The effects of time and influence on Customer Expectations and Experience

Often when we talk about customer service or experience, it's as if it's one, easily definable thing – as if the whole of your customer experience could be defined by one moment frozen in time. But nothing is farther from the truth. As we know from both personal history and myriad of published articles, the true service experience happens over time.

Of course, you can and should examine individual interactions that take place along the way and do the necessary litmus testing to get a complete picture of how your customers are feeling about you, your customer service representatives, and even your competitors. These regular check-ins are necessary to any viable, long-term customer service plan.

But today I’d like to ask what are you doing – and even how much can you do – to prepare for the inevitable evolution of your customers’ expectations?

Rethink customer service as a lifecycle of interactions

Let’s take a step back first. We are all consumers, which means that we often think and act just like our own customers in our expectations of customer service. With that lens on, what level of service are you willing accept from your preferred brands or service providers? How different is that from last year, or three years ago, or five, or ten?

So when we talk about that overall customer experience, it’s time to shift our perspective. It's not one frozen moment, but the lifetime of interactions that someone has with our service organization that will most greatly affect how they will experience us as a company:

And, as I eluded to in the opening of this article, our expectations are always evolving – always. It’s something that is natural to all of us as humans and rooted in our capacity for and to be influenced.

Whether your customer expresses their expectations openly or not, each customer service experience they have – good, bad, or in-between – works to create a new norm. And regardless of how expressive your customer might be, when their expectations are met, something begins to happen inside them: it becomes their new norm.

As customers encounter experiences that affirm their expectations and support the new norm, then, for better or for worse, the cycle validates our wants – and we’re back at the beginning.

This isn’t an earth-shattering discovery, but it does help us better understand why customer expectations are always growing and evolving. And it underscores the threat that this natural evolution of expectations poses to any organization or industry.

Some part of human nature is that we "want what we want" and, when we get it, we are happy, but we are always wanting more. Each moment in this cycle – between expectations and norms, norms and experiences, then experiences and expectations – can be an opportunity for your customer service to succeed or fall short.

Differentiation and disruption

Let’s ground that theory with an example that many of us can relate to: think back to when you used to pay for online shops to ship their goods to you. 

Then the first somebody came along and said, “Hey, if you're willing to wait a week, I'll send it to you for free.” We didn't realize that we wanted free shipping until that somebody came along. They were a disruptor. They offered us free shipping when we used to pay for it.

By doing that, they've enhanced customer expectations. They've disrupted our customer experience and given us that “more” that we didn’t even know we wanted.

With each enhanced experiences, expectations rise – and suddenly customers are wondering, “Why on earth would I ever pay for shipping again?”

When those expectations are met repeatedly over time it establishes a new norm.

It may not always be your company creating the new norms or enhancing the experience – it could be an entirely new disruptor who has found their way into the market. And, not surprisingly, this period usually sees rapid movements amongst both new disruptors and long-time competitors. Organizations that can most effectively and rapidly respond to these new norms may be rewarded with a valuable differentiator and happier customers.

Regardless of who is driving the cycle of ever-increasing expectations, rest assured that the cycle will continue.

Think back to our same shipping example. We had left off with the disruptor in the market who brought in free shipping for those willing to wait a week which became a differentiator, likely won marketshare, and created a new norm by meeting this newly developed expectation. Then along comes free next-day shipping and suddenly the question on everyone’s mind is, “Why on earth would any of us wait a week again?”

These changes are happening in every industry. They're happening to all of us as consumers and they're happening because of our propensity as humans to be influenced. And every organization’s viability will be defined by this cycle.

Evolving with your customers

Knowing this, how can you better prepare your organization and your industry for the inevitable-yet-unpredictable changes?

There’s no one-size-fits-all path to preparing yourself for the natural evolution of customer expectations. However, you can make proven investments in your customer service now that will enable your prosperity and growth over time:

Make continuously improving service an expectation of your customer experience. First, create a roadmap or visionary path for what you intend the customer experience evolution to look like. If the roadmap is explicitly timebound and articulated, it will became an invaluable tool that can be measured against and revised as you continue on your journey to creating lifelong relationships with customers and the experiences that help acquire and retain them.

When thinking specifically about measurement, keep in mind the benefit of having myriad ways to track which customer experience and insights are of value. One Net Promoter Rating isn’t enough to sum up a customer’s true expectations and experience. Rather, consider the benefits of adding perspective to your NPS, introducing opportunities for customers to provide feedback more frequently and in simpler forms to increase response rates.

The goal of measurement in this area isn’t to defend how you currently engage with your customers or to seek fault but rather the effort to know your customers full expectations and how you are positioned to deliver experiences against those now and in the future. 

Invest in your customer service teams. It’s not enough to be aware and challenge your teams to do a better job as you evolve – it requires thoughtful and targeted investment. As you create your evolutionary roadmap for how customers will experience your brand, don’t forget to focus on the way you’ll grow and develop the teams that provide those experiences. This begins by assessing your current capabilities across your teams and the systems/processes upon which they depend. Then align your go-to experience roadmap with an investment strategy to support your teams with the right tools, training, and professional development opportunities.

Collaborate to identify realistic benchmarks for your customer service teams. Research- and customer-experience-focused organizations can provide invaluable insights on current trends and future considerations. But don’t overlook the power of networking and collaborating – there are more folks out there who aren’t your competitor than who are. Actively networking and collaborating helps you understand who your customers are, how your teams align and compare to others, and how other leaders have built their roadmaps. Seek out ways to connect with a community of others who are navigating the same challenges.

Remember: your primary goal is to know your customer, no matter how expectations evolve. Your Customer Relationship Management systems and insights from traditional sources (contact and purchasing channel preferences, cost-to-serve, and tenure) can help. Additionally, test out more advanced strategies such as connectedness with other consumers / customers, alignment with anticipated future product launches, and projected lifetime value.

What your customer expects from your business a year from now will not be adequate compared to what you have today. Whether it’s one year, three years, or five years from now, if you don’t evolve with the increasing demands of your customers, it’s only the question of how much time it will take for customers to turn disruptors into the new market leaders.

Time to prepare for the only truly predictable thing in life – change. 

If you're ready to dig in, we are here to help: [email protected]