why are customer expectations important essay

Understanding Customer Experience

Companies that systematically monitor customer experience can take important steps to improve it—and their bottom line. by Andre Schwager and Chris Meyer

Summary .   

Anyone who has signed up for cell phone service, attempted to claim a rebate, or navigated a call center has probably suffered from a company’s apparent indifference to what should be its first concern: the customer experiences that culminate in either satisfaction or disappointment and defection.

Customer experience is the subjective response customers have to direct or indirect contact with a company. It encompasses every aspect of an offering: customer care, advertising, packaging, features, ease of use, reliability. Customer experience is shaped by customers’ expectations, which largely reflect previous experiences. Few CEOs would argue against the significance of customer experience or against measuring and analyzing it. But many don’t appreciate how those activities differ from CRM or just how illuminating the data can be. For instance, the majority of the companies in a recent survey believed they have been providing “superior” experiences to customers, but most customers disagreed.

The authors describe a customer experience management (CEM) process that involves three kinds of monitoring: past patterns (evaluating completed transactions), present patterns (tracking current relationships), and potential patterns (conducting inquiries in the hope of unveiling future opportunities). Data are collected at or about touch points through such methods as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and online forums. Companies need to involve every function in the effort, not just a single customer-facing group.

The authors go on to illustrate how a cross-functional CEM system is created. With such a system, companies can discover which customers are prospects for growth and which require immediate intervention.

Anyone who has signed up recently for cell phone service has faced a stern test in trying to figure out the cost of carry-forward minutes versus free calls within a network and how it compares with the cost of such services as push-to-talk, roaming, and messaging. Many, too, have fallen for a rebate offer only to discover that the form they must fill out rivals a home mortgage application in its detail. And then there are automated telephone systems, in which harried consumers navigate a mazelike menu in search of a real-life human being. So little confidence do consumers have in these electronic surrogates that a few weeks after the website www.gethuman.com showed how to reach a live person quickly at 10 major consumer sites, instructions for more than 400 additional companies had poured in.

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Understanding Customer Expectations of Service

Some companies have more than just a competitive advantage in customer service, they have unwavering customer loyalty. how do they do it the authors argue that the key to providing superior service is understanding and responding to customer expectations. through their research, two different kinds of expectations emerged, both of which can change over time and from one service encounter to the next for the same customer. by responding appropriately to these expectations, managers can be on their way to developing a “customer franchise.”.

• Marketing Strategy

Understanding customer expectations is a prerequisite for delivering superior service; customers compare perceptions with expectations when judging a firm’s service. 1 However, the nature of customer service expectations and how they are formed has remained ambiguous. Researchers have defined customer service expectations in a variety of ways but with no conceptual framework to link different types of expectations or indicate their interactions in influencing perceptions of service performance. 2

Motivated by the pivotal role of customer expectations in service quality assessments, and by the limited knowledge about their structure and formation, we have undertaken a study designed to answer several fundamental questions:

• What is the nature of customers’ service expectations? Are there different types of expectations?
• What factors influence the formation of these expectations?
• How stable are the expectations? Do they change over time? Do they vary across service situations and across customers?
• How can companies manage expectations to enhance customers’ perceptions of service?
• What can companies do to exceed customers’ expectations?

To answer these and related questions we conducted sixteen focus group interviews with customers in six service sectors (automobile insurance, commercial property and casualty insurance, business equipment repair, truck and tractor rental and leasing, automobile repair, and hotels). Eight of our focus group interviews were with business customers and eight were with consumers. We describe our research approach in more detail in the Appendix.

The research reported on here is the latest phase in an ongoing stream of research on service quality. We have been systematically studying this subject since 1983 through a carefully designed sequence of research phases, each building on, adding to, and refining insights from preceding phases. Our research protocol has been to explore questions through qualitative research, model what we find, and then test the relationships within the model through quantitative research.

In this article we discuss key findings from our most recent research phase. Since this phase was a qualitative phase (see Appendix), our results are more in the form of preliminary conclusions than empirically verified inferences. We intend to explore these conclusions quantitatively in our next research phase. Nevertheless, the insights we discuss here are based on consistent patterns of responses obtained from sixteen focus groups in five cities representing various industries and customer types. We interviewed both end-customers (consumers) and business customers because we thought one group’s expectations might differ from the other’s. We found minimal differences. Our discussion is built around only those findings that have the strongest, broadest-based support from our research. After discussing our principal conclusions, we examine their implications for managing expectations and improving quality of service.

Major Conclusions

Customers expect service basics.

We began each focus group interview by asking participants what they expected from the service industry under discussion. We then asked them to identify their single most important expectation. Table 1 captures customers’ principal service expectations. In conducting the interviews, and in reviewing the detailed transcripts they produced, we were struck by the basic nature of customers’ expectations. Simply put, customers expect service companies to do what they are supposed to do. They expect fundamentals, not fanciness; performance, not empty promises.

Insurance customers want companies to provide expertise and pay up when there is a claim. Hotel customers want a clean and secure room and a smile from the staff. Repair customers want competent technicians to fix the product properly the first time. If customers’ service expectations have risen in recent years, as many observers claim, they have not risen beyond the boundaries of reasonableness. We found little evidence of extravagant or extreme expectations.

One key influence on customers’ expectations is price. Many customers believe that the more they pay, the better the service should be, although they do not believe that a low price is a legitimate excuse for poor service. The idea that you should get what you pay for underlies numerous comments in the interviews:

When you pay more you expect more. —Hotel customer

A car today costs more than a bouse cost twenty years ago. You pay a lot these days and therefore I expect a lot from the dealer. —Auto repair customer

My expectations are influenced by the premium I pay and the fact that I work very bard to be able to pay the premium. —Auto insurance customer

If you are paying big bucks for these pieces of equipment, you expect more in the way of service. —Business equipment repair customer

In essence, customers want service companies to play fair. Customers are paying good money, and the company should provide good service in exchange. When companies don’t play fair, the result is customer resentment and mistrust—both of which were much in evidence in our research. A hotel customer commented, “You get charged when you don’t show up but there is no reverse penalty when they don’t have your guaranteed room.” A car repair customer stated, “The dealer will do as little as possible.” A business insurance customer said, “The purpose of insurance companies is to insure but they have so many exclusions from A to Z that you don’t know what the hell is covered.” An auto insurance customer said, “They say in their advertising that they are the “good driver’ company and yet my premiums kept going up even though I had no accidents. When I inquired they said it was because of the average number of accidents in my group.”

Customers expect service basics delivered at a level they believe commensurate with the price they pay. Companies have a significant opportunity to improve their service reputations simply by delivering a higher percentage of the time the basic service customers think they are buying.

The Service Process Is Key to Exceeding Customer Expectations

Customer service expectations can be categorized into five overall dimensions: reliability, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy 3 These dimensions capture all of the focus group comments presented in Table 1. Table 2 defines these dimensions and presents representative focus group comments to illustrate them. While reliability is largely concerned with the service outcome, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy are more concerned with the service process. Whereas customers judge the accuracy and dependability (i.e., reliability) of the delivered service, they judge the other dimensions as the service is being delivered.

In earlier, quantitative phases of our research, customers have always favored reliability when asked to indicate the relative importance of the five dimensions in judging service. Reliability of service comes in first regardless of how we measure salience, or which specific service we study. 4 Our present research suggests that although reliability is the most important dimension in meeting customer expectations, the process dimensions (especially assurance, responsiveness, and empathy) are most important in exceeding customer expectations.

Our focus group transcripts contain numerous negative and positive comments about specific service industries and companies. While the negative comments concern each of the five dimensions, as Table 2 illustrates, the positive comments primarily concern the process dimensions. When we asked our respondents to discuss what companies could do to exceed their expectations, they invariably answered in terms of the process dimensions.

In effect, companies are supposed to be accurate and dependable and provide the service they promised to provide. It is unlikely that a hotel will exceed a customer’s expectations simply by having ready the customer’s reserved, guaranteed room. With the process dimensions, however, the opportunity is present to surprise customers with uncommon swiftness, grace, courtesy, competence, commitment, or understanding, and go beyond what is expected. The following quotes suggest the possibilities inherent in the service process to exceed customer expectations:

My insurance agent helped lower my rate by combining the policy for my new car with a truck I have. This was a “wish come true” for me. —Auto insurance customer

One lessor actually sent their reps to ride with my drivers to understand my needs. —Truck leasing customer

Something hit my car on the interstate. I called the 800 number and they took care of everything “bam, bam, bam.” They gave me an adjuster and be was as friendly as be could be and told me to let him know if his adjustment wasn’t enough. —Auto insurance customer

In each of these situations, the company demonstrated that it was on the customer’s side by taking the initiative to provide a service beyond what the customer expected. The service process thus appears to afford companies the best opportunity to perform beyond the customers expectations.

Customer Service Expectations Are Dual-Leveled and Dynamic

Our findings suggest that customers’ service expectations have two levels: desired and adequate. The desired service level is the service the customer hopes to receive. It is a blend of what the customer believes “can be” and “should be.” The adequate service level is that which the customer finds acceptable. It is in part based on the customer’s assessment of what the service “will be,” that is, the customers “predicted service.”

The Zone of Tolerance.

Separating the desired service level from the adequate service level is a zone of tolerance, as shown in Figure 1. The zone of tolerance expands and contracts like an accordion. It can vary from customer to customer and, potentially, from one situation to the next for the same customer.

The desired and adequate service levels, and hence the zone of tolerance, are likely to differ for the outcome dimension of reliability and the process dimensions of tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Because customers view reliability as the service “core,” and tend to have higher expectations for it, they seem least willing to relax reliability expectations. Thus, the zone of tolerance for service reliability is likely to be smaller, and the desired and adequate service levels are likely to be higher. We hypothesize that the relative size and position of the tolerance zones for the outcome and process dimensions of service would typically appear as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 reinforces graphically our earlier conclusion that the opportunity for firms to exceed customer expectations is greater with the process dimensions than with the outcome dimension.

One factor that may cause the desired service level to rise is customer experience. In our interviews, the more experienced customers were more likely to have higher service expectations, and to be “squeaky wheels” when they were not satisfied. A business insurance customer stated, “I have become more sophisticated and therefore I expect more.” A hotel customer said, “As I’ve grown and learned more, I now have more to compare with.” A truck leasing customer said, “I have gone from pricing to good service. I no longer go automatically with the low bidder.”

The customer’s desired service expectations may also rise because the expectations of an affiliated party rise. The affiliated party may be the customer’s customer, or a superior. The following comments illustrate these “derived” expectations:

My expectations are higher today because of changes in the business world. It is a just-in-time inventory world today. People are impatient. —Truck leasing customer

Expectations come from the customers I serve, for example, the doctors who use our blood tests. They have high expectations and therefore I have high expectations. —Business equipment repair customer

Your roof blows over and your president asks, “Is this covered?” You have to say, “Gee, I don’t know. … I think so.” The agents need to explain what is covered and what is not in language we can comprehend. —Business insurance customer

Customers’ adequate service expectations seem to be influenced more by specific circumstances, and are therefore more changeable, than their desired service expectations. One influence on the adequate service level is the number of service alternatives customers perceive. If customers perceive that they have alternative suppliers from which to choose, their zone of tolerance is likely to be smaller than if they don’t feel they have this flexibility. As one business insurance customer said, “Sometimes you just don’t have many options so you have to effectively settle for less.” A hotel customer stated, “When your options are limited, you take the best you can get. My expectations are not necessarily lower but my tolerance level is higher”

Emergency and service-failure situations tend to raise customers’ adequate service level temporarily, thereby narrowing the zone of tolerance. The intuitive notion that customers would be more demanding when an urgent condition exists, or when the service was not performed properly the first time, was strongly supported by our focus groups. A business equipment repair customer stated, “When I call IBM to fix my mainframe I expect faster service than if my copier breaks down. If my IBM breaks down it will idle fifty programmers” A business insurance customer said, “My expectations are higher in catastrophic situations.” An auto repair customer said, “My expectations will be higher when they didn’t fix it right the first time. I would expect them to be more thorough and more accommodating.”

Thus, a variety of factors, including customer experience, expectations of an affiliated party, number of perceived service alternatives, and emergency or recovery situations can influence the position and size of the zone separating customers’ desired and adequate service levels. Recognizing the dual-leveled, dynamic nature of customer expectations, and understanding the factors that drive them, should help managers close the gap between expectations and perceptions—or even exceed expectations.

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Customers Want Relationships

Many of the customers we interviewed want to be “relationship customers” of the firms serving them. They want ongoing, personalized relationships with the same representatives. They want these representatives to contact them, rather than always having to initiate the contact themselves. They want a “partner—someone who knows and cares about them.

Customers’ desires for more personalized and closer relationships with service providers are evident not only in the interview transcripts for insurance and truck leasing services, which are ongoing by nature, but also for hotel and repair services, which are provided intermittently. The following comments suggest both the flavor and pervasiveness of customers’ expectations for service relationships:

They should be a partner and more actively give me advice on what my calculated risks are. When they are a partner our money is their money too. —Business insurance customer

I would like them to be a distant extension of my company. They should take care of the details. —Truck leasing customer

You need to know the service tech. I should be able to call him directly. I want to know the tech on a one-to-one basis. —Business equipment repair customer

Agents should come back to you and ask you if you need more coverage as your assets increase. —Auto insurance customer

When employees remember and recognize you as a regular customer you feel really good. —Hotel customer

Unfortunately, relationship-seeking customers are frequently disappointed. Despite the apparent interest in relationship marketing within numerous service companies, the preponderance of evidence from our research indicates unrealized customer relationships. An auto repair customer complained, “They don’t keep the service writers long enough for customers to develop a relationship with them. Every time you come in there is a whole new crew” A business insurance customer stated, “We lose contact with the company as soon as we sign off on the policy.” An auto insurance customer said, “I’ve never had an agent contact me. All I see is a bill.”

