EXPECTATION, ENTITLEMENT AND FAILURE IN THE EXPERIENCE ECONOMY

Philip Drake - Aug 2023

Background photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

Can expectation become the linchpin of your competitive advantage?

Expectation?

For your customers, expectation works like a pre-experience of your business before they arrive. However once set in their minds, they frequently feel entitled to that experience... and that’s where the problem starts. 

In forming expectations we predict an experience or journey ahead. So when customers play out that mental or virtual experience before they actually show up in person, they may feel certain it will happen exactly as they have already experienced in their minds.  If it doesn’t meet that expectation they can be disappointed or confused. Generating emotions based on predictions or expectations is built into how the brain works. When our experience doesn’t match our predictions, it creates dissonance and we feel uneasy or upset.

The important part here is that when thinking about managing your Customer Experience you need to actively consider that it starts well before they arrive at your business or venue and even that pre-experience is part of the total experience that needs to be planned and managed. 

Expectation management then needs to be thought of as a core part of overall customer satisfaction. Moreover, it can become the linchpin of your competitive advantage since often businesses that do no more than simply meet expectations with consistency, already have a significant advantage over their competitors. 

Anticipation Versus Expectation 

The distinction between anticipation and expectation is often confused because it is mostly one of attitude. Both are useful and powerful emotions so we should understand the differences and how they are formed. 

In the true sense of the word, anticipation is mainly about hope or thinking about something ahead of time with an understanding it may or may not happen.  For example, we will look forward with anticipation to the next time we can wander into the mountains on a hiking trip, even though we have no idea when, or even if, that will be. 

As we start to lock into those feelings however and form more solid ideas on what could happen, perhaps even drawing information from outside sources, anticipation may transform to expectation – what we expect, or predict, will happen. 

There’s another very important distinction between anticipation and expectation.  When we anticipate something we can simply enjoy the pleasurable emotion or can choose to take steps to make it happen. With expectation, on the other hand, we may frequently regard it as entirely likely to happen and therefore assume we don’t need to take action towards it. 

These pre-conceived ideas usually rely on our interpretation of things we have seen and heard and involve assuming others will also act in the way we expect. Unfortunately, this allows for not taking responsibility when things don’t go our way and also makes it very easy to assign blame to others for failing to meet that expectation. 

Emotional Response

In his book The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences, Matt Watkinson puts it concisely “The only measure of an experience that really matters is how the real world compares to the dress rehearsal in your head”  (Watkinson, 2013)  

For all businesses, but especially for those who rely on customers to visit a physical space, considerable focus is needed on where, how and what informed that “dress rehearsal” in the first place. Marketing, social media, even brand reputation will all contribute - in fact, anything at all prior to the actual on-site experience. All these elements set up the sense in your customers that they will experience something, or feel something, or have an emotional response to something, in a certain way. 

We should assume ALL customers will arrive with some expectations, some pre-experience dress rehearsal of your business, and potentially some sense of entitlement that they will get what has already played out in their minds.

What happens next can mean the difference between losing a customer and gaining their lifelong loyalty and advocacy. And much of this will boil down to whether their subsequent experience of your business falls short of expectations, meets expectations, or exceeds the expectations they arrived with.

Where Do Expectations Come From?

Your customer will develop these expectations from everything they observe or absorb about your business before they arrive: marketing messages, recommendations from a friend, social media comments, online forums, TV reports, review sites, articles in newspapers or magazines, your signs, and your colour schemes. Even if they know nothing beforehand and accidentally stumble across your business while out on a stroll, they will at least take something from your business name, the outward presentation, and the neighbourhood in which you operate. Before they even get to enter your “door”, an expectation forms. 

With some of these elements, you can plan and orchestrate exactly as you wish. Others may feel like you have little control over, like reviews and online comments, but I would argue that you have more influence than you may initially think.  

I’m just going to mention a few here.

Marketing Misadventures.

Marketing of course is a great tool – when it works for you. Of  the hundreds of marketing discussions I’ve sat in, books I’ve read, presentations I’ve attended, articles and posts I’ve read, the vast majority of talk is around attracting the attention of a potential customer and getting them off their seats and to your door – aka: the call to action.

Unfortunately, I find not enough focus is ever on making sure what is being promised can actually be delivered - even less on the importance of ensuring that marketing is used as part of a cohesive customer experience management strategy across the whole customer journey. Marketing should also fine-tune the expectation of that potential customer so that they arrive with the right expectations and emotions.  

Some years ago I worked on a leisure development project that, as it came closer to the opening date, advertising started appearing on television promoting a destination I barely recognised. It seems the Marketing Team had a completely different idea of what the experience would be once we opened to paying guests – and now so did the potential customers. The call to action had failed to align with expectation management.

While it’s a great strategy to talk up your Unique Selling Proposition in such a way to get people to take action, make sure the “Unique” is actually recognisable when they arrive, or that it’s not “Selling” a product or service level you can not deliver.

Clearly, the problem here is that customers will, at some point in the journey, be disappointed, and the more their excitement is built up by marketing, the greater the discord and disappointment when it does not meet expectations. The marketing may have got people in the door, but if they leave disappointed you have probably lost that customer for life. 

Make sure your marketing adds to your story and customer journey, builds anticipation, and even some expectation, but doesn’t promise more than you can successfully deliver - with consistency.

Social Media, Customer Comments, Rants, and Reviews 

So while you may have more direct control over your own marketing, we know it is no longer the most influential factor in setting your customer’s expectations. Social Media, online comments and review sites have become so important in influencing buying decisions that the need to factor them into setting expectations cannot be ignored.

While it may frustratingly seem you have little influence over a comment on Yelp, an online review, or even misinformation spreading through social media, in the context of setting expectations there are two main ways to proactively manage this and they are both obvious:

1. Include Social Media in your marketing strategy. Most businesses do this already of course but be clear and consistent, feed social media the right cues, and don’t leave expectations to others’ imaginations.

2. Improve your customer experience.  OK, this seems blindingly obvious but this is really the best way to influence what people say about your business online. Take notice of your customer experience, spend the time to analyze it, work on your customer journey, develop a customer experience strategy and a plan. Take active steps to provide the customer experience that garners positive reviews, not negative. 

Word-of-Mouth Recommendation

This one is the most influential by far. Direct word-of-mouth recommendation from a trusted friend, colleague or family member shows the highest follow-through rate. In many ways, this is the holy grail of free advertising and customer loyalty – having your customers become advocates for your business. 

However, it is not without its pros and cons.  While word-of-mouth recommendation not only sets up expectations that will persist even over your own marketing, you have limited management of the expectations it establishes – including accuracy, the balance of oversell or undersell, and of course if the comments are positive or negative. A poor review from a trusted friend will, in most cases, completely override any offers, incentives or stories you are trying to tell with your marketing.

The good news is that word of mouth has the highest tolerance of discord. If a customer visited based on their friend’s glowing recommendation but didn’t have such a great experience, there is more tolerance for giving it a second try, rather than never visiting again.

Once again the best thing you can do to take charge of this is to improve your customer experience. Before you try to boosts sales with more advertising, deals, or pushing that call to action, take a really good look at the existing customer journey with a particular focus on the end experience. The endpoint is crucial for customers to leave with positive memories of your business - memories that they can then relate to friends and family. Far too many businesses I’ve seen fail to put enough focus on the end of the customer journey. Some argue that just like the most engaging entertainment experiences, the big finale is more important than first impressions. Design and manage those departing memories. Make sure your customer leaves with an experience they actually want to talk about. Make sure you can do this for every single customer. 

Failing to Meet Expectations

Undoubtedly the biggest single challenge for creating a successful Customer Experience is failing to at least meet expectations. Every customer will arrive with some kind of knowledge of your business and therefore some kind of expectation.  It becomes critical then for businesses to set and manage expectations that are clear, consistent, and as accurate as possible. Meeting expectations provides the platform for consistent customer satisfaction and even then occasionally exceeding those expectations, which leads to customer loyalty.

Finally just a quick warning on over-delivering or exceeding expectations too often. To set out to always exceed expectations makes that the normal expectation. Consistently over-delivering simply becomes the expected standard level of delivery, not the exceptional. It’s a very fine line to manage and requires great caution. More about that coming up in a future article.

Thanks for reading.

Comments and questions can also be left there and I will try to respond to all questions.

Philip Drake 

References: 

Watkinson, M. (2013). The Ten Principles Behind Great customer experiences. Pearson Financial Times.

Image credits:
Main photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash