We know that achieving quality is meeting customer expectations. It sounds simple, but we find that it is not easy.
To do this we should be able to answer these two questions:
1. What are my clients' expectations?
2. What do I have to do to satisfy them?
And not only to know the answer but, and first of all, to act accordingly. Many entrepreneurs study, know the answers, the media, but none of that "wisdom" is practiced in their companies.
Let's start by addressing the first question. How will we know our clients' expectations? How are those expectations formed?
Knowing how a customer is formed, the expectation of our service is that we can put ourselves into action, because, as we will see, we ourselves are responsible for their expectations, at least in part.
The SERVQUAL model (Zeithaml, Berry and Parasmaman) tells us that there are three sources from which the customer forms his expectation:
1. Your own needs.
2. The information you receive.
3. Previous experiences.
Probably in which we do not have influence is in the first of them (their own needs), since the need that made the client look for our service comes from himself, from his reality.
I personally don't believe in "creating a need" in the client. It may be that we have given you information so that you discover a need that until now you were not aware of, but that you already had (we would be at point 2: the information you receive).
Another option may be that we have convinced you that you need something that you don't really need; but this is a hoax. If we did this we would be compromising that person's future as a client, since sooner or later he will realize that we made him buy something he did not need, and this will generate mistrust of our company.
Let's go to point 2: The information you receive.
Clients receive information from different sources about a service (comments from other satisfied or dissatisfied clients, the media, etc.). One of those sources is the company itself. Here then we must pay attention.
Clients receive information from the same company! And this influences your expectations. Here we have a double-edged sword, because on the one hand we want to attract customers and for that we “sell” our service in the best way. But also, with that same information we are generating the expectation that later we must satisfy.
Let's see an example: I communicate on my website that my hotel provides 24-hour laundry service. A customer forgot to wash and iron his shirt for a business meeting. At 5 am he asks me to do it so I can put it on two hours later. I do not really have a laundry staff at that time (I would never have imagined this situation, so I put "24 hours", meaning "at any reasonable time to wash clothes"), but due to the incorrect information transmitted, I put the client in a problem, generating great dissatisfaction.
We are responsible and must take charge of the information that we transmit to the client. We must use precise language and not promise what we cannot fulfill.
Analyze how your company is influencing from the information transmitted to customers:
1. Make a list with all the means of communication that you use with your clients (web, brochures, advertising, email, etc.)
2. Review each one of them contrasting each "promise" of service with the current reality. Try to be as objective as possible. To help you you can ask a trusted employee or customer to give you their reality look.
3. Verify that the terms used are not ambiguous, or do not have a different interpretation in other regions (in case your clients could come from there). Help yourself with dictionaries, web, etc.
4. Reformulate the texts replacing the inaccurate, ambiguous or erroneous information.
If you did the previous exercise and made a correction, you will have prevented future dissatisfactions from your customers. You are closer to providing excellent service.