Customer relationships are central to exceeding customer expectations. This is because relationship building is process-intensive, requiring responsive, assured, empathetic service over time. Genuine customer relationships are built on the foundation of fairness, sincere efforts to understand and help the customer, and ongoing, personalized communications—attributes of service most demonstrable during delivery.

Managerial Implications

Our previous research has shown that customers evaluate service quality by comparing their perceptions of the service with their expectations. In the present study we sought to learn more about the nature and sources of customers’ expectations given their crucial role in service quality assessments. We have found that the content of customers’ expectations is basic, but the structure is complex, characterized by both desired and adequate service levels that seem to change in response to a variety of factors. Although the conclusions we report in this article are based on exploratory research and should be considered preliminary, the strength and pervasiveness of the respondents’ comments on which they are based are such that they offer important practical insights that managers can act on now. We have distilled these insights into five suggestions for managing customers’ expectations and raising their perceptions.

Demonstrate Fair Play

Companies may be able to extend customers’ zones of tolerance by making special efforts to demonstrate fair play. For many firms this will require devoting far more attention to explaining their policies and practices to customers, teaching customers more about the service they are buying, and listening to customers and becoming more sensitive to their expectations and concerns.

For example, numerous auto insurance customers in the focus groups expressed strong resentment and mistrust of—and little tolerance for—their insurers because they believed these companies were price gouging, were making false promotional promises (e.g., reduced premiums for good drivers), and would cancel their insurance if an accident occurred. These policyholders felt caught in a vise between the need to be insured and the lack of alternatives to their nonresponsive insurance companies. This predicament clearly did not engender a sense of tolerance and goodwill.

If auto insurers are to shake the image of villainy they have with some of their policyholders, these firms will have to communicate more openly, more regularly, and more creatively about the reasons for rate hikes, their policies for cancelling insurance, and other issues. For key markets, auto insurance firms might consider forming policyholder advisory councils, holding periodic “town hall” meetings, and sponsoring insurance education seminars. Rethinking what and how they communicate with policyholders is a cornerstone for auto insurers demonstrating fair play.

The concept of managing customer expectations by establishing trust applies to each of the services we studied. Service customers are likely to be more tolerant if they believe the company is trying to be fair. Open, regular, two-way communication paves the way for trust.

Be Reliable

One way for the firm to keep customers’ expectations from rising is to perform the service properly the first time. As mentioned earlier, our previous research has shown consistently that customers value reliability above all other dimensions. Firms that do not provide the service core that customers are buying—a correctly repaired automobile, for example—fail their customers in the most direct way. This fact by itself is a sufficient reason for companies to emphasize reliability in service design and operations. However, the importance of reliability is further dramatized by a finding from our present study: customers’ expectations for the service are likely to go up when the service is not performed as promised. As shown in Figure 3, when service shortfalls occur, customers’ tolerance zones are likely to shrink and their adequate and desired service levels are likely to rise for both the outcome and process dimensions of the recovery service.

Managers should nurture a “do it right the first time” value system in the firm by establishing reliability standards, teaching the “why” and “how” of reliability in training sessions, forming “reliability teams” to evaluate specific services for ways to reduce failures, measuring failure rates, and rewarding failure-free service. 5 Minimizing the need for recovery service helps firms manage customer expectation levels and improve customer service perceptions.

Manage Promises

Because service companies influence customers’ expectation levels by the explicit and implicit service promises they make, a key approach to managing expectations is to manage the promises. Firms will have a better chance of meeting customer expectations when their promises reflect the service actually delivered rather than an idealized version of the service. A brochure photograph of a beautifully appointed hotel room may entice the traveller to make a reservation, but it is the room itself that contributes to the customer’s positive or negative assessment of the hotel’s service quality.

Some observers recommend deliberately under-promising the service to increase the likelihood of exceeding customer expectations. Davidow and Uttal, for example, advocate underpromising and overdelivering. 6 We do not recommend either underpromising or overpromising. Underpromising potentially reduces the competitive appeal of the offer; overpromising raises customers’ expectations beyond the capacity of the firm to meet them. It is far better for the firm to present a cohesive and honest portrayal of the service both explicitly (e.g., through advertising and personal selling) and implicitly (e.g., through the appearance of service facilities and the price of the service). Managers need to pay more attention to controlling the firm’s promises, and to making them consistent with the deliverable service. One important means for doing this is to solicit precampaign feedback from frondine operations personnel and customers about the perceived accuracy of proposed promotional messages. Another is to resist the common urge to mimic competitors who fall prey to the temptation to overpromise. 7 Firms should also consider periodic research to assess the influence of their prices on customers’ expectation levels and price-value perceptions.

Leverage the Process Dimensions

Service firms that seek to exceed customer expectations in order to enhance their quality image should capitalize on the best opportunity for doing so: service delivery. It is during delivery, when customers directly experience providers’ service skills and “tone,” that firms are best able to augment the service core of reliability in ways that are differentiating. In effect, the process dimensions of service play a different role than the outcome dimension of reliability. Companies must be reliable simply to compete. If they also do well on the process dimensions, they have a chance to dominate the competition.

Leveraging the process dimensions is critical when service failures occur (i.e., when service recovery is necessary). As Figure 3 demonstrates, while customers’ expectations are higher for both the outcome and process dimensions during recovery service, the opportunity for recovery is greater with the process dimensions because of lower expectations and a larger zone of tolerance. Yet many service firms do not capitalize on this opportunity to turn a service failure into a satisfactory experience. Bitner et al., using the critical incident research methodology, found that a large percentage of unsatisfactory service encounters (42.9 percent of all unsatisfactory encounters in their study) were related to employees’ inability or unwillingness to respond effectively to service failure situations. They refer to service recovery failures as a “double deviation” from customer expectations. 8

Leveraging the process dimensions involves a wide span of actions designed to enhance the willingness and ability of human beings to be effective servers. These include recruiting the most promising employees; providing them with ongoing training in interpersonal and problem-solving skills as well as technical skills; empowering employees to exercise judgment and creativity in responding to customers’ special needs; measuring employees’ capacity for excellent service (e.g., with product knowledge tests) and the quality of service they actually deliver (e.g., mystery shopper research); and rewarding the most excellent servers financially, nonfinancially, and with career advancement. 9

Build Relationships

Developing genuine customer relationships is a primary, controllable means for service companies to enlarge customers’ zone of tolerance. Customer relationships provide companies with a “goodwill” or credibility factor that encourages customer tolerance—and a more open communication channel for learning about and correcting service problems. In effect, companies that forge customer relationships earn goodwill chips to spend when problems occur. As one business insurance customer put it, “Insurance is a people business. If the insurance company talks to its customers and interacts with them effectively, a lot of the problems will go away.”

The possibilities for relationship-based service extend to virtually all services that customers use on an ongoing or periodic basis. The challenge is to design a relationship service system consistent with the expectations of customers, the characteristics of the service, and the long-term strategy of the firm. Many issues require careful consideration, for example:

• Should relationships be “representative-dominant,” wherein an individual service provider such as an insurance agent is the customer’s primary contact, or “company-dominant,” wherein no individual is the primary contact?
• Should boundaries be set on the degree to which relationships are customized?
• Should relationship-based service be extended to all customers, or restricted to selected market segments?

Regardless of how managers answer such questions, certain essentials must be present in any kind of relationship-based service system. First, customers must have access to service when the need arises. Customers need to know whom to contact, how to make the contact, and then be able to actually make the contact, such as getting through on the toll-free number. Second, communications between company and customers should be company-initiated as well as customer-initiated. Customers are less likely to perceive they have a relationship with a firm if they always have to initiate contact.

Third, service providers must have the means to efficiently tailor the service to customers’ specific requirements, to at least some degree. This often involves developing computerized customer information files that are available to service providers. For example, a hotel could build an information system that captures guest preferences and creates the opportunity for a more personalized and enhanced service—from preassigning the preferred type of room to prestocking the room with the whiskey brand the guest requested on a prior visit.

Finally, in addition to being able to tailor service to customers, service providers must also be willing to do so. New ideas for measuring and rewarding employees’ performance may be necessary. For example, many insurance companies pay their agents generously for selling new policies, but meagerly or not at all for serving existing customers, effectively discouraging agents from being attentive to current policyholders. In these companies, managers have engineered conflict between selling and serving, thus diminishing the opportunity for relationship-based service

Building a Customer Franchise through Service

The richer conceptualization of customer expectations emerging from our research has a critical bearing on conducting and interpreting service quality research. Specifically, since customers’ service expectations seem to exist at both adequate and desired levels, firms need to measure two potential service quality gaps: the gap between perceived service and adequate service, and the gap between perceived service and desired service. As Figure 4 shows, depending on the relative levels of customer perceptions and expectations, a firm can operate at a competitive disadvantage, a competitive advantage, or at a “customer franchise” level in terms of its service.

The adequate service level reflects the minimum performance level expected by customers after they consider a variety of individual and situational factors, including the availability of alternative service options. Firms whose service performance falls short of this level are at a competitive disadvantage, with the severity of the disadvantage escalating as the gap widens. Customers of these firms may well be “reluctant” customers, ready to take their business elsewhere the moment they perceive a viable service alternative.

Firms must perform above the adequate service level to use service quality for competitive differentiation. However, this may only signal a temporary advantage. It is conceivable that customers’ adequate service levels, which our focus groups suggest are less stable than the desired service levels, will rise quickly when competitors promise and deliver a higher level of service. If a firm is barely performing above the adequate service level, a competitively induced elevation in the adequate service level may be sufficient to eliminate the firm’s competitive advantage. Thus firms whose present performance places them in the region of competitive advantage can ill afford complacency.

To develop a true customer franchise— unwavering customer loyalty—firms must exceed not only the adequate service level but also the desired service level. Our focus groups revealed the potential for service so exceptional that it could intensify customers’ loyalty to a point where they virtually “tune out” competitive options. A hotel customer said, “I left my portfolio on top of a cab. The hotel broke its neck to get it back to me. Now, whenever I go to Chicago I stay at that same hotel.”

Turning service quality into a powerful competitive weapon requires continuous striving for service superiority—consistently performing above the adequate service level and capitalizing on opportunities for exceeding the desired service level. Relentless efforts to continually improve service performance may well be rewarded by commensurate and corresponding improvements in customer attitudes toward the firm: from customer frustration to customer preference to intense customer loyalty.

Appendix: Research Methodology

Our study consisted of sixteen customer focus group interviews designed to generate insights about the nature and structure of customers’ service expectations. We selected the focus group participants to represent a diverse set of services to uncover industry- and customer-specific differences as well as to ensure that our findings would be germane to a broad cross section of service businesses.

To achieve diversity across the focus groups, we systematically varied our choice of industries and respondents according to three key criteria likely to have a bearing on customer expectations. First, eight of the sixteen focus groups consisted of customers of “pure” services (i.e., services not associated with a tangible product), while the remaining eight groups consisted of customers of services associated with a tangible product (e.g., automobile repair services). Second, within each of the two service categories, four focus groups were conducted with business customers and four were conducted with end-customers (i.e., “consumers”). Finally, within each service-type and customer-type combination, half the focus groups were conducted with “experienced” customers of the service, and the other half with “inexperienced” customers. This distinction was based on extent of service usage and number of service contacts. To add geographic diversity to the study, the focus groups were held in five cities: Adanta, Chicago, Dallas, Rochester, and Seatde.

Eight major companies from the various service sectors represented by the focus groups sponsored our research project. These companies provided customer lists in the various locations from which respondents were recruited for the focus groups by field research companies. An average of nine respondents participated in each focus group. Each group discussion lasted from an hour and a half to two hours. We conducted the interviews in the field research companies’ facilities. In the interviews, respondents discussed their expectations concerning the service in general rather than the specific service of the sponsor companies.

This study was the latest phase in a systematic research program begun in 1983 that alternates qualitative and quantitative research. The research stream thus far is as follows:

• Phase I (qualitative): Resulted in a conceptual “gaps” model that defines service quality from the customer’s standpoint and specifies key service-provider gaps potentially responsible for poor service i
• Phase IIA (quantitative): Resulted in a validated instrument, called SERVQUAL, for measuring service quality as perceived by customers. ii
• Phase IIB (qualitative): Resulted in an extended gaps model that specifies potential organizational causes of the various service-provider gaps. iii
• Phase III (quantitative): Resulted in empirical testing of the various relationships embedded in the extended gaps model. iv
• Phase IV—Research discussed in this article (qualitative): Resulted in a refined and richer conceptualization of customer expectations and their sources.

About the Authors

A. Parasuraman is Federated Professor of Marketing at Texas A&M University. Leonard L. Berry holds the JC Penney Chair of Retailing Studies and is Director of the Center for Retailing Studies, Texas A&M University. Valarie A. Zeitbatnl is Associate Professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

1 . R.C. Lewis and B.H. Booms, “The Marketing Aspects of Service Quality,” in Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, eds. L.L. Berry, G.L. Shostack, and G. Upah (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1983), pp. 99–107; and

A. Parasuraman, V.A. Zeithaml, and L.L. Berry, “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research,” Journal of Marketing, Fall 1985, pp. 41–50.

