Navigating Customer Expectations: Strategies to Weather the Storm and Excel in CX

Experience Action. Let's stop just talking about customer experience, employee experience and the experience of leaders. Let's turn ideas into action. Your host, Jeannie Walters, is an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker and founder of Experience Investigators, a strategic consulting firm helping companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences. Ready Set action.

Hey, hey everyone. It is Jeannie Walters. This is another episode of Experience Action and I'm here to answer your questions, so let's go ahead and get started. How do you manage client expectations while dealing with an industry that is short on staff, short on funding and very demanding with compressed schedules? Because it's driving me crazy. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Jeannie.

Oh, thanks for this question, Kelly. It's such a good one, and I think it's something that people in many different industries are struggling with right now. You know, when we come right down to what customer experience is all about, it's about setting expectations, and so when you talk about the challenge of meeting those client expectations, you're really talking about the difference between having someone feel like they not only got what they expected, but maybe got a little extra and are delighted, versus the people who feel like that's not what you promised me, and I'm actually disappointed in this experience. So many industries right now are really dealing with client expectations in this way when we're stretched too thin, we don't have the staff, we don't have the resources, maybe we don't have the right technology or tools or processes to really make delivering on those promises easier or efficient. So, as we dive into this, I'm going to challenge you and all of the listeners out there to really think about what are the expectations that you're setting, because what we have to do first is really understand what is the promise that we've made. So let's break this down a little bit. The first thing that I would say is you're taking the right step, because whenever we're dealing with a challenge like this, we have to actually acknowledge it. We have to acknowledge the issue. Many industries right now are experiencing shortages. Let's be honest about that. Let's talk to our leaders about that. Let's game plan around the fact that maybe we don't have the right resources, we don't have the staffing up to where it needs to be. We have to address it first, talk about what the problem is and why we're not living up to the promises that we've made.

Now, of course, some of this we can't control. Some of this is about macroeconomic features and global economics and all of those things. So we have to just acknowledge that some of this we can control and some of this we can't. But let's get clear about what this is doing for our customers. This might be creating delays. This might be creating missed deliveries. This might be creating deadlines that are not met. It might be creating unknowns for our customers.

One of the things that we hear a lot in the data and the research around customer experience is that customers not only want to be seen and heard and recognized for who they are. They simply want to hear the truth. And if we are avoiding communicating because we can't meet those expectations, customers are going to feel that. So in order to address this, in this fast paced world where maybe we don't have the time to step back and really do a customer journey map or anything like that, I encourage you to really think about how do you define the problem? Let's say you feel like, "oh well, I can tell you, jeannie, the problem is we don't have enough people, we don't have enough resources, we can't do what our bosses want us to do. Customers are yelling at us. Clients are upset because we are missing deadlines. That's the problem. Try to distill that into what's happening for the customer. What is the problem for the customer? And then, ultimately, what will that mean if that continues for your organization? So if we keep missing client deadlines, if we keep hearing complaints from customers, two things, off the top of my head, will happen: if we keep missing deadlines, if we continue to miss on the expectations that we've set for customers, customers will not stick around.

Not only will they not stick around, they won't renew, they won't recommend, they won't refer. So we're missing out on an automatic sales channel, essentially, if we continue to do this. The other thing that can happen, especially in B2B or some other industries like that sometimes customers just stop paying. Now that sounds pretty dramatic, but I've seen this happen. We have to make sure we're living up to these expectations, because if we don't, very dramatic things can happen.

Now let's pull that thread a little further. What would happen if customers got so frustrated that they maybe refused payment, they stopped referring, stopped recommending. Maybe they told their bosses you know what we are not going to renew this contract. What would the consequences of those customer decisions be on the organization? Obviously there are huge financial consequences when we don't have repeat customers. When we have customers who not only are not recommending us, they're actually telling their friends and colleagues don't ever work with this organization. That has dire consequences on financial outcomes for an organization. So, no matter what industry you're in, this is what creates a sense of urgency over customer experience. We have to understand that there are real organizational and business consequences if we do not live up to client expectations.

