What are the 5 customer expectations?

Customer expectations change every minute of the day. Keeping up with these expectations is hard and especially with so many brands, products, and social media channels. Not meeting customer expectations means losing them to competitors. While you may not need all your customers’ expectations, here are ten key expectations that you have to remember to have happy and loyal customers.

Key ten customer expectations that you should always remember

1. Genuineness

Customers expect honesty and genuineness from brands. Do not advertise what your product and service do not offer. Do not make false and unnecessary tall claims. You need to ensure you convey consistent information across all your customer touchpoints. Misinformation could hurt your business tremendously, and you may lose out on current and prospective customers.

2. Precise expectations

When customers buy a certain product, they have certain expectations from it, and ideally, they will go with the brand that meets most of their requirements. Whatever claims or performance statistics a brand puts out, the customers expect it to perform to that level. If a car manufacturer claims their car has a fuel efficiency of 30 miles to the gallon, customers can expect a difference of +/- 4 or 5 miles. But if the actual numbers are 18-20 miles to the gallon, then the product performance and expectations are suspect.

3. Implied expectations

These types of customer expectations are based on established industry norms of performance. These are established and influenced by industries, other brands, performance, etc. A great example of these expectations would be when brands advertise with messages such as ‘In comparison to leading brands’, which is necessary for some customers or potential customers to make a decision.

4. Quick and hassle-free

Customers, when they are ready to buy something, they do not want to spend a lot of time. Most of the time, they will have already conducted their research and made up their minds about buying. Focus on making the buying experience an easy and smooth process. Make everything available to them ad easy to access. An excellent and smooth buying experience will gain your customers and their trust.

5. Humanize

Customers nowadays have numerous options to look for products, services, or data online. They can view product information, customer reviews, pictures, videos, etc. They may make up their minds about the purchase but still would go to a physical store, speak to a representative via calls, etc. Customers have emotions, feelings, expectations, and you should respect these and cater to them. Do not just consider them a target segment or a persona, speak to them, connect with them to have loyal and satisfied customers.

6. Steady expectations

These refer to the quality and performance expectations that customers have for a product or service. These expectations are typically related to user-friendliness, quality, dependability, and accessibility. These are the parameters that are most visible and considered.

7. Evolving expectations

These customer expectations are about how a service or product will evolve over time. These typically refer to aspects such as support, additional features, refinements, upgrades, etc. These expectations are instrumental in addressing the steady expectations through integrations, utilities, system requirements, etc., making it more stable and robust.

8. Evolving technological expectations

These expectations are to do with the ever-changing nature of some product categories. Some common examples would be laptops or mobile phones, where there are new developments every few days regarding display, performance, durability, etc. These expectations are not only features-based but also to do with self-image, ego, elation, etc.

9. Keep it simple and easy

This aspect is not essential only for designing your offerings. You need to keep this in mind considering the customer journey and all customer touchpoints. What will your customers need in the before purchase phase? What about after purchase? You need to keep these in mind to deliver a good and satisfying customer experience. Create easy-to-navigate websites, develop easy-to-use apps, and let it be the motto for all your functions.

10. Continued support

Customers need assurances that they will receive support if anything goes wrong or they are stuck somewhere. Not all are well-versed technologically to understand products or services, or use the app or website to look at help files. You need to consider all avenues and provide support accordingly.

Managing customer expectations is no easy feat. It directly impacts customer satisfaction and (CX). QuestionPro CX can help manage and elevate your CX. Why don’t you try a trial version to see how it works? It takes less than a minute.

Most companies put a large amount of importance on trying to meet their customers’ expectations, with the vast majority of top managers saying that it is a top priority to meet their customer expectations, and with a large number of this majority wanting to use their customer experience as an advantage, competitively speaking.

Yet it is a huge and full market place out there, with consumers wanting different things at different moments. Still, it may be difficult to make a general statement about what all customers want. Fortunately, there is a research of customer service that shows there are some very common expectations, thereby making it easier to set our goals and targets.

1. Customers would like you to meet their expectations.

It may seem complicated yet it is very simple. Customer dissatisfaction comes from a sense of disconnection from the expectation of service and what is in fact delivered.

Research has shown that customer expectations have 2 levels, the desired and the sufficient. Of course, there is a third that is unsatisfactory; this is where a company fails to meet the desired or the sufficient level for customer satisfaction. The disparity between these two levels is very obvious and will be shown in the company profits.

The secret is to measure and understand your customer’s expectations, and if you do this then you can manage them. A number of businesses have learnt that it is better to undersell rather than over deliver. This works by increasing the chance of surpassing the customer’s expectations, while others take a sense of pride in high expectations with the full knowledge that they can deliver on them. But, this is vital, never mind the approach that companies use to manage customer satisfaction.

2. Customers want choices in how they can contact you.

The significance of giving customers the choice and/or choices of how they contact you is of a great importance. Customers prefer to be able to contact you in their chosen manner, whether it in person, online, or on the telephone. Customers usually prefer to do the simple tasks the easiest way but as that task becomes more complicated, then communication in person becomes the preferred choice.

3. Customers expect a timely response.

It doesn’t matter where or how but generally, people dislike waiting, so you have to make sure your service is offered in a timely response.

In defining a timely response - this depends on your customer and their preferred choice of communication. Thus, make sure you deal with the issue as quickly as possible - your customer - regardless of the method of contact. Advances in technology have helped this with emails, phones, as well as better solutions at call centers which have all helped to decrease the dreaded time that customers wait.

4. Customers want a relationship (or, at the very least, a personalized experience).

It seems as if we live in an increasingly anonymous culture, with self-service being the norm. Customers wish more and more for a personalized service when it really matters. A study by a bank found that over 60% of its banking transactions by customers were still made face to face with a cashier.

Customer relationship management (or CRM) technology now allows for businesses to make a relationship with their customer even at a call center, as agents can greet a caller by name and have a detailed history of the customer’s history, thereby not having the customer repeat information every time that they call and increasing the personal feel and making things quicker and easier for the customer.

This also helps in being able to proactively contact the customer as for example, sending emails or similar about applicable promotions or follow-up calls to make sure of customer satisfaction.

Building a relationship with customers can greatly increase the possibility of surpassing their expectations, and this can make them strong supporters of your brand.

5. Customers want you to solve their problems!

The basic principle of any customer inquiry is the need for a quick solution. People do not want to spend hours and hours and then end up feeling like they have been through the ringer to get their problem solved or their questions answered.

Giving your employees the ability to solve customer issues is the main thing. Customers don’t want to be transferred or received 50 emails so that they lose patience with your company which in turn leads to a loss of good feeling and can lead to your business losing and not increasing its customer base.

So, by solving a customer problem in a timely fashion is a sure-fire way to avoid issues from your customers later on.