2 . See, for example: E.R. Cadotte, R.B. Woodruff, and R.L. Jenkins, “Expectations and Norms in Models of Consumer Satisfaction,” Journal of Marketing Research, August 1987, pp. 305-314.

3 . A. Parasuraman, V.A. Zeithaml, and L.L. Berry, “SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality,” Journal of Retailing, Spring 1988.

4 . V.A. Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman, and L.L. Berry, Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations (New York: The Free Press, 1990), ch. 2.

5 . L.L. Berry, V.A. Zeithaml, and A. Parasuraman, “Five Imperatives for Improving Service Quality,” Shan Management Review, Summer 1990, pp. 29–38.

6 . W.H. Davidow and B. Uttal, “Service Companies: Focus or Falter,” Harvard Business Review, July-August 1989, pp. 77–85.

7. Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry (1990), ch. 7.

8 . M.J. Bitner, B.M. Booms, and M.S. Tetreault, “The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents,” Journal of Marketing, January 1990, pp. 71–84.

9 . For more detail on these issues, see: Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry (1990); Berry, Zeithaml, and Parasuraman (1990); and L.L. Berry, A. Parasuraman, and V.A. Zeithaml, “The Service-Quality Puzzle,” Business Horizons, September-October 1988, pp. 35-43.

i . A. Parasuraman, V.A. Zeithaml, and L.L. Berry, “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research,” Journal of Marketing, Fall 1985, pp. 41–50.

ii . A. Parasuraman, V.A. Zeithaml, and L.L. Berry, “SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality,” Journal of Retailing, Spring 1988, pp. 12–39.

iii . V.A. Zeithaml, L.L. Berry, and A. Parasuraman, “Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality,” Journal of Marketing, April 1988, pp. 35–48.

iv . A. Parasuraman, L.L. Berry, and V.A. Zeithaml, “An Empirical Examination of Relationships in an Extended Service Quality Model” (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Marketing Science Institute Research Monograph, Report No. 90-122, December 1990).

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Meeting Customer Expectations: Importance, Strategies to Exceed Them, and Management Tips

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Customer expectations are often tough to meet, especially  for small businesses . These expectations evolve with the times and are sometimes impossible to meet.

After all, customers can switch businesses whenever they want if these expectations aren’t met.

But no matter the challenge, you must equip your business with the tools to meet and exceed these expectations. You must continue to learn various strategies  to keep matching these expectations.

In this guide, we will discuss the ins and outs of meeting customers’ ever-changing needs, strategies for addressing them best, and tips to keep you guided.

What are customer expectations?

Why is it critical to meet customer expectations.

• 6 Basic customer service expectations

6 Ways to exceed customer expectations

5 customer expectation management tips.

Customer expectations are the service standards that customers expect from businesses, such as fair pricing, top-notch support, and more. These expectations shape your brand’s customer service  to match these demands.

Many  technological tools exist  to help match customer expectations. Customer service tools such as live chat, discussion forums, SMS text support, and more help businesses cater to their customers.

But these tools don’t guarantee quality customer service. Many brands make the mistake of relying too heavily on these tools for customer support. As a result, brands fail to meet or exceed people’s expectations.

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People love to stick to what they’re most comfortable with. So, it’s critical that you continuously find ways to match customer expectations. This will allow you to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction, reach a new audience, and boost sales.

6  Basic customer service expectations

Knowing the standard customer expectations allows you to design customer service that matches their needs and find strategies that could exceed them.

Here are 6 basic customer expectations for businesses:

1. Smooth service

People expect brands to address their concerns quickly. This is a huge determining factor in whether they should continue doing business with you.

Smooth or fast service can be defined as:

• Immediate responses to questions or issues
• Fast follow-ups
• A smooth, intuitive website
• Reliable and quick transactions

A smooth service makes people feel that doing business with you is comfortable and hassle-free. Expect these definitions of smooth service to change and grow as more and more technological tools arise to help aid these needs.

2. Personalized customer experience

Customers don’t like to receive generic responses to their questions or issues. They want swift and accurate answers.

A personalized customer experience makes customers feel that they’re being cared for and heard. Customers expect businesses to do all the work when doing business with them and all they have left to do is decide.

To create a personalized customer experience, you must:

• Understand and know your customers
• Know their mindset and relate to their common issues
• Provide a quick solution to their problems
• Give personalized rewards that instill customer trust and loyalty.

3. Correct information during self-service

Not all customers immediately approach you when looking for something. They usually find a way to solve it independently before asking for support.

That’s why it’s critical that a business’s self-service option or FAQ page contains accurate information and addresses the common issues that your customers face.

An incomplete or inaccurate self-service page risks brands from customers losing interest or an increase in bounce rates. Businesses must keep their self-service tools up to date and offer a quick option for support when solutions aren’t found.

4. Low-effort website experience

Everything should be easy for the customers. Low-effort experiences are key to making customers happy.

Customers expect browsing through your website to be smooth and hassle-free. People don’t want to go through hoops to do business with brands. Everything should make their lives easier.

Some low-effort experience examples include:

• Website pages load fast
• Responsive support team
• Visuals such as photos and videos load easily and are of high-quality
• An easy check-out process

5. Omnichannel presence

As a business, you should be wherever your customers are.

Customers often don’t want to open your website for quick questions or updates. So, brands must establish their presence on every channel their customers could already be in.

Social media is one important platform that businesses should have. It allows brands to connect easily with customers, study online behaviors, and learn from common problems.

6. Quality products and services

Customers expect products and services to perform as promised; otherwise, they feel cheated. Your business’s heart is the products or services brands offer. Everything else, such as social media customer service and customer support delivered via other channels, revolves around marketing these products and services.

It’s much easier for a business to lose customers from one bad review than multiple positive reviews. So, businesses must aim to offer quality customer service and products or services.

All businesses should aim to meet basic customer needs and develop strategies to exceed them simultaneously.

Here are six ways to exceed customer expectations:

1. Establish customer expectations

Establish what your customers expect from you. You must understand your customers’ mindsets to know their basic needs. Ask questions such as:

• What kind of customers do I have? What made them interested in my business?
• What are the common issues my customers face?
• What do my customers expect from my products or services? Do they think it’s performing as advertised?

Know the best qualities your customers expect from you and understand how they’re taking it in. Are you falling short of their expectations? Do you do your best to meet their needs at all times?

Getting into the minds of your customers allows you to imagine the expectations they have for you and help you better find ways to match them.

2. Take action after receiving feedback

Don’t just let customer feedback sit on your review page. Recognize the effort your customers put in when providing feedback – regardless of whether they’re positive or negative.

For example, show appreciation when receiving positive feedback , such as thanking your customers or providing a reward system when they offer reviews. When receiving negative feedback, take note of the essential parts and plan an action to address it immediately to prevent the same situation from happening in the future.

3. Be accountable for your mistakes

Nothing is nobler to customers than when businesses own up to their mistakes and make amends for them.

People often call out brands on social media to issue an apology or make amends for mistakes. For example, the CEO of Abbott Laboratories  apologized for the national shortage of baby formula due in an  op-ed in the Washington Post , earlier this year. The company promises to prevent the same event from happening again.

When apologizing for mistakes, the key factor is to be accountable for them and offer to resolve the problem and learn from the situation to prevent the same mistakes from happening again.

4. Appreciate returning customers

People like to be recognized, especially by businesses they continually support. Acknowledge returning customers to boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Don’t just let returning customers feel unnoticed by your business. You can show appreciation through the following:

• Send a handwritten note
• Offer discounts or free services during difficult times
• Give freebies when they purchase a product or service
• Grant free upgrades
• Support causes or charities
• Provide meaningful content

There are many ways to show customer appreciation that won’t cost your business much. The goal is to make them feel seen and to show gratitude. In return, cared-for customers will continue to support and even advocate for your business.

5. Measure customer happiness

Track your progress and  measure customer satisfaction regularly . This will help you see which areas you need to improve or what makes customers happy.

Customers also feel more appreciated when you actively measure their satisfaction levels and help them see that you’re continuously trying to improve your business. Many small business tools allow you to keep track of customer satisfaction without spending a lot of money.

For example, you can  leverage social media platforms and their built-in polls to measure customer satisfaction. These polls allow you to quickly gather real-time customer satisfaction data, especially when launching a new product or service. Social media polls are also cost-effective and low-effort.

6. Track employee sales performance

You must track employee performance occasionally to see how they’re conducting their sales talk.

Aside from providing a template for them to use when conversing with customers, you should know how they handle other sales conversations. Some employees might be too pushy or too lax, which could cause customer dissatisfaction.

For example, Tesla CEO Elon Musk replied to an unhappy customer after meeting a pushy salesperson. Musk apologized for the experience and communicated with his employees to avoid making the same mistake.

As a business, it’s your job to manage customer expectations properly. Don’t make promises that you can’t keep to satisfy your customers. This will only end up backfiring on you.

Here are 5 customer expectation management tips to help guide you:

• Be transparent. Always be open and honest with your customers, especially when dealing with concerns. Keep your conversations transparent and provide proof or receipt when necessary. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help or ask for time for research when unsure. For example, if a customer service representative doesn’t know the answer to a problem, they should be open to consulting the rest of the team to brainstorm solutions. This helps customers feel assured that you’re working on their issues properly.
• Set positive and realistic expectations.  Start by establishing realistic expectations by providing accurate product or service descriptions. Don’t promise something you can’t fulfill just to appease customers. Find the balance between assuring customers with a positive note and setting realistic expectations.
• Discuss all possible solutions. When handling a problem with a customer, ensure that you provide all possible solutions. Help them see that you’re doing your best to find a solution that will benefit both parties. Don’t settle an issue until all possible solutions have been tested.
• Give a clear timeline.  When fixing a problem, don’t give customers an impossible deadline that you can’t meet. Give them a realistic timeframe for when their concerns will be solved properly.
• Regularly follow up with customers.  Don’t forget to follow up with customers after solving a problem. Make sure to send a couple of follow-ups to check if there are no other related issues and how you can help your customers to avoid the same event from happening again.

Ultimately, customers only want the best experience when doing business with you . They only want what’s best for them and for your brand to do as promised.

But even though many technological tools help you deliver the best customer service, what you do to optimize these and how your brand values your customers properly is what truly counts.

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Understanding Customer Expectations: Management Tips and Examples

What customers want and what they get might not always align, but the stakes are getting higher for any business that falls short. 80 percent of people say they’d switch to a competitor after more than one bad customer experience, according to our 2021 Customer Experience Trends Report.

And that’s a number that should have most companies paying attention. Why? Customer expectations have shifted considerably over the past year.

What are customer expectations?

• Examples of customer expectations

How have customer expectations changed?

• Customer expectation management tips

By Maggie Mazzetti

By definition, customer expectations are your customers’ ideas of how each interaction with your company should go. From how long they wait to what channels they can use, this holds true for any part of the customer journey . Customers want (and expect!) the very best, and if you don’t give it to them, they’re happy to look elsewhere.

Half of your customers say they’re unlikely to return after just one bad experience, according to our Trends Report. This means you may only have one chance to impress them. But after a year of unprecedented change, it’s likely that how they behave and what they expect look quite different.

What are examples of customer expectations?

Customers expect a lot from the companies they do business with. Here are some examples of what matters to them:

• Quick and easy resolutions to customer complaints
• Access to preferred service channels
• Opportunities to answer questions themselves via help centers
• Personalized experience
• Data protection and privacy

When one company raises the bar for customers, every brand is expected to follow. David Mattin, founder of New World Same Humans, calls it expectation transfer . When businesses take innovative leaps forward, they drive new (higher) expectations among customers.

Uber , for example, changed how quickly customers expected a ride at their door. “Those expectations spread,” said Mattin, “becoming the now well-established trend known as on-demand.”

Cue a global pandemic. Suddenly, customers had to adjust their buying habits—almost overnight. Fundamental changes to their expectations soon followed. These are challenges for any business, but companies can meet these expectations by continuing to focus on improving the customer experience .

• Customers expect seamless online transactions
• Customers want companies to lead with their values
• Customers expect companies to meet them wherever they are

1. Customers expect seamless online transactions, and it’s a high bar

As everything shifted online, smaller companies and non-digital natives suddenly faced a very high bar set by digitally savvy leaders that drive customer expectations and customer engagement online. And from product availability, to the ease of buying and speed of shipping, matching these expectations is no easy feat.

65 percent of customers want to buy from companies that offer quick and easy online transactions

65 percent of customers want to buy from companies that offer quick and easy online transactions, according to the 2021 Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report. Half gave Amazon the highest marks for customer service.

2. Customers expect companies to lead with their values

It’s not enough for companies to simply provide fast, friendly customer support. In a world marked by uncertainty, customers are seeking empathy and want to buy from companies that reflect their values. According to our recent survey:

• 49 percent are seeking more empathy from customer support agents
• 54 percent want to buy from companies that prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in their communities and workplaces
• 63 percent want to buy from companies that are socially responsible

3. Customers expect companies to meet them wherever they are

As the world changed around them, customers changed right with it. 64 percent of customers say they tried a new channel like live chat to engage with customer support teams during the pandemic and 75 percent plan to keep using it. Put simply, customers want more options when they need to reach out. And many now prefer to use the same communication channels that they use to connect with family and friends.

Over the last year, the use of messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, has soared. Social messaging alone saw a 110 percent jump in popularity compared to 2020, followed closely by a 75 percent increase for SMS/text.

Many customers now prefer to use the same channels that they use to connect with family and friends.

