The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers

CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS DRIVE THE OUTCOME

Understanding what customers expect to experience when they interact with your business is one of the keys to creating an experience that “rocks.” Unless we understand the expectations of the customer experience from their perspective, we cannot begin to know whether we are meeting, much less exceeding, those expectations.

For example, customers in need of online customer service assistance generally have five specific expectations for that experience:

1. First and foremost, customers would prefer not to need a service experience at all. Far better if companies could prevent problems from ever taking place, by producing products that don't break down. That, of course, is unrealistic, and we must assume that problems will occur and need resolving. With that in mind, here are the other four customer expectations for an online service experience:

2. Customers want quick response times.

3. Customers want their problems solved—ideally, the first time.

4. Customers want to feel that the service person cares about them and their problems.

5. Customers need to be confident that using online service will be as easy, if not easier, than calling on the phone for assistance.

Organizations that offer online customer service should take these expectations into account when they are designing their online service experience across their Web site and social media touch points.

Set Customer Expectations

It is vital to set customer expectations. The more ...