required. For many vendors at this point the marketing slogan ‘exceed your customers expectations’ kicks in. While this may result in a delighted customer, the real question must be – what do you want the customer’s expectation to be?

Whatever happens, the customer will relay their experience to others, so you have to be very careful of the implied message you deliver with your product and customer service experience. If you raise the bar – that is what will be expected. What you really should be striving for is consistency and predictability.

You want your existing customers to be able to give a referral on something that will correctly set new customer expectations. You also want your existing customers to know that they will receive what they expect when they repurchase.

Tom McKaskill is a successful global serial entrepreneur, educator and author who is a world acknowledged authority on exit strategies and the former Richard Pratt Professor of Entrepreneurship, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. A series of free eBooks for entrepreneurs and angel and VC investors can be found at his sitehere.