And it’s not enough to simply offer the channels, customer service teams must be able to smoothly transition from one to another . This means that customers can switch to whatever is convenient for them, without having to repeat themselves.

5 customer expectation management tips

Keeping up with rising customer expectations starts with prioritizing customer experiences. Luckily, companies are already pushing ahead. 63 percent of support leaders say that CX is more important to their company now than a year ago. And it makes sense since 75 percent of customers say they’ll spend more to buy from a company that treats them well.

But saying and doing are two different things. Here’s what service teams need to know to match customer expectations now and in the future:

• Offer a range of channels
• Streamline conversation
• Boost self-service
• Personalize
• Get proactive

1. Offer a wide range of channels for customer service

Customers get frustrated when there’s only one avenue for customer service available. Why? Not all customer service experiences are the same and communication preferences depend on the issue.

Data shows that 76 percent of customers want phone support when they’re dealing with a complex issue like a product malfunction. But customers appreciate email, live chat, SMS/text, and social media for other purposes.

2. Streamline customer support conversations across all channels

It’s one thing to have different service channels, but customers should also be able to switch between them for a seamless experience. Companies who perform best across key support metrics, including faster response times and higher customer satisfaction rates, are three times as likely to have adopted omnichannel support.

From social media to live chat, omnichannel integrates everything into one streamlined workspace. But investment in omnichannel actually dropped 10 percent last year. Customer service teams must do what they can, with the resources they have, to keep up as customer expectations rise.

3. Boost self-service (and AI) resources

If people can solve their own problems without waiting for a customer service representative, they’re happy to do it. Self-service resources, like a knowledge base or help center, can intercept would-be tickets by directing customers to answers online. And 72 percent of customers say they try self-service first at least half the time before contacting a member of the support team.

AI can make it easier to connect customers to the answers they need without even involving an agent. Though more companies are turning to AI-powered chatbots, usage rates remain low—especially for smaller companies.

4. Personalize and protect

Personalization has become the hallmark of any good customer experience . In fact, 75% of customers say they expect personalization when making purchases. But paradoxically, fewer and fewer customers want companies to have access to their data . Why? A lack of transparency around what’s being collected and how it’s being used has eroded trust.

75 percent of customers expect personalization when making purchases.

The stakes are high, but organizations that protect customer data and are transparent about their policies have an opportunity to stand out from the pack. Transparency builds trust, trust becomes customer loyalty—a winning strategy for building lasting relationships with customers.

5. Get proactive

If you’re aware of common problems or issues for customers, it makes sense to get ahead of them. With in-product messaging, how-to videos, or even an emailed list of best practices, you can guide customers to quick solutions. Learn more with Zendesk’s customer experience platform .

Not only does this help with managing customer expectations, it can also mean a smoother experience for everyone involved. After all, these are long-term investments in your customers, and your business.

This article originally appeared on Zendesk .

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Customer Expectations: What Do Your Customers Demand?

• First Online: 28 March 2020

Cite this chapter

• Claes Fornell 5 ,
• Forrest V. Morgeson III 5 , 6 ,
• G. Tomas M. Hult 5 , 6 &
• David VanAmburg 5  

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What do customers demand in their experiences with companies? Our focus in this chapter is on what many have claimed to be the sky-rocketing expectations in the modern economy. We dive into the wisdom of the popular imperative for businesses to aim to “always exceed customer expectations,” and what future trends in customer expectations will look like. As a teaser, it is clear that companies should avoid either attempting or promising to “always exceed expectations,” as such a strategy is virtually impossible to achieve and may ultimately be self-defeating. While companies must continue to set, manage, and meet expectations, it is unlikely that expectations will spiral out of control in the years ahead, even as innovations progress at a more rapid pace.

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The past, present, and future of customer management

Process Issues in Customer Satisfaction Measurement and Management

Concluding Thoughts

For just a handful of examples of these dire warnings about skyrocketing customer expectations, see: “Corporate America Under Pressure from Consumers’ Rising Expectations,” Lithium , June 2, 2015; Markovitch, S. and P. Willmott (2014). “Accelerating the Digitization of Business Processes,” McKinsey Group ; Meehan, Mary. “Customer Expectation Trends: They Want It All. So Get Out Of The Way,” Forbes.com , August 12, 2015.

In general, the aggregate, national-level ACSI variables we examine in this and the next several chapters have thresholds of significant difference of about 0.1 points, based on the statistical significance testing methods used and the large samples of data collected. Thus, any change over time of ±0.1 or more points are considered statistically meaningful.

Research on the alignment between consumer perceptions and manager ideas about those perceptions confirm that managers tend to overestimate the level of many of their customers’ perceptions, including their expectations. Hult, G. Tomas M., Forrest V. Morgeson III, Neil A. Morgan, Sunil Mithas and Claes Fornell (2017). “Do Managers Know What Their Customers Think and Why?” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 45(1), 37–54.

In this chapter and the chapters that follow, we will examine industry-level changes in the ACSI variables over the prior ten-year period, from 2008–2017. While 25-year dynamics at the national level are of greatest interest, to track the changes in consumer perceptions and behaviors over a longer timeline and since the introduction of the ACSI, these more recent comparisons at the industry level will, we hope, add additional insight and context into economic dynamics over this period.

Based on the statistical methods used and the industry sample sizes, differences in expectations and the variables examined in the next several chapters at the industry level are significantly different at a threshold of roughly 1.0 points. The difference between the significance thresholds between the national- and industry-level variables lies in samples sizes underlying these statistics, which are much larger at the national level.

References and Further Reading

Anderson, E. W., & Sullivan, M. W. (1993). The Antecedents and Consequences of Customer Satisfaction for Firms. Marketing Science, 12 (2), 125–143.

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Corporate America under Pressure from Consumers’ Rising Expectations. (2015, June 2). Lithium . Retrieved from https://www.lithium.com/company/news-room/press-releases/2015/corporate-america-under-pressure-from-consumers-rising-expectations

Fornell, C., Johnson, M. D., Anderson, E. W., Cha, J., & Bryant, B. E. (1996). The American Customer Satisfaction Index: Nature, Purpose and Findings. Journal of Marketing, 60 (4), 7–18.

Hayken, S. (2016, November 12). Today’s Customers Demand Customer Service on Their Terms. Forbes.com . Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2016/11/12/todays-customers-demand-customer-service-on-their-terms/#3fa535cdcaa2

Hult, G. T. M., Morgeson, F. V., III, Morgan, N. A., Mithas, S., & Fornell, C. (2017). Do Managers Know What Their Customers Think and Why? Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45 (1), 37–54.

Markovitch, S., & Willmott, P. (2014). Accelerating the Digitization of Business Processes. McKinsey Group . Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/accelerating-the-digitization-of-business-processes

Meehan, M. (2015, August 12). Customer Expectation Trends: They Want It All. So Get Out Of The Way. Forbes.com . Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/marymeehan/2015/08/12/customer-expectation-trends-they-want-it-all-so-get-out-of-the-way/#75e18dcb96e3

Morgeson, F. V., III, & Forrest, V. (2013). Expectations, Disconfirmation, and Citizen Satisfaction with the US Federal Government: Testing and Expanding the Model. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23 (2), 289–305.

Oliver, R. L. (1980). A Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17 (4), 460–469.

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Spector, A. J. (1956). Expectations, Fulfillment, and Morale. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52 (1), 51–56.

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Fornell, C., Morgeson, F.V., Hult, G.T.M., VanAmburg, D. (2020). Customer Expectations: What Do Your Customers Demand?. In: The Reign of the Customer. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13562-1_2

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What are customer expectations & how can you exceed them?

Last updated

18 July 2023

Reviewed by

Eliz Ayaydin

Customers expect more from the services they use, the companies they spend money with, and the products they buy. Businesses must seriously impress customers to succeed in today's crowded marketplace.

Understanding customer expectations is essential for any modern business to build a loyal customer base and a healthier bottom line. From start-ups to large corporations, customers are the key to success. 

Learn more about customer expectations, their importance, and how to use them to create a successful, thriving business. 

• What are customer expectations?

"Customer expectations" refers to anything a customer believes will happen when interacting with a company, its products, or its services. 

They relate to all customer interactions with a company, from their first visit to the company website to making a purchase or calling their customer service team. 

There are four levels: 

These are the bare minimum requirements a customer expects a business to fulfill, like product quality, fair pricing, and general customer service. 

Example : A customer expects the new hairdryer they’re buying to be reasonably priced and work as advertised. 

Customers anticipate these things based on previous interactions or what they've heard about other people's experiences. 

They are based on what the customer perceives as "normal" within the industry. 

Example : A customer expects a dealership to wash their car after a service appointment because all the other companies in the area do it. 

These are things a customer wants but might be unique in the industry, and they typically relate to the customer experience . 

Example : A customer purchases shoes online. When revisiting the online shop, the website recognizes the customer and makes recommendations based on their previous purchases. 

These are expectations that a customer has, but they might only be aware of them once the business meets them. This happens when a company goes above and beyond. 

Example : A customer is still deciding whether they want to try a new software package, so the company offers them a 90-day free trial to try it out with no cost or obligation. 

Understanding customer expectations helps businesses work to meet or exceed them. 

• What are examples of customer expectations?

Your customers may have thousands of assumptions about your company and its products before they ever make a purchase, including: 

What problem the product solves

How a service meets their needs

How quickly a business answers the phone when they call

Some of the most common and important customer expectations your business can meet are: 

Personalization

Customers expect businesses to customize their experience, cater to their preferences, and build on their previous purchases and interactions. 

The more you can personalize the customer experience, the better. You can include everything from marketing to the purchasing process and customer service after the sale. 

Quality customer service

Customers expect a company's customer service to be prompt and effective when they have questions or issues. They expect the service to be enjoyable and remove obstacles to purchasing. 

Quick resolution for complaints

Customers expect complaints to be dealt with quickly and satisfactorily. 

Low-effort experiences

Customers expect a seamless experience requiring minimal effort on their part. 

Up-to-date knowledge

Customers expect businesses to have accurate, up-to-date information about their products and services, often beyond what they can research online. 

Omni-channel availability

Customers expect companies to be available across various channels, such as social media, email, and telephone. 

Easy-to-use platforms

Customers expect businesses to provide easy-to-use platforms like websites and apps to use their services or buy products. 

Performance

Customers expect products and services to perform well and do what they're meant to.

Data protection

Customers expect transparency around how companies use their personal information.

Customers expect companies to evolve their offerings and create something new and exciting.

A good experience in these areas can prevent a company from losing customers to its competitors. 

• How do customers form expectations?

Your customers will come to your business with certain assumptions already in place. Those may come from: 

Previous interactions with the company, both online and in-person

Their knowledge of the company from research, reviews, or recommendations

Similar or competing company experiences and products

Your company’s marketing, social media posts, and website content can also attract customers to discover what your business offers and how it will deliver it. 

• Why are customer expectations important?

Customer expectations are fundamental to a business's success. A company can reap many benefits, including increasing its sales and revenue. 

Meeting expectations increases customer satisfaction , and satisfied customers are more likely to return to your business and recommend your products and services to others. 

Over time, you build a loyal customer base and enhance your brand reputation. These critical elements create a business that can withstand even the most challenging economic times. 

Knowing what your customers want from your business is essential to delivering a memorable and unique experience that they'll want to repeat. 

Failing to meet them can result in losing their business to your competitors. You shouldn't be willing to take that risk in a competitive and crowded market. 

• How have customer expectations changed over time?

Seamless and quick transactions

As the marketplace changes with technology and trends, so do customer expectations. The rise of e-commerce has led customers to expect a seamless and convenient online experience. 

They want to browse a company's products online, make a purchase in a few clicks, and receive the order quickly with minimal effort. 

They expect their online transaction to be secure and have various payment options. If your company falls short, customers will likely end up on a competitor's website. 

Connected experiences across digital channels

Technology has also led to customers assuming a company will meet them wherever they are and whenever they want. That means customers want to reach a company through their preferred channel, whether on a social media platform, website, or email. 

Companies must attend to all channels, so they may need to increase customer service resources to meet customer expectations. 

Aligning values with brand loyalty

Consumers are becoming more socially aware of how their choices impact the world, particularly their social and environmental impact. 

Because of that awareness, consumers expect businesses to take a stand on social and ecological issues, prioritizing sustainability, ethical practices, and social responsibility. 

Consumers are more likely to shop with brands that align with their moral values, and corporations are no longer ambiguous entities. 

• How to go beyond customer expectations

When there’s so much marketplace competition, and customers are more informed than ever, it's no longer enough to only meet expectations. 

You must consistently  exceed  expectations to build a loyal customer base and a positive brand reputation.

While that may feel overwhelming, it doesn't have to be.

Your business can integrate key strategies into your operations right now. These examples can help you start wowing customers and building a loyal brand following:

Create opportunities for customers to self-serve

The more you can automate a process and allow customers to serve themselves, the better. 

It's often more convenient and faster for customers than waiting for a company response. They don't have to wait on hold or stand by while someone else finds the answer for them. 

When customers can access the information they need and choose the best solution independently, it empowers them and puts them in control. They can resolve issues faster, making them more likely to view the company positively. It can also lead to more loyalty in the long run. 

Instead of paying labor for problem solvers, you can allow customers to serve themselves, making this a cost-effective idea to implement. 

Customers can solve their problems through resources like FAQ pages, instructional videos, chatbots, and social media posts.

Approach each interaction with empathy

Empathy is key to good customer communication. Showing empathy during every customer interaction allows businesses to build customer relationships and understand their needs and concerns. 

