How can we exceed customers’ expectations?
It is a genuinely $1B question. There is a lot of advice that you as a business have to find ways to do it. What makes me think about this subject is a letter from Bob Igor to customers after he returned to a CEO role at Disney.
At a glance, I didn’t see anything extraordinary that got my attention. It looks just like a normal, encouraging letter from a CEO. But if you look closely, particularly at the last sentence, he basically said Disney would continue to exceed the “highest” customer expectations.
To give a little background, Bob Iger stepped down as CEO of Disney in February 2020, a role he held for 15 years. He officially handed the reigns to Bob Chapek at the time. Three years later, Iger returned to his former role as a CEO, replacing Chapek.
Chapek is a very smart person and mostly executed the plan Iger left. It just turns out he wasn’t very good at being CEO. During his short tenure, Chapek alienated everyone from employees to the Governor of Florida, A-list movie stars, investors, and Disney’s theme park guests. That’s an almost impressive list, considering how little time he had to make them all angry.
I still remember reading the news with surprise that Scarlett Johansson sued Disney in July 2021, claiming that the studio sacrificed the film’s box office potential to grow its fledgling Disney+ streaming service. The case was settled in September of the same year. Something like this wouldn’t happen under Iger’s leadership.
Iger identified that focusing on exceeding customer expectations is his priority number one. If you ever work in a customer service area, you would agree that it sounds good, but it’s no easy job. I admit that I struggle every day to just “meet” their expectations.
Sometimes customer expectations are entirely unreasonable because customers are people, and sometimes people are unreasonable. That’s unfortunate, and there’s not a lot you can do for them. But also, it’s what happens when you do a poor job setting expectations for them. That’s on you.
So, how to exceed their expectation if “just meeting their expectation is not enough anymore”? Let’s face it there’s nothing magical about giving people what you promised. You have to give them more if you want to create the kind of loyalty and passion that Disney fans have for the brand.
The answer is in your strategy and culture. There are 2 prerequisite factors that your business must have.
1) A discipline from all departments on how to set the right customer expectations. More often than not, your sales colleagues tend to ruin your day with their promise-the-world sales pitch.
And 2) Allocating sufficient attention and resources to look after customers. It’s easier said than done. Most businesses spend lots of money on sales and marketing to drive growth. They don’t have money to look after customers. It’s an expense.
Adopting a “marketing as service” mentality would help. However, it takes time. And it won’t work in a direct sale environment where it expects income every single minute.
Do you have the same challenge? What have you done to meet or exceed customer expectations?
Apivut — Introvert Strategist
