Certainly, research shows that meeting or exceeding customer expectations is the key to success, but this is not as simple a task as it sounds, at least because most cultures of service delivery organizations indicate this.
Today I'm not going to try to describe any perfect examples of quality work or research, but rather focus on what the words in the title of this session mean - understanding real expectations. Certainly, research shows that meeting or exceeding customer expectations is the key to success, but this is not as simple a task as it sounds, at least because most cultures of service delivery organizations indicate this.
Let me start with a paradox that you may have already observed. We hear nothing more than the success that various people and companies have achieved in the area of quality, customer satisfaction, etc. but at the same time, the image of companies, and more particularly of companies perceived as more bureaucratic, has never been so low in the eyes of the customer. How can this be?
Is not true? To ensure that this sentence was still true, some quality research studies have been carried out among the clients of different companies, in order to have an updated vision of their perceptions and feelings. It seems clear that the study conducted in the last 20 years, from Sweden to Italy, was not out of date.
In many cases, in any median operating service company, even though surveys show that 10% of customers are dissatisfied, the actual number is close to 40%! In other words, such differences are common even though the services are more difficult to measure than the average. The most bureaucratic companies are usually below average for their "responsibility" in the market.
What are the key factors in failure to understand real expectations?
Factor 1. Satisfaction is an elusive quality.
The immediate reason why 1 in 3 customers do not reveal their true views on satisfaction is inertia. It is easier and simpler to say "good" than to go further, or simply to decide the destination. However, a deeper reason is that they have not been implicated in any way, and therefore do not know the questions they should ask to discover the truth, and at the same time, how to act to create a true dialogue. It is a bit like getting up and talking in a crowded room; many will find it interesting, but few will truly be reached by the message. The art is in knowing where, and how, what connections you have to offer with your deepest concerns. Then achieve satisfaction against this and only this!
Factor 2. Expectations can be of two forms: basic or differentiated.
Basic expectations are simply what needs to be met in order to achieve quality, such as a table having a stable base or surface, or an airline being safe or punctual, once it has become a normal expectation.
Differentiated expectations are those that once satisfied, make customers feel that they have received something special. In particular, when they have been recognized as individuals.
The problem is that most companies are struggling to act against basic expectations, of course, almost all of their qualities are basic, offering at most the minimum that customers expected. But as a customer, don't expect me to be too happy about this, it's what I paid for. All he has done is what I could reasonably expect in return for my money.
Factor 3. Service is the offer of individual people.
Individuality is the key to the success of every business today. Even the majority of "qualities" and other measures are about the development of "standards" and other similar measures, quite the opposite of the individual.
Moving to individuality is simply part of one of the most important changes in today's society and calls for a complete re-examination of everything we do. As a result, all businesses are moving in a direction in which customer satisfaction has to be recognized as a specific individual. This affects both car companies and breweries, as well as other conventional service sectors.
Service in this context - and the quality of service in relation to expectations - is to recognize and satisfy this individuality. Measurements, manuals, quality standards are enemies of all this, particularly if they are the main source or base of all control or analysis.
Factor 4. The staff are also individuals.
The forces that are shaping change in our society do not stop when they reach our staff or us! Service is offered by individuals to other individuals, and the spirit of this individuality must be allowed to express itself. This means that neither the individuality nor the sense of personal responsibility that we all carry within should be blocked.
But at the point of customer interaction, the bureaucracy and also the rules frequently predict this. "Nor is the knowledge they possess valued or collected, at least not in any structured and usable way".
Get the right view
Research shows that clients will be happier when a service organization recognizes them as individuals and at the same time responds to this in an acceptable and consistent manner.
To do this, to go beyond basic satisfactions and touch on the individual, the entire organization must be mobilized towards a specific purpose related to the client's needs and, crucially, to lead the staff towards this "vision". This is crucial because in services if those who are in direct contact with the public suffer from ambiguity or role conflict- uncertainty about the purpose or what is expected of "me" then the client will have negative experiences.
Services should be viewed as a "triangle". Almost all of our conventional management knowledge - even more so in the area of marketing - is based on what is right and on the axis. This is where product, price, etc. are key.
Services are more related to the lower axis, where studies show that almost 70% of customer expectations are satisfied, or not. Most of the money spent on quality improvement at this point is wasted because it is normally handled alone. But what happens in the third axis - internally - directly affects this and studies show that only those service organizations with a synergy between internal and external culture are successful in the long term. A few years ago, studies in the United States showed this graphically.
In this work, the researchers had the image that service organizations were a balance between bureaucracy and customer enthusiasm (because without bureaucracy things do not happen; but also service organizations depend on customers and to satisfy them, enthusiasm is needed). However, no competitive organization could live for long on either end. Being totally enthusiastic doesn't allow you to do too much, other than make promises; Being completely bureaucratic would mean having the doors closed to the client, because they forget about the system.
The results showed that:
- employees perceived themselves as more enthusiastic but their managers thought they were more bureaucratic in service orientation. This suggested a gap between the objectives of the service employees vis-à-vis and the objectives of the managers perceived by the employees. Employees who worked in jobs that were more in harmony with their own service orientation experienced less ambiguity and conflict. role and, as a result, were generally more satisfied; although they viewed the service from two different perspectives, customer and employee perceptions of the organization's effectiveness were positively related: when employees reported that their section emphasizing service by word and by act, customers reported on better experiences.
This study also showed that:
- Employees were strongly service-oriented but frustrated that the system prevented it; the organization cannot be hidden from those it serves: the internal culture in service organizations is clearly evident to the customer.