Empathy can help you find more effective solutions to a customer's problems and prevent issues from happening in the future. It’s also an easy way to exceed expectations.

Some simple ways to show empathy in customer service are: 

Listening carefully

Letting them vent

Repeating and confirming what they’ve said (active listening)

Being positive and patient

Staying respectful

Using validating phrases like “I understand where you are coming from.”

When you empathize with customers, you increase their satisfaction with the interaction. The customer will be more likely to recommend your business to others. 

Set expectations and meet them

Setting accurate assurances that you can consistently meet is the best way to build customer trust. Customers are far more likely to return to a business if they are confident they won’t be disappointed. 

Clear communication and full transparency prevents unrealistic or unclear expectations and reduces misunderstandings between the customer and the business.  

It makes a business accountable, too. When you set expectations, you must take ownership of them and deliver on them. Otherwise, you could put your company's reputation in danger. 

Create moments of delight

Providing good customer service is a baseline expectation: It's forgettable. 

Times where you surprise and delight a customer are memorable. When you intentionally seek to create those moments of delight, you create positive, unique experiences for the customer. 

Delighted customers are more loyal and more likely to share their positive experiences with others. It's also an excellent way to differentiate your business from your competition. 

You can create moments of delight in small ways: 

Unexpected rewards

Free samples

Celebrating milestones

Exclusive events or promos

Going the extra mile

Anticipating your customer's needs 

These are all easy ways to delight your customers, and your team should look for opportunities to go the extra mile. 

Ask for feedback and apologize when necessary

No company gets it all right the first time. Be open to feedback from your customers and adapt to meet their needs. 

Collecting customer feedback regularly and asking the right questions is a great way to gather insight into their expectations and what they’d like to see from your business. 

Feedback removes assumptions from the equation, giving you first-person accounts of how to improve. 

You won't get it right every time, either. Being humble and apologizing when you get something wrong can go a long way with a customer. 

When you sincerely apologize and try to right a wrong, you can create a happy, loyal customer for life. It helps to be more human.

Create a customer-centric culture

Foster a company environment that encourages employees to put the customer at the center of their decision-making processes. Regardless of what team they are on, each employee can contribute to customer happiness by keeping the user in mind. 

For example, when designers create new features, and marketers develop new campaigns, they can put customers at the center of each decision. 

The responsibility for customer happiness doesn’t only lie on the shoulders of the customer service team. 

Creating a shared customer-first mindset is a great way to exceed customer expectations.

• How are you exceeding your customers' expectations? 

Do you know what your customers expect from you? Are you clear on how you are meeting expectations and how you can exceed them? 

Knowing your customers' wants is the first step in delivering an incredible experience. It enables you to build a loyal customer base that repeatedly recommends you to others and buys your products. 

Should you be using a customer insights hub?

Do you want to discover previous customer research faster?

Do you share your customer research findings with others?

Do you analyze customer research data?

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The impact of excellent customer service on business success – a comprehensive analysis.

Customer service is a critical component of any business, playing a key role in shaping a company’s reputation and success. The way a company interacts with its customers can make or break its image in the market. Exceptional customer service goes beyond resolving issues; it involves building relationships, understanding customer needs, and exceeding expectations.

In this essay, we delve into the significance of customer service in today’s competitive market landscape. We examine how outstanding customer service can lead to customer loyalty, positive word-of-mouth marketing, and increased sales. Moreover, we explore the impact of poor customer service on a company’s bottom line and reputation.

Understanding the Significance of Customer Service

Customer service plays a vital role in the success of any business. It is the key to creating lasting relationships with customers and ensuring their satisfaction. Providing excellent customer service is essential for gaining loyal customers and attracting new ones. By prioritizing customer service, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and build a positive reputation in the market.

Effective customer service can lead to increased customer retention, as satisfied customers are more likely to return and make repeat purchases. Additionally, happy customers are more likely to recommend the business to others, leading to word-of-mouth marketing and organic growth.

Customer service also plays a crucial role in resolving any issues or complaints that customers may have. By addressing these concerns promptly and effectively, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction and build trust with their customer base.

Overall, understanding the significance of customer service is essential for any business looking to thrive in today’s competitive market. By prioritizing customer service and delivering exceptional experiences, businesses can secure their place in the hearts and minds of their customers.

Exploring the Impact on Business Success

Customer service plays a vital role in determining the success of a business. When a company offers exceptional customer service, it leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Satisfied customers are more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend the business to others, which can significantly boost sales and revenue.

Moreover, delivering superior customer service helps businesses differentiate themselves from competitors. In today’s competitive market, where products and prices are often similar, outstanding customer service can be a key factor in attracting and retaining customers. It creates a positive image of the business, enhances brand reputation, and fosters long-term relationships with customers.

Furthermore, effective customer service can lead to valuable feedback and insights from customers, which businesses can use to improve their products, services, and overall operations. By listening to customer concerns and addressing them promptly, businesses can enhance their offerings and stay ahead of the competition.

In conclusion, customer service is not just a department within a business; it is a critical component that can directly impact business success. Companies that prioritize customer service are more likely to thrive in today’s competitive marketplace and build a loyal customer base that drives sustainable growth and profitability.

The Role of Customer Experience in a Competitive Market

In a highly competitive market, customer experience plays a crucial role in determining the success of a business. With numerous options available to consumers, businesses must differentiate themselves through exceptional customer service and support. A positive customer experience can lead to increased customer loyalty, word-of-mouth referrals, and repeat business.

Businesses that prioritize customer experience are more likely to stand out in a crowded marketplace and build a strong reputation for reliability and customer satisfaction. By focusing on providing excellent customer service, businesses can create a competitive advantage that sets them apart from their competitors.

Moreover, in today’s digital age, customer experience goes beyond in-person interactions and extends to online platforms. Businesses must ensure a seamless and user-friendly online experience for their customers, including responsive customer support, easy navigation, and secure payment options. A well-rounded customer experience strategy encompasses both offline and online interactions to create a cohesive and positive experience for customers.

By focusing on delivering exceptional customer experience, businesses can gain a competitive edge, improve customer satisfaction, and drive growth in a fiercely competitive market.

Building Customer Loyalty Through Quality Service

Providing quality customer service is essential for building customer loyalty. When customers have positive interactions with a company, they are more likely to become repeat customers and recommend the business to others. By focusing on delivering excellent service, businesses can cultivate strong relationships with their customers, leading to increased loyalty and long-term success.

Quality service involves listening to customers’ needs, addressing their concerns promptly, and exceeding their expectations. Businesses that prioritize customer satisfaction are more likely to retain customers and attract new ones through positive word-of-mouth. Additionally, loyal customers are more forgiving of occasional mistakes and are more likely to give constructive feedback to help businesses improve.

By investing in training employees to provide exceptional service and creating a customer-centric culture, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and build a loyal customer base. Consistent delivery of high-quality service fosters trust and loyalty, ultimately driving business growth and profitability.

Key Strategies for Enhancing Customer Satisfaction

1. Listen to customers: Actively listen to their feedback, complaints, and suggestions. This shows that you value their opinions and are committed to providing excellent service.

2. Personalize the experience: Tailor your interactions with customers to their specific needs and preferences. This personal touch can go a long way in building a strong relationship and loyalty.

3. Provide quick responses: Respond promptly to customer inquiries and issues. Speedy resolution of problems can prevent frustration and create a positive impression.

4. Train your staff: Ensure that your employees are well-trained in customer service techniques and are equipped to handle various situations professionally and empathetically.

5. Implement customer feedback: Use customer feedback to improve your processes, products, and services. Showing that you take their opinions into account can enhance trust and satisfaction.

6. Offer incentives: Provide incentives such as discounts, rewards, or special promotions to show appreciation for loyal customers and encourage repeat business.

7. Keep communication open: Maintain open lines of communication with customers through multiple channels. Being accessible and responsive can help in building long-lasting relationships.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Customer Service Initiatives

When it comes to customer service, it is essential for businesses to measure the effectiveness of their initiatives. Customer service metrics can provide valuable insights into how well a company is meeting the needs of its customers and where there is room for improvement. Some key metrics that can be used to measure the effectiveness of customer service initiatives include:

1. Customer Satisfaction: One of the most important metrics for measuring the effectiveness of customer service is customer satisfaction. This can be measured through surveys, feedback forms, or other means to gauge how satisfied customers are with the service they receive.

Example: A high percentage of satisfied customers indicates that the customer service initiatives are working effectively.

2. Response Time: Another crucial metric is the response time to customer inquiries or issues. A quick response time is essential for keeping customers happy and resolving their problems efficiently.

Example: Monitoring the average response time and aiming to keep it within a certain range can help assess the effectiveness of customer service initiatives.

3. Resolution Rate: The resolution rate measures how often customer issues are resolved satisfactorily. A high resolution rate indicates that the customer service team is effective in addressing customer concerns.

Example: Tracking the percentage of issues resolved on the first contact can help identify areas for improvement in customer service processes.

By monitoring these and other key metrics, businesses can evaluate the effectiveness of their customer service initiatives and make data-driven decisions to enhance the overall customer experience.

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Why Is It Important To Manage Customer Expectations?

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Business owners understand that it is the customer that pays the bills and salaries of its employees. This fact keeps business owners in tune with the importance of managing customer expectations.

After all, a business is there to solve customer problems and to provide products and services that the customer expects.

Much of what customers expect is a great service experience.

A  customer service strategy is the best first step in creating a culture that supports great customer service.  

This strategy requires having a good understanding of who your customers are what they want, and creating systems and processes to meet their needs.  

This is the foundation for a strong service organization.

What is meant by customer expectations?

Another important aspect of the customer experience is helping to manage their expectations.

What this means is helping to prepare the customer for what their customer experience will be.

Often, customers come into the environment for the first time, and if they are not familiar (i.e., air travel, healthcare, auto repair) with the service process, they can have preconceived ideas about what to expect.

And often, the customer experiences something completely different – which can negatively impact their perception of the organization.

This makes it important to help prepare the customer for what the experience will be.

For example, a patient who enters an emergency room might have expectations to be seen immediately (the term emergency implies this).  

This is often not the case because there can be peak times of the day when there are many patients to serve.

An emergency room that is service-oriented will be proactive and help the patient understand what the process is and what to expect through the experience.

This can be done through verbal communication at check-in, perhaps a looping video, or an informational pamphlet in the waiting room.

Preparing the patient for what to expect can minimize the frustration a patient will have with long wait times.

There are other things that can be done to create a friendly waiting environment.

For example, having beverages available, a hostess to help with communication, healthcare-related training videos, television, and plenty of reading material.

Setting Customer Expectations

I recently had two personal experiences with service expectations.

The first one demonstrated the wrong way, and the second showed the right way to set customer expectations.

The first example is a doctor’s appointment.  

The appointment was scheduled for 3:45 p.m.  

I arrived at approximately 3:40 p.m., did my paperwork, and was asked to sit in the waiting room.

Around 4:00, I was called back to the examination room.

The nurse took my vitals and said, “The doctor is with another patient, and you are next, so she’ll be in shortly….”

Well, in my mind, shortly meant a few minutes, maybe 15.  

The clock ticked, and I heard conversations in other rooms, and I waited and waited and waited.

Finally, at 5:00 I opened the door, stuck my head out, and said, “Did you forget me” to the nurse. 

She said, “oh no, would you like a drink of water?”  I said, “No I would like to be seen so I can go home.”

I went back into the room, and at 5:30, the doctor finally came in. 

She did apologize for the wait, but the apology didn’t feel heartfelt, and I was angry.

Where they failed was, first of all, to tell me I was the next patient when clearly I was not.

The second was their patient assignment process was bad. Otherwise, this would not have happened.

Third, they did not define how long of a time “ she’ll be in shortly ” was. Therefore, my expectations were very different from the actual experience.

My second example is I had an airline ticket booked and needed to make a change, so I called the Southwest Airlines customer service line.  

I went into an automated answering system that said the wait time would be 8-14 minutes. 

I was at work, so I put the call on speakerphone and went about my business.  To my surprise, someone attended to me in 3 minutes, not 8 or 14.

I was pleasantly surprised and happy with the outcome.  If I had to bet, I would say that it was probably intentional that the wait time was less than they prepared me for.

They didn’t promise me that there would be no wait , but they did prepare me and helped me manage my expectations. This is the right way to do it! Kudos to Southwest Airlines!

3 Tips to Help Manage Customer Expectations

1. set the experience expectation .

Manage the customer’s expectations by helping to prepare them for the experience.

Take the time to explain the process to help the customer know what to expect.

For instance, it would have been helpful if the person who checked me in would have told me that there would be a few minutes wait until I would be taken to the exam room, and that the nurse would then take my vitals before the doctor would see me.

This would have helped me prepare.  Also, the nurse who said the doctor would be in “shortly”, might have clarified what that meant.

Or, if the doctor got an emergency call, the nurse should have returned and updated me on the wait so I would have understood why the wait was taking so long.

Setting the expectation means managing the customers’ assumptions of what will take place.

2. Provide Wait Distractions

No one likes to wait, but there are ways to help the customer pass their time.

Disney does a great job of this by providing entertainment while you wait and setting wait time expectations longer than the actual time.

As for the doctor’s office, a few magazines or some helpful educational videos may have helped to pass the time.

I personally like soothing background music instead of hearing the ticking of the wall clock as I wait.

3. Communicate Changes

Even the best of processes fail sometimes. Be aware of the customer and communicate changes as soon as you are aware of them.  

It may not make the customer happy, but they will be thankful for being kept in the communication loop.

For instance, someone should have been aware of me waiting. Perhaps the doctor had an emergency – who knows?  

I would have greatly appreciated having been kept in the loop for the delays in the service I received that day.

The bottom line, most people are reasonable, and if they understand what to expect, they will respond positively.

Finally, the goal of any customer service system is to have a seamless, quick, customer-friendly process. Pay attention to the questions customers ask so you are aware of their needs.

All systems should be managed through a quality management system and constantly reevaluated to find ways to improve the process.

Does anyone have other examples of setting customer expectations?

Patricia Lotich, MBA is a Certified Manager of Quality and Organizational Excellence through the American Society for Quality. She has a driving passion to help small businesses, nonprofits and churches fulfill their mission by managing their resources of - people, time and money.

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Customer Satisfaction Management Problem Solution Essay

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Introduction

Analyzing branch operations, reliability.

Creating customers is an important thing in a business since it is the customers who determine the direction that the business takes. Even though time and effort are important factors in determining the improvements to be made in services and products, customers still remain to be the main determinants of the future success of the business.

Consequently, quality customer service is important for anyone who wants their business to prosper. Customer service can either make or break a business since it involves the key players; customers.

Most of the activities that are undertaken in a business such as business planning, marketing strategies, and amount of sales depend on the customers. People get into businesses so that they can generate income through the services and products they offer, in our case, it is the services that are offered by the staff. The customers are in need of these services but they want to establish if the services are satisfactory.

To attain the business goal, it is important to design methods that will meet the needs of the customers well (Asiado, 2009: 21). A decline in service quality can have serious consequences since customers may opt to receive the same services from other service providers. This means that the business will lose its customers hence incurring losses.

To ensure that the services offered to clients are satisfactory, managers need to come up with ways that can analyze the operations of their businesses particularly service quality.

In some cases, the mode of analysis has to be designed in a way that the staff members are not aware that they are being watched to avoid cases of fabrication. This ensures that the findings are accurate hence it becomes possible for the managers to come up with suitable solutions to make improvements.

When it comes to analyzing and measuring service quality of the business, the gap analysis would be the best model to provide accurate results. The gap model is a valuable tool that is useful in the identification and rectification of service delivery gaps. The process of marketing services is different from that of marketing goods.

This is because services are characterized by their insubstantial, varied, undividable and unpreserved nature. When marketing services, there are five factors that are important in attaining and maintaining customer loyalty. Reliability, assurance, tangibles, responsiveness, and empathy are the five main factors. Each of these factors can be important in determining service quality of the business.

This is because if any of these factors does not meet the needs of the customers well, then the quality of the services goes down. It is important to note that low service quality can be come about if one or more of these factors are poorly handled.

Customer complains ought to be appreciated and taken seriously. The management cannot overlook these complains since they act as a parameter for determining what the customers have in mind. Karatepe, Yavas, and Babakus (2005: 373-383) note that managers should take note of the areas that do not meet the needs of the customers in the rightful manner.

This will enable them to formulate policies that will help in rectifying the problem before it gets out of hand. In this case, some customers including those that are of great importance have complained about the poor services. This is no coincidence, there has to be some truth in the claims. It is important to analyze the situation so that solutions can be sought thus we can improve the relationship with the customers.

This is about attempting to earn back their trust since some of them have lost faith in the ability of the staff to provide satisfactory services. Trying to rectify the issues is important since it makes the customers to know that their complains are important and that something is being done to rectify the problem.

Poor services will be a result of poor understanding of what each of these factors entails or negligence on the part of the staff. Given that this branch has been rated top five in the last three years; it means that customers have noted a negative change in the way that services are provided. Customer complains cannot be overlooked since customers have a right to receive quality services.

Failure to handle the above factors in the right way when providing services to customers creates gaps in service quality hence failing to meet the needs of the customers well. This means that the expectations of the customers are not met adequately. Allred (2000: 22) suggests that the five factors are the most important parameters when it comes to determining gaps in the service quality.

Once we attain the true picture of the services provided, the information will pave way for the formulation of appropriate policies to close the gaps (Chowdhary, 2005: 32). The policies formulated should ensure that the one or more of the dimensions are rectified to meet the needs of the customers.

It is important to look at each and every dimension so that we can explore how it can be used to analyze the branch operations when it comes to service quality. The service quality gap model determines the gap between the desired and actual quality of the services provided.

In business, the term reliability refers to the ability to deliver services perfectly and reliably. Customers enjoy receiving services from well trained personnel who are able to deliver services in a professional manner. The presence of untrained staff is worrisome since the manner in which these people deliver services may not meet the needs of the customers.

Reliability in business ensures that customers have faith in the ability of the business staff to provide quality services. When customers complain, it means that the services offered do not meet their needs in a desirable manner. The long queues could imply two things, either the number of clients have increased tremendously or the staff are not competent enough when it comes to speed.

The fact that customers have complained regarding this issue means that there might have been a change of behavior from the staff when it comes to providing services. It is important to establish what factors have changed in service provision over the years. Given that some customers have complained about transaction errors, it is important to find out what could have brought about these errors.

It is not wise to assume that the staff is responsible for the errors since the systems could have developed some technical problems that need to be rectified. According to Krishnamurthy, Raja, and Kumar (2010: 23), a drop in reliability could be as a result of many factors hence it is important to consider all the possible causes of the case.

Advancements in technology have changed the mode in which the exchange of goods and services operates. It is important to keep updated with the latest technological advancements so that the customers can be served well. Failure to have this knowledge may result into a conflict between customer expectation and how the management perceives it.

This means that the management is not aware of what the customers need and as a result, the policies formulated do not meet the needs of the customers. This gap could have negative consequences since the customers may start to complain about the quality of the services. Following this, it is important to interview some customers on what their expectations are and what aspects they do not like about the services.

Customers will definitely speak their mind since they want things to be rectified as soon as possible. Questions like; how long have you been a member of this bank? Have you been enjoying the services? Are the services accurately and perfectly offered? What aspects do you detest in the way the services are offered? Have you noted any changes in the way the services are offered over the years? If yes, what aspects have changed?

Why do you think these aspects have changed? Suggest what should be done to rectify the problem (Lai, 2004: 45). Answers to these questions can provide useful information that can enable the management to discover what the customers need. The questionnaires to be issued should be short and to the point. The questionnaires should be given to the customers after they receive the services.

Assurance is a term that to the knowledge and precision of employees and their transparency when it comes to serving the customers (Lenka, 2010: 123). This is important since it fosters the relationship between the customers and the staff. The management needs to be aware of the degree of knowledge that relates to giving services to customers. Knowledge is dynamic and the needs of the customers keep changing with time.

The staff members are expected to advance their knowledge with time since technological changes demand so. Errors may mirror a lack of prudence when offering the services or the lack of knowledge to perform the transactions. In an attempt to establish why errors occur during the transactions, the staff needs to be questioned on why such errors occurred.

One thing that is evident is that the error could have occurred due to technical problems or lack of carefulness on the side of the staff. It is important to note that the error could have occurred as a result of a combination of the two factors (Roy, 2010: 56). The ability of the staff members to earn the trust of the customers is important.

This is because the customers enjoy receiving services from people they can trust particularly when it comes to asking for clarification on some issues. To establish whether the customers have earned trust in the staff, one can observe their behavior when they are in the banking hall. If the customers show a tendency to confirm what member of the staff is serving a certain queue before joining the queue.

This will mean that the customers have preferences when it comes receiving services from staff (Solomon, 2009: 44). If some queues are shorter than others, then this means that some staff members do not have the ability to earn the trust of the employees. This means that the customers are more comfortable receiving services from some staff and not others.

This issue may bring about a gap in service quality standards and the mode of service delivery. It is evident that the management is aware of the desired degree of service and that it has specified what standards need to be maintained. Due to this, the poor quality service could have been brought about by the poorly trained staff. Their level of skills is low hence they lack the ability to execute their roles well.

Roy (2010: 57) suggests that failure to fully understand what is expected from an employee is a major cause of complains since the mode of service delivery may be poor. Poor employee performance cannot be blamed on the management since it has played its roles well.

Some staff members have not shown competence in carrying out their roles hence it can be assumed that they do not good mastery of the facts or the necessary skills that are needed to perform as per the expectations. The new employees seem to lack the necessary skills to offer the services. This could indicate that the staff had received poor training hence they have a hard time performing their tasks (Roy, 2010: 58).

Although their academic credentials show that they have successfully completed the course, it is possible that these people attained their grades through illegal means hence the grades do not necessarily reflect their capability. It would be important to interview the new members to establish which ones need more training.

Tangible is a term that is used to describe the facilities, apparatus and communication tools. This is generally referred to as the physical proof of amenities. The machines that are used in communication in the banking hall need to be analyzed so that their efficiency can be determined. Outdated machines tend to be slower since they have been in service for long.

The machines may have also developed some technical problems without the knowledge of the staff. The long queues in the banking halls could have been brought about by the slow speed of the machines when it comes to performing the operations. Since the staff handle the machines, it would be useful to question them on issues that relate to the effectiveness of the machines (Karl, 2008: 15).

The staff can be issued with questionnaires with questions such as; how effective are the machines? Have their speed changed over the years? Do we need to buy newer machines? This will give important information on what the staff thinks about the machines. Clearly, machines are there to make work easier hence if they do not attain this goal, then they can be rendered useless since they are not meeting the expectations.

This problem can bring about lack of growth between the management perception and standards set for service quality. Although the management may be aware of the customer expectations, they may not be committed enough to ensure the tools used in the process are appropriate. These machines are important when it comes to ensuring that high quality services are provided.

Limited or poor quality resources can be a major cause of poor quality services at the work place. This can make it hard for the staff members to meet the standards set. It is important to compare the quality of services offered by the staff members using latest technology and that of those using outdated technology.

This will help in establishing whether it is the machines that have brought about the poor services or the poorly trained staff. According to Karl (2008: 14), gaps created due to lack of progress between the management’s way of perceiving service quality and the set standards can lead to a drop in the quality of services offered in any business.

Empathy can be defined as act as treating and dealing with the customers in an acceptable manner. The management expects the staff to treat the customers in an individualized manner hence any staff member who fails to do this breaks the rules. In analyzing the extent to which the staff members observe this, it is important to analyze the behavior of the customers after they have been served.

It is important to look at the facial expression of the customers since it can provide information of how well a customer was served. If the customers come out smiling, it means that they have been served well while when they seem to frown, it means that they are not happy with the services provided. According to Teng, Huang, and Tsai (2009: 54), when clients are served well, they seem to show contentment on their faces.

Poorly served customers are in a hurry to get out of the banking hall since they have not enjoyed the services given. They feel that they do not deserve such kind of service hence they do not want to remain in the banking hall for longer.

A friendly working environment makes one to feel at home hence one may want to stay for longer. If the staff fails to show empathy towards the customers when serving them, then a gap is created between the expected quality of services and the perceived service. The pattern should be observed by comparing the number of customers who seemed to be contented with those who were not.

Responsiveness is the enthusiasm to help the customers and the ability to provide timely services. Sometimes new customers may need directions since they are not familiar with the operations. This means that the staff has the responsibility of directing the customers. According to the customers, the quality of the services has dropped hence they do not leave the banking hall happy.

It is important to establish whether the mode in which the staff serve the customers reflect their willingness to help them. Under delivery could be as a result of over expectation on the side of the customers as a result of the promise given by the management. The mode in which the staff addresses the customers can tell a lot about how they value them.

If a staff member assists the customer with a frowning face, then the customer may feel that they have disturbed the staff member while on the other hand; a smiling face will make the customer to feel appreciated and valued.

To analyze the responsiveness of the staff members, a CCTV can be an important aid in determining how the customers are served in as far as responsiveness is concerned (Roy: 2010: 57).. It would not be wise to walk into the hall and make the staff members aware that they are being observed since instances of fabrication are common in such cases.

This means that the staff may act kindly towards the customers on this day while this is not always the case. The customers are esteemed and as stated earlier, they determine the success of the business.

To bridge the gaps that may have resulted from poor services, it would be important to look into each issue individually. This means that solutions to each problem will be sought independently. This is due to the fact that the gaps have been brought about by different factors.

The analysis will shed some light on the situation of the working environment hence the management will be in a good position to formulate policies that could be helpful in combating the problems.

The problem needs to be looked into from different perspectives since it could have been caused by different factors (Thomson, 2010: 22). The following is an example of the ways that can be used to bridge the service quality gaps that may have developed in the first dimension.

If the staff is not able to perform their tasks accurately and reliably, the management can shed some light on the roles of each and every employee, make the employees understand the importance of the roles they play, train the employees especially when it comes to technical skills, reward those employees who perform best, making the employees aware of the expectations of the customers, and train employees on how to deal with customers from different cultural background.

Customers are an important asset in any business. They determine the success of the business thus complains need to be taken seriously. In this case, the customers have complained about poor service quality. There are five dimensions that are very important when it comes to attaining and sustaining customer trustworthiness and reduce the number of defections.

It seems that our services have faltered one or more of these dimensions since the customers have complained about the quality of the services. To develop an action plan that can help in bridging the gap, it is important to look at the problem individually so that the solutions can be sought.

Allred, A. T. and Addams, H. L. 2000 Service quality at banks and credit unions: what do their customers say? International Journal of Banking Marketing, 32 (2), p. 22.

Asiado, T. 2009 Customer Complains Should Be Taken Seriously . Suite 101, 45(3), p. 21.

