Setting Expectations and Increasing Customer Sat
By: Lee Tucker, Photizo Group
In the recent North American MPS Decision Maker Tracking study a key measure was customer satisfaction with their MPS vendor. In the first half of 2011 there was essentially no difference between any of the vendors in terms of their customers overall satisfaction. However, a stronger measure of customer feelings about their vendor was recommendation. Would the customer recommend their vendor to friends and colleagues? Here there were significant differences between vendors. Why would customers say they were generally satisfied with their vendor but not be willing to recommend that vendor?
Setting customer expectations can drive satisfaction fairly easily. MPS vendors appear to be doing a good job of setting expectations for their MPS programs and services and meeting these expectations, so their customer say they are pretty satisfied.
To drive recommendation, i.e., customer referrals and ultimately loyalty they must do more. Setting expectations and simply meeting them is not enough. Expectations must be exceeded, often by a fair amount in order to drive recommendation and ultimately loyalty to high levels.
An example that comes to mind is Amazon. When you order a book from Amazon the first thing you notice is price, which is set as low or lower than other booksellers. Because price is one of the key drivers of customer satisfaction, recommendation, and loyalty, you start off relatively satisfied. But the interesting part is how they set expectations for delivery and always exceed them, often by a significant margin. You’ve ordered your book and Amazon has said it will be delivered to your door in a week at a price lower than you could get elsewhere. Well a week is kind of long, but okay, you got a great price. Then your book arrives in well under the week promised, so your expectations have not just been met, but exceeded. In this way they have expectations and then exceed them, often by a significant margin.
Webinars discussing more finding from Photizo’s Decision Maker Tracking Study will be held September 7 and September 8. Learn more here.
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