A Battle of Expectations

Think about this. If not meeting the level of expectation of a customer meant losing the customer, a business would lose all of the customers who had higher hopes for the products and services offered. Conversely, if a business could somehow have greater expectations for themselves than any customer could, then they’d be able to maximize their potential impact on the market.

Consider coffee. If a non-discerning customer is in the market for some brown tinted water that has a stimulating effect, nearly any coffee will do. Both 7 Eleven and the single estate roaster shop would satisfy this customers needs. If, however, the customer has any expectations of quality whatsoever, 7 Eleven is not a viable option.

While this is an oversimplification, I think we all can benefit from the simple notion that the best insurance against managing others’ expectations is to simply make your expectations equal to or higher than others’. Of course, there’s more to business than this, but this concept will be redundant immediately once businesses across the board have remarkable expectations of themselves. Since that’s not the world we live in, it seems to me that we all can benefit from an internal call to raise the level of our expectations to match or exceed those we interact with.

Not in business? Exchange everything I just said for the context of relationships.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach