Manage Your Customers Expectations

Effective account management spokes in several directions. Managing customer expectations can be a key component in retaining business opportunities. The same account management principles translate into the environmental, consulting and construction industries as well.

I always try to keep in mind when I advertise my services or products that not only do I have to give the customer what they want, but also I have to manage customers expectations so that they are not expecting something more than what they are getting. The old adage, "it is better to under promise and over deliver" is ever more apparent to me as I work with my customers.

As an example, grocery stores do a pretty good job of managing our expectations. We all have an idea what we expect when we go into the grocery store, right? We expect and usually get clean stores, well groomed employees, customer service once in a while, full shelves, etc. When we go to the store, we park the car, we grab a shopping cart and start heading down the aisles looking for the best deals on the stuff we like. We pick the best apples and bananas from the bunch, stand in line, pay and head back home.

It's a pretty mundane experience that happens all over, every day, all the time.

Now imagine what it would be like to visit a store and expect to get the best parking spot, perfectly ripe bananas and no more than 3 customers in a check out line. Imagine they advertised this over and over again so that you had an expectation when you went to that store that you could always get a ripe banana and never be in anything but a short checkout line.

How would you feel if you had these expectations and walked into the equivalent of your normal grocery store? You would be disappointed, right? In real life, the bananas are often green or too ripe, sometimes there are three or four people ahead of us in line and the car may parked in the 5th stall in the 4th aisle. You might still go back to the store, but in the back of your head you would probably think that this store does not perform as well as it is supposed to. The advertising campaign, the grocery store brand, the manager and employees would all lose credibility in your eyes, right? The knock-on effect is a lost loyalty between you and this store.

The same account management principles translate into the environmental, consulting and construction industries as well. Managing the customer's expectations, something I have learned to work on with my customers.