Exceeding customer expectations is the number one marketing hack that you can do in your business.
Here’s the problem.
You and I as business owners, we often believe we’re exceeding expectations when in reality we’re not even meeting our customer’s expectations.
So we’ve got to determine, are we actually truly exceeding what a reasonable person has the right to expect when they do business with us?
Here’s how we do that.
We call this the customer expectation litmus test.
Here’s what it looks like.
So you take out a sheet of paper.
Draw three columns: does not meet expectation, meets expectations and exceeds expectations. We want to be over here.
We want to constantly exceed our customer’s expectations.
Now, on the left hand side, write down all the points of interaction that people have with your company before, during, and after the sale.
What are all the points of interaction?
So maybe they start by a phone call and we know that a reasonable customer has the right to expect us to answer the phone on the third ring.
So that means if we don’t meet expectations, we are gonna answer it on four rings or more.
To exceed expectations, we got to answer it quicker than three rings, which would be two rings.
We next move down, email response time.
How long do they expect us to take to respond to them?
Okay, so we say it’s four hours to respond as an expectation.
To not meet that means anything over four hours.
So five hours or above.
To exceed those, we’re gonna respond within three hours.
You get the point, you go down the list, shipping times, you go down, order checkout processes, all the things.
You make out this litmus test and you determine.
By using this test, on actual customers coming through your business, through your organization, determine if you’re actually meeting or exceeding expectations.
And here’s the thing, the company with the most evangelists, the most people who you’ve exceeded expectations for those companies will win today.
Because an army of evangelists is the best marketing tool that you or I can have.
Do you believe you’re exceeding expectations, meeting expectations, or not meeting expectations?
Be honest, be real because until you are honest with yourself, you will not address this problem, and the company who addresses this problem will ultimately win.
