Understanding Customer Expectations

THE SITUATION

60% of consumers have purchased something from one brand over another based on the service they expect to receive.

(Source: Zendesk CX Trends Report, 2023)

THE OPPORTUNITY

Looking closely at The Situation, it isn’t about looking backwards at what happened. Rather, it’s about looking ahead to understand what customers expect from the brands they support. So, earning a customer’s loyalty (and acquiring new ones) requires a forward-thinking approach that is proactive in understanding their expectations before purchase decisions are made, not just their experiences after.

Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Customers are more than willing to share about their expectations with the brands willing to listen. In fact, they want to feel seen, heard, and understood, which is where The Opportunity lies. Through strategic market research and customer feedback initiatives, brands can be proactive in understanding what it is that customers have come to expect from them. Then, those insights can be leveraged for decision making across sales, marketing, customer experience, and overall business development initiatives.

THE CHALLENGE

One of the biggest challenges is that customer expectations are in a constant state of flux, and keeping up with any changes must be an ongoing effort. Furthermore, along with understanding the expectations themselves, it’s important to consider which factors are most prevalent in shaping and influencing those expectations. Is it sales and marketing messages? Is it past experiences with your brand? Or is it external factors like competitors, social influences, and environmental conditions? Likely it’s all the above, which can make things complicated. This highlights the importance of not only understanding customer expectations themselves, but digging deeper to identify when, where, and how those expectations are being set. That’s where the truly actionable insights are found.

THE SOLUTION

By staying connected with customers, gathering their feedback, and keeping tabs on their ever-changing expectations, brands can grow and evolve along with their customers. They can tweak and adjust marketing strategies as needed to strengthen alignment with customer priorities. They can explore the influence of competitors – both direct and indirect – to assess how external factors are playing a role and react to emerging threats or opportunities as they arise. Since there’s a myriad of factors influencing customer expectations, a holistic approach is the best approach.

Here are a few ways to leverage market research in understanding customer expectations:

Establish their wants and needs.

In order to meet and exceed customer expectations, we have to clearly define them. This seems fairly obvious, but it’s worth noting because it doesn’t always happen. At least not to the extent or level of detail required.

A great place to start is dedicating a customer feedback survey to focus on establishing what your audience wants and needs from your brand. Since customers are looking for brands to satisfy a want or need, this ends up being the foundation of their expectations. But go beyond the surface-level factors. Seek to understand why satisfying that want or need matters, and how it will impact their bigger picture. This is relevant because the brand-customer relationship doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are other variables and surrounding environments that shape a person’s expectations. Your brand is one piece that makes up their whole. The more we learn about their bigger picture and the roles our brands play, the better we can work toward exceeding their expectations.

Gather brand perception and competitor insights.

This is another standard piece of the customer expectation puzzle, and another that often goes overlooked. Understanding what people think about your brand and how you stack up against competitors offers a different perspective in understanding their expectations, because what people think about a brand largely shapes what they expect from that brand.

When gathering brand perception insights, it’s important to get more specific than traditional price, product, and placement attributes. Base some of the perception categories on your intended or ideal brand attributes, but also list others that might uncover shifting preferences or growth opportunities. Include level-of-importance ratings to identify areas of emphasis and challenge your assumptions of what customers prioritize. These insights will help provide deeper context and detail regarding their expectations.

Conduct pulse surveys.

These are short-and-sweet feedback opportunities that are limited in scope and happen periodically throughout the year. Rather than trying to capture everything under the sun in an annual or bi-annual survey, create a schedule attached to specific behaviors or events. Align survey topics with where they’re at along their customer journey to make sure the questions you ask are timely and relevant. This approach allows you to closely monitor how and when expectations shift with regularity, and how your brand is performing over time. Whereas with an annual or bi-annual survey, you’re left waiting for results or applying insights that might be outdated.?

An added benefit of pulse surveys is you’ll have an engaged audience that is regularly receiving timely, relevant, and easy-to-complete feedback opportunities. If a trend or opportunity pops up that you’d like to explore, they’ll be ready and willing to quickly provide their input.

At the end of the day, the goal of any brand should be to exceed expectations and make the reality even better than envisioned. Doing so won’t happen by chance, it will happen through strategic action and a conscious effort to hear from those who matter most – the customers.

MY ADVICE

Once you’ve established what customers have come to expect from your brand, cross-analyze those findings with satisfaction scores and customer experience survey findings. This is a great way to start closing any “expectation vs reality” gaps, assessing how you’re performing and identifying areas for improvement.

HOW WE CAN HELP

As seen in The Solution, understanding customer expectations is a multi-faceted process. From customer perceptions to their experiences with competitors, there are a variety of contributing factors – each of which are pieces that make up the broader puzzle. However, there needs to be a tactful and organized effort to uncover these insights in ways that produce truly actionable and goal-oriented results. This is where we come in.

Effective and efficient market research is about asking the right people the right questions at the right time, which requires a holistic and strategic approach that we at MacKenzie have been refining for over 35 years. From feedback project planning and questionnaire development to results analysis and data storytelling, our team can do the heavy lifting so your team can focus on what’s most important – taking action and exceeding expectations.

Whether you’re looking for high-level strategic guidance or ground-level tactical support, we have a market research package to fit your needs. If you’d like to learn more, give us a shout !

YOUR TURN

I’d love to see your thoughts and comments about customer expectations. Have you conducted any market research around this topic? If so, were the findings aligned with your assumptions and hypotheses? Did any thoughts or questions pop up while reading?

By sharing your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, we’ll foster a collaborative community where actionable insights are the foundation and collective success is the outcome.

Do you have a stat, trend, or topic you’d like me to write about? Send me a message or share it in the comments. I’ll add it to my idea list!