Chowdhary, N., and Monika, P. 2005 Service Quality: Revisiting the two factors theory . Journal of services, 21 (3), p. 32

Karatepe, O. M., Yavas, U. and Babakus, E. 2005 Measuring service of banks: Scale development and validation . Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 12 (3), p. 373-383.

Karl, J. A. 2008 Customer Service-The Importance of Quality Service. Ezine journals, 42 (6), p. 14-16.

Krishnamurthy, R., Raja, K. B., and Kumar, A. 2010 Influence of service quality on banking customers’ behavioral intentions . International Journal of Economics and Finance, 43 (5). P. 23.

Lai, T. L. 2004 Service Quality and Perceived Value’s Impact on Satisfaction, Intention and Usage of Short Message Service (SMS). ACM journal, 34 (4), p. 45

Lenka, U., Suar, D., and Mohapatra, P. K. J. 2010 Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, and Customer Loyalty in Indian Commercial Banks . The journal of entrepreneurship, 23 (4), p. 123

Roy, P. 2010 Gap Analysis-Parameters to Measure Service Quality. Suite 101, 32 (4), p. 56-59

Solomon, G. T. 2009 Business and management . Journal of Small Business Management, 32 (2), p. 44.

Teng, C., Huang, K., and Tsai, I. 2009 Effects of Personality on Service Quality in Business Transactions . Informaworld Journal, 27 (4), p. 54

Thomson, R. 2010 Service quality . Emerald journal, 43 (2), p. 22

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Essay on Customer Service

Students are often asked to write an essay on Customer Service in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Customer Service

Introduction.

Customer service is a crucial part of every business. It involves helping customers before, during, and after they buy a product. Good customer service can make people feel valued and happy.

Importance of Customer Service

Customer service is important because it can make or break a business. If customers are happy, they will come back and also tell others about their positive experience. This can lead to more customers and increased profits.

Ways to Provide Good Customer Service

To provide good customer service, businesses should listen to their customers, solve their problems quickly, and treat them with respect. Training staff in these areas can greatly improve customer service.

In conclusion, customer service is very important for a business. It can attract more customers, increase profits, and improve the business’s reputation.

250 Words Essay on Customer Service

Introduction to customer service, the importance of customer service.

Superior customer service is the cornerstone of customer retention and loyalty. It fosters trust, ensuring customers feel valued and heard. It is not just about resolving issues but also about understanding customer needs and expectations.

Elements of Effective Customer Service

Effective customer service consists of several elements. Firstly, communication skills are paramount. Representatives should be able to articulate solutions clearly and empathetically. Secondly, problem-solving skills are crucial. The ability to analyze situations and provide swift resolutions is key. Lastly, patience and understanding are vital. Customers may be frustrated, so maintaining a calm demeanor is essential.

Customer Service in the Digital Age

The digital age has transformed customer service. Customers now expect round-the-clock assistance through various channels, such as social media, email, and live chat. Companies must adapt to these expectations to stay competitive.

In conclusion, customer service is a vital component of a successful business. It requires a blend of communication skills, problem-solving abilities, patience, and understanding. In the digital era, it also necessitates a multi-channel approach to meet customer expectations.

500 Words Essay on Customer Service

Customer service is a vital aspect of any business operation that directly interacts with the customers. It involves providing assistance, advice, and support to the customers before, during, and after purchasing goods or services. This concept is integral to the success of a business as it significantly influences customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The Importance of Excellent Customer Service

Furthermore, in the digital age, customer service has evolved to include online interactions. This shift has increased the importance of customer service, as online reviews and social media can significantly impact a business’s reputation.

Components of Effective Customer Service

Effective customer service comprises various components, each contributing to the overall customer experience. Firstly, communication is key. This includes not only verbal and written communication but also non-verbal cues such as body language and tone of voice. Employees must be trained to communicate clearly, empathetically, and professionally.

Lastly, a deep understanding of the product or service being offered is essential. This knowledge allows representatives to accurately answer customer queries and provide useful advice.

Challenges in Delivering High-Quality Customer Service

Despite its importance, delivering high-quality customer service can be challenging. One of the main challenges is managing customer expectations. Customers often have high expectations, and failing to meet these can lead to dissatisfaction.

Moreover, the rise of digital platforms has brought its own set of challenges. Businesses must now manage customer interactions across various channels, including email, social media, and live chat.

Conclusion: The Future of Customer Service

As businesses continue to navigate the digital landscape, the importance of customer service will only increase. Advances in technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, are set to revolutionize customer service, offering new ways to interact with customers and solve their problems. However, the human element of customer service will remain crucial. Businesses that can combine technological innovations with a genuine commitment to customer satisfaction will be best positioned for success.

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Why Customer Service is Important: 16 Data-Backed Facts to Know in 2024

Updated: July 18, 2024

Published: June 13, 2023

Think back to your last experience with a customer service team. What made it memorable?

For me, I have many negative ones that spring to mind. Often they involved issues that took far too long to get resolved or they lacked a level of personalization that made me feel like a valued customer. Is there anything worse than receiving an email with the subject line “Dear [valued customer]” ?

As I think about why customer service is important, it’s clear to see the value in my own interactions with businesses. I’m looking for quick and helpful responses to my problems and I expect that companies will offer several different avenues to address my concerns. And as I make purchasing decisions, whether it’s for a hotel, airline, or clothing item, I will often factor in previous experiences I have had as a customer with a company.

And I’m not the only one – these are all trends backed by our annual State of Service report. Hubspot surveyed over 1,000 customer service leaders to find which areas are being prioritized most, what’s driving the highest ROI, and what standout customer service teams will be focused on in the year ahead.

Want to learn more? I’ve gathered some of the top trends and data-backed facts to know about customer service in 2024 and beyond.

Table of Contents

• Importance of Customer Service

Financial Benefits of Excellent Customer Service

How customer service supports marketing efforts, customer service’s impact on brand image, the power of well-equipped employees, what businesses need to improve customer service, why is customer service important.

Customer service is important because it's the direct connection between your customers and your business. It retains customers and extracts more value from them. By providing top-notch customer service, businesses can recoup customer acquisition costs. This helps to cultivate a loyal following that refers new customers, serves as case studies, and provides testimonials and reviews.

Investing in customer service helps activate your flywheel because loyal customers will help you acquire new customers free of charge by convincing prospects to interact with your brand. Their positive testimonials will be more effective than your current marketing efforts—and cheaper, too.

The State of Customer Service Report

Unlock essential strategies for exceeding customer expectations and driving business growth in a competitive market.

• Exclusive insights from worldwide CRM leaders
• Analysis of modern customer behaviors
• Closer look at the AI opportunity in CRM
• Strategies for staying agile in 2024 and beyond

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A company with excellent customer service has a team that does more than answer questions and solve customer issues. Providing excellent customer service can save—and make—a lot of money for a business. In fact, improving the customer experience can increase sales revenue by 2-7% and profitability by 1-2%.

Here are some additional financial benefits of excellent customer service.

1. Customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition.

According to our research team , the customer acquisition cost (CAC) —how much it costs to acquire a new customer—is higher for a company that doesn't invest a small percentage of its budget in customer service.

Ultimately, investing in customer service can decrease your churn rate . Decreasing churn rate reduces the amount you must spend on acquiring new customers and decreases the overall CAC.

That’s because it’s more profitable to pour efforts into retaining existing customers in the long run. A massive amount of sales will come from existing customers , and only 20% of your current customers will be the source of 80% of your company’s profits .

I love to have products and experiences that match my expectations and know I’m much more likely to be a repeat customer if I have a great experience the first time.

Pro Tip: Crafting a good customer experience improves customer retention. An excellent onboarding experience and customized offers can go a long way in keeping customers satisfied and around overall. McKinsey says companies with experience-led growth strategies see 5-10% higher wallet share and 20-30% higher satisfaction and engagement.

2. Customers will pay more to companies with better customer service.

It’s hard to put a price on great service, and an extraordinary number of customers are willing to pay a premium to get it. Customers place a high value on how a customer service team treats them, and companies will directly profit from positive customer service encounters. Over 80% of customers reported that receiving value during a service experience makes them more likely to repurchase even when given a chance to switch to a competitor.

In an era where companies are learning to prioritize customer service, any company that doesn't do so will crash and burn. Moreover, one positive experience could make them stick to a brand, whereas one negative interaction could send them running to a competitor.

Pro Tip : To offer the good customer service customers stick around for, continuously solve for the customer. This looks like being quick to bring resolutions, you’re empathetic during conversations, offering omnichannel support options, and actually using customer feedback to improve your practices so you always have your customer in mind. It sounds like a lot, but an all-in-one customer service solution makes the process that much easier.

3. Customer service grows customer lifetime value.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a pretty important metric when you're running a business. CLV represents the total revenue you can expect from a single customer account. Growing this value means your customers shop more frequently or spend more money at your business.

But businesses have room for improvement in utilizing this vital metric— only 42% of companies can measure customer lifetime value.

Investing in your customer service team is an excellent way to improve customer lifetime value. If customers have a great experience with your customer service and support teams, they'll be more likely to spend money with your company again. Or, at the very least, they'll share their positive experience with others, which builds rapport with your customer base.

Customer service makes new customers more trustworthy of your business and allows you to upsell and cross-sell additional products with less friction. New users will trust that your sales team is recommending products that truly fit their needs, creating a smoother buying experience for both the customer and your employees.

Pro Tip: To increase CLV, focus on building long-lasting, beneficial relationships with your customers. Offering an excellent product/service and excellent support when customers need help makes them more likely to purchase and repurchase what you offer. Every single positive experience increases the likelihood of their return and extends the length of your relationship, creating a higher CLV.

4. Customer service can lead to more revenue.

Business leaders understand that budgeting and other business decisions are about the bottom line. But customer service can also bring in revenue and impact the bottom line.

A report showed that customer experience leaders across all industries have 2X greater revenue growth than their peers , and this has been consistent since 2016.

Additionally, American companies reportedly lose about $136.8 billion yearly because of avoidable customer losses. Therefore, a positive or negative customer experience directly impacts your company’s revenue and growth.

Customer service team members are on the frontlines, communicating daily with current and potential customers. As a result of this proximity, customer service can offer valuable insight that can help improve marketing outcomes.

1. Customer service employees can offer important insights about customer experiences.

It doesn't matter how you perceive your brand. What matters is how your customer perceives it.

For instance, if you work for an athletic wear company, you might associate your brand with fitness, health and wellness, and people who play sports.

However, your customers may purchase from you because they associate your brand with leisure, comfort, and attractiveness. So, you should align your marketing with those values as well.

Your customer service team can answer many of these probing questions for you. Rather than spending time and money surveying customers constantly, you can have your customer service employees simply ask these questions while interacting with customers. Their response can give you many insights into improving your products, marketing, goals, and employee training .

The more you improve the customer experience, the harder your employees will work. Research shows that companies that invest in customer experience also see employee engagement rates increase by an average of 20%.

2. Proactive customer service creates marketing opportunities.

Consider adopting proactive customer service if you're looking for a cost-effective way to invest in your business. Rather than waiting for customers to report issues, this approach reaches out to them before they know the issues exist. This tells customers you're constantly working to remove roadblocks from their user experience.

But proactive customer service isn't only used for customer delight . It's also an effective marketing tool for introducing and promoting new products and services. For example, if you create a new feature that solves a common problem with your product, your customer service team can refer it to your customers.

They can use your CRM or ticketing system to look up customers who have had this problem in the past, reach out to them via the service ticket, and introduce the new feature and its benefits. This can be more effective than a sales pitch because customers feel the service rep understands their issue after troubleshooting it.

One way to streamline this process is by allowing sales and service teams to work together under a unified customer platform . Sales reps can store all relevant customer data in their CRM, while service reps can easily access these details, and then leverage the ticketing system to quickly log and address any issues—all in the same place.   

Current data shows that proactive customer service is more crucial than ever. Customers of every industry are accustomed to the fast-paced digital revolution and expect customer service teams to be speedy in resolving their issues.

A main customer frustration is long wait times when seeking support, and their rage only increases the longer they wait .

3. Personalized customer service can improve your online conversion rate.

Your online conversion rate can improve by 8% when you include personalized consumer experiences. A higher conversion rate should lead to more sales and more revenue. Customer service keeps your flywheel moving, like marketing and sales.

But service that isn’t personalized and makes customers feel like no more than a ticket number in the system harms customer retention. 62% of consumers think businesses can do more in terms of personalization because they’d prefer to feel like an experience is all about them.

Data supports that great customer service is an expectation, not a "nice-to-have." You'll attract new customers, prevent customer churn, and build your brand reputation and image with excellent customer service.

Every company is known for its customer service to some degree. Of course, you always want a positive brand image and customer service can be a significant determining factor.

1. Customer service affects your brand image and loyalty potential.

In many ways, your customer service team is the face of your brand. Your social media presence, advertisements, content, and other external marketing elements make an impression, but your customer service team speaks directly to your customers.

They are responsible for representing your brand when interacting with potential buyers. Customer service can break a company’s chance to turn a potential customer into a loyal customer. After a positive customer service experience, 89% of consumers report they are more likely to return and make another purchase. While making apurchasedecision, a critical factor for 66% of customers is the customer service reputation of the brand. W hen they receive poor customer service, 61% of consumers say they have cut ties with a brand.

Customer service is a key player when it comes to building your brand image and brand loyalty. Nearly three out of five consumers report that good customer service is vital to feel commitment toward a brand. Therefore, investing in a customer service team that accurately represents your mission and values is a worthy investment and a wise branding strategy.

2. Excellent customer service will protect relationships with customers who experience a mistake down the road.

When customers have a poor customer service experience, they're more likely to quickly share about it and leave the company than in previous years. And if you work in the B2B space, data shows that 51% of B2B companies start to avoid vendors after a poor customer service experience. However, if your company provides excellent customer service, 78% of consumers would do business with a company again after a mistake.

Additionally, only one in five consumers will forgive a bad experience at a company whose overall customer service they rate as “very poor,” while nearly 80% will forgive a bad experience if they rate the service team as “very good.”

3. A positive customer service reputation makes people more likely to do business with you.

Consumers consider customer service when they're making purchasing decisions. In fact, 78% of consumers use customer service to decide whether or not to do business with a company. This means that your company’s reputation for customer service will impact a large majority of potential customers.

Additionally, customer service doesn't begin and end with your frontline reps. The customer service potential customers experience during the sales process will also impact their purchasing decisions. Therefore, delivering positive customer service experiences should be the goal for any customer-facing role.

If a company doesn’t appreciate and properly resource its customer service team, it will show in the quality of service that customers receive. But when companies provide the proper training, technology, and work environment, customer service employees are a powerful force to turn satisfied customers into booming businesses.

1. Happy customer service employees will create happy customers.

Studies consistently show that happy employees are good for business. For example, recent research that studied customer service employees in a call center setting reported that happy employees were 13% more productive .

Despite this fact, not enough companies take employee satisfaction seriously—particularly in the case of customer service employees. According to our 2022 State of Customer Service report , almost 40% of customer service leaders say that their company views customer service as an expense rather than a driver for growth.

Companies can support their customer service team with the resources, technology, and respect they need to get more happy customers. When customer service staff are equipped to do their jobs well, they are more comfortable and motivated, and your customers are too.

2. Happy customers will refer others.

When humans have a memorable experience—good or bad—it’s natural to want to shout about it from the rooftops. But, of course, today’s rooftops are review websites and social media, with 55% of consumers sharing their purchases socially on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social sites.

For better or worse, your most impacted customers will do word-of-mouth advertising for you. In fact, 66% of salespeople say that the highest quality leads come from existing customers. Since great customer service translates to happy customers, your customer service team can be a major catalyst for cheap promotion through positive word-of-mouth and referrals.

Much like your most loyal customers, referred customers are a business treasure. Referred customers:

• Amount to 5 to 15% of new customers
• Drive $6 trillion of annual consumer spending
• Can offer a 25x return on ad spend

"The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers."

–Shiv Singh, Strategic Advisor

3. Good customer service encourages customers to remain loyal.

As we’ve covered, it's much cheaper to retain an old customer than to acquire a new one. So in this sense, the higher a customer's lifetime value—the total revenue a company can expect a single customer to generate throughout their relationship with that company—the higher the profit for your company.

In comparison to hundreds of possible competitors with similar products and services, your company has to do more than relish the exciting features of your products. You can differentiate your company from your competitors by providing stellar customer service. This is especially crucial when it’s time to launch a new product or service.

Your existing customers are 50% more likely to try a new product and spend 31% more money on it than a new customer, while new customers are only 5-20% likely to buy a product. But for those existing customers to stay long enough to consider a new product, it takes effort via customer service to keep them satisfied. 71% of consumers cited poor customer service as the reason they ended a relationship with a company.

Conversely, when your company’s customer service is excellent, you’re more likely to see your customers stick around and eventually try more of your offerings.

Loyalty is rooted in trust, and customers can trust real-life humans more than the ideas and values of a brand. So, by interacting with your customer service team, those customers can hopefully build life-long relationships with your business.

Beyond understanding how essential it is to put considerable effort into building a solid customer service team, companies need to provide employees with all the tools they need to deliver the type of consistent, proactive customer service required today.

Here are a few stats to keep in mind when improving your customer service team:

1. Customers expect high-quality service.

People don't just expect your business to have a customer service team; they anticipate your customer service team to be world-class and ready to help at a moment's notice.

In fact, according to new data gathered after the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of those surveyed (58%) said their customer service expectations are higher today than they were a year prior.

Customers demand higher quality customer service: 66% said they would switch brands if they felt they were being "treated like a number, not an individual." And there’s plenty of room for businesses to grow, as 71% of customers say they want a consistent experience across channels, but only 29% say they get it.

Customers now have more options than ever before, and they're not afraid to take their business elsewhere if unsatisfied with their experience. So it's now on brands to meet customer expectations if they want to attract and retain loyal customers.

2. Businesses need omnichannel solutions.

In the past decade, businesses gradually explored new, digital ways to engage and support customers. But over the past few years, this timeline accelerated significantly.

Now, 79% of service leaders say customer service needs to be available across every channel customers use.

This presents a huge opportunity for CS teams. As we shared in our 2022 State of Customer Service report , only 50% of companies have enabled their service teams with the most basic service features a CRM can provide: a help desk, knowledge base, and shared email capabilities. As a result, many businesses have much catching up to do to provide their customer service teams with the tools they need to serve customers well across every channel.

Considering this is also one of the highest ROI strategies for CS teams, count omnichannel solutions as a major growth area in the future.

The image below explains how omnichannel experiences work:

Image Source

Rather than having each channel operate independently, the channels link together so they can share messages and information freely. That way, customers don’t have to navigate away from what they’re doing to get help from your business.

Instead, any time they need help, they can reach out on any channel of their choice and will get an immediate, reliable response.

3. Excellent customer service is a competitive advantage.

No matter your industry, you want your business to stand out. After all, nobody strives to be the "second-best" at something. Instead, you want to be better than every other company you're competing with and want your customers to know it, too. That's the key to keeping customers loyal and getting them to interact with your brand continuously.

Customer service can be an excellent differentiator for your company. But churn occurs when a customer stops doing business with a brand and it’s often because of a poor customer service experience. At least 67% of this churn is preventable if the customer's problem is resolved during their first interaction.That means if you provide excellent customer service, you'll not only retain your customers but also acquire your competitors'.

It's undeniable that a well-trained, positive customer service team can make your company the best version of itself. Their ability to communicate directly with customers can revolutionize your company and grow your customer base .

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts.

It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” –Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder

Invest in Your Customer Service Team Today

There’s a strong, data-based case for the positive, multi-layered impact that great customer service can have on a business. The proof is in the research and the results: one significant aspect of a thriving business is to put effort and resources into recruiting and training top customer service talent.

So, now that you’ve seen the numbers, what will you do to raise the standard of customer service at your company?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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• Customer Expectations

Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more."

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It is important to make sure that you only promise your customers what is realistic and achievable by the means of the business.

It is not important to follow up with customer and track their experience and satisfaction after having offered a solution

What are the benefits of fulfilling customer experience?

Fulfilling customer expectations has no impact on the company's ability to attract new customers. 

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- Sam Walton

The main goal of customer service should not be to meet customer expectations but to exceed them, in order to satisfy the customer.

Customer expectation definition

To understand customer expectations, it is important to first define them. Then we'll look at the different types and how to identify and manage these expectations.

Customer expectations can be defined as the set of actions, behaviours, environment, and benefits the customer looks for while interacting with a business.

What is customer expectation?

Expectations of customers vary depending on the product or service they are looking for. Customer expectations have increased with the advancement of technology and digitalisation. Big firms spend millions of dollars to understand the trends in customer expectations and improve their services accordingly.

One reason to value customer expectations is the fact that the loss of business due to unsatisfied customers forces the company to acquire new customers, which costs the company more than what it would cost to maintain existing ones.

Identifying customer expectations

Identifying customer expectations is crucial to fulfilling or exceeding them. However, one challenge of this is the change in customer expectation trends .

Understanding customer expectations requires extensive research and asking the right questions. You have to make sure that you understand your industry and its changes well and in a timely fashion. This requires continuous communication with your customers.

Unlike before, customers now expect tailored experiences . Delivering this requires in-depth collection and understanding of feedback from each customer. It is helpful for businesses to ask questions, such as the following, to customers to gain a better understanding of their expectations:

Who is the target audience?

Are the products relevant?

What do customers value?

What are the features that help other brands stand out?

Customer needs analysis is a common technique followed by businesses to understand their target audience and their needs. It is the process of identifying customer requirements for a particular product or service. It helps businesses understand what factors affect a customer’s purchase decision.

The following methods can help to understand customer expectations and their experiences:

Customer surveys - this helps businesses understand how well they have been meeting customer expectations, how much more work has to be put in, and where, in order to meet customer expectations.

Customer interviews - this involves direct communication with the customer to collect feedback. This way, businesses can also understand how customers feel about the brand from their tone.

Customer review - reviews customers leave online can also help businesses understand how they feel about the brand. This can help to gain an insight into the gaps in fulfilling customer expectations.

Examples of customer expectations

Some examples of common customer expectations are mentioned below:

Quick service - Customers expect quick and efficient service from interactions with a business.

Shorter waiting time - Customers expect and are willing to wait for certain services such as consulting a doctor. But having to wait long hours, especially after the appointed time can cause discomfort and dissatisfaction.

Trustworthiness - Customers expect businesses to deliver what they promised. Failing to do so will reflect negatively on the business, and customers will not return. This can include timely delivery, quality products, etc.

Clean surroundings - Keeping the business surroundings clean, hygienic, and pleasant is very important, and is one of the very basic expectations from a customer.

Availability of products or services - When customers come looking for a specific product or service, they expect the product to be available. Inability to cater to the customer’s wants will result in dissatisfied customers.

These are some of the common and basic expectations from customers. Remember that they can change for different types of business interactions.

Types of customer expectations

The customer expectations can be of various types (see Figure 2 below), and they are as follows:

Explicit expectations - These are specific mental targets the target audiences have about a particular product or service.

Implicit expectations - These are the basic characteristics customers anticipate when interacting with a business. They depend on the existing behaviours of other businesses in the market.

Interpersonal expectations - These are the expectations customers have during personal contact with any of the staff members. Customers expect staff to be well-informed, respectful, and professional.

Digital expectations - Customers now have contact with businesses more often digitally than personally. This is the type of expectation that customers have when they communicate or interact with the brand digitally rather than in person.

Dynamic performance expectations - As customer needs change over time, they expect products to evolve accordingly. Product changes are important for businesses to remain relevant in the market. These expected changes in a product or service are called dynamic performance expectations.

Importance of customer expectations

One of the most important goals of every business is to satisfy customers and make sure that they come back. Customer satisfaction is important to retain customers, and meeting their expectations is important to satisfy them. Therefore, understanding customer expectations and fulfilling them is one of the first steps for businesses.

If your brand manages to fulfil customer expectations, it reflects positively on the brand and its products. Customers will be satisfied and perceive the product to be of high quality. This will in turn result in repeat purchases and positive word of mouth .

Consequently, this will boost product sales and will also help the brand in acquiring new customers through word of mouth. Repeat purchases result in a loyal customer base . A brand that fulfils or exceeds customer expectations and has many loyal customers will stand out in the market , giving the competitors a tough time.

How does a business manage customer expectations?

Expectations may not be met due to many factors. But it is important to communicate the reason for them not being met, and rightfully manage the expectations so as to not lose customers. Business can do this by adopting the following methods:

Honest communication - if a company is facing a situation that is hindering them from providing the best service or meeting expectations, it must be openly communicated to the customer. This helps customers set realistic expectations and build their trust in the brand.

Well-informed customer service - it is important to offer a solution to every problem the customers might present. Being well-informed will help service employees provide many possibilities and solutions, and provide them quickly.

Being realistic - it is important to make sure that you only promise your customers what is realistic and achievable by the means of the business. Promising unrealistic solutions will lead to unsatisfied customers who will lose their trust in the brand when you fail to deliver the promises.

Follow up - after identifying a problem, it is important to follow up with the customer and track their experience and satisfaction after having offered a solution. Firms should make sure that the customer has benefitted from the solution, and that their expectations have been met.

Now you know how big of a role customer expectations play in business. Identifying them and taking steps to continuously understand changes in expectations is non-negotiable for businesses, as it affects the very survival of the business.

Customer expectations - Key takeaways

• Customer service can be defined as the set of actions, behaviours, environment, and benefits the customer looks for while interacting with a business.
• Customer analysis techniques can help identify customer expectations.
• Customer surveys, interviews, and reviews can help understand customer expectations and their experiences.
• Quick service, shorter waiting time, trustworthiness, clean surroundings, and availability of products or services are a few examples of customer expectations.
• Explicit, implicit, interpersonal, digital, and dynamic performance are the types of customer expectations.
• Fulfilling or exceeding customer expectations builds business reputation, results in repeat purchases and word of mouth, boosts sales, and helps in acquiring new customers and setting a loyal customer base.
• Honest communication, well-informed customer service, being realistic, and following up with customers can help to manage customer expectations.

Flashcards in Customer Expectations 6

The basic characteristics customers anticipate when interacting with a business are called:

Implicit expectations

positive word of mouth

Specific mental targets the target audiences have about a particular product or service are called ...

Explicit expectations 

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Frequently Asked Questions about Customer Expectations

what is customer expectation?

what are examples of customer expectations?

Quick service and product/service availability are some examples of customer expectations. 

Why are customer expectations important? 

Customer expectations are important because when a business fulfills them, it would boost sales, higher customer retention, brand loyalty, and repeated purchases. 

How do you identify customer expectations? 

To identify customer expectations, the following questions must be answered:

What are the types of customer expectations?

Explicit, implicit, and digital expectations are some of the types of customer expectations. 

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