So start there, define the problem. Then you want to think about what are the things we could do today. If we are having supply chain issues, if we are unable to deliver because we simply don't have the staff, if we know that you know what the sales team keeps promising, all these deadlines that we can't meet. If you know certain things today, think about what can you do today, and this usually comes down to communication. So what I would recommend is that you think about where are the places in the early part of the customer journey that we can set better expectations and how can we make that as efficient and effortless as possible for both us and the customer. What I mean here is that, if we know there will be delays, let's get proactive about communicating that. Let's start sharing transparently the honest and hard truths so that the customer can better prepare to achieve the goal that they want to achieve. So really get clear on what is happening today and what can we do about it today. Get your leaders involved here.

They need to understand that in order to avoid those dire consequences we just identified, we need to do our best to be honest, transparent and proactive with our clients. Sometimes that's as simple as a phone call or an email explaining you know what we are having some supply chain issues. Here's what we know, here's what we don't know, here's what we expect, and this is the critical part. Here's when you'll hear from me next. This is one of the things that if we did this, we could fulfill a lot more around setting expectations. We need to make sure that we are clearly saying to our customers we will not forget you, we will not neglect you. You won't have the responsibility of calling me. I'm going to call you with the information, so set expectations wherever you can. If you are finding that part of the reason why there's all this pressure that Kelly spoke about so clearly in that question, when there's all that pressure, I might handle that pressure differently than somebody else on the team.

The customer might have a very different type of experience based on who they're interacting with, based on the department or the team member or the time of day. So that is because when we don't have clear guidelines, we actually create a situation where every individual in our organization is just doing their own judgment calls. They're just kind of making their own calls based on their life experience and what they think is best. But this is where a service code can be very, very helpful. A service code is a very simple document, usually one page, that says this is what we promise. Very specifically, one of the things that comes up is when we say things like oh, I'm going to get back to you soon, customer. I don't know what soon means that could be 20 minutes, that could be 48 hours, that could be two weeks. So we have to really get clear and define what are the service expectations that every single person in our organization really understands and is clear about, so that that customer, no matter who they're interacting with, they have a consistent customer journey. If you don't have a service code, it's a really good place and it's a short term way to get to action that can help you with these expectations.

The other thing here is that it's okay to be honest, but we have to agree what are we being honest about? Because in many organizations there are you know, you've heard the phrase urban myth. There are often organizational myths where somebody says something because they make an assumption and that's overheard by another team and they say, oh, that must be the way it is. I've seen this happen a lot in contact centers and actually with sales teams and account management teams. What happens is somebody says you know, my boss said that we are being judged on the time that we spend on the phone. So everybody says, well, should we spend more time or less time? I don't know. We just heard this thing. This is how we're all being judged. People start making decisions based on how they think they're being evaluated, even if that's not true.

So, while a service code helps set the framework, set those expectations, clearly, what you want to do is take that inside the organization and say, "okay, here's the thing. We all know we're having supply chain issues. We all know we're under staffed. Here's how we are presenting that information to our customers." It should be honest. But we also want to tell our customers that we are aware and we have an action plan around it, because if we just say things like, oh man, it's so bad, we don't have enough staff, blah blah, then what customers hear is, "We are not solving that problem, we are just complaining.

So, getting clear about what are we communicating and how are we communicating in an authentic and honest way, but in a way that also points to a future where we overcome this for our customers. All of that is so important. So let's make sure that we have those expectations clearly defined, that we hear regularly from leaders, or we come together as a team to talk about what is our core messaging, and then, through those sessions, we also start brainstorming on what are some of the ways we can be more efficient, what are some of the ways that we can get the support we need in order to deliver for our clients and customers. Now, I am a business owner. I've had to do this too where sometimes we come together and say I don't exactly know how to solve this. Do we need somebody, maybe temporarily, to help support us? Do we need to rely on different processes? Can we leverage things like AI or different technologies to help us be more efficient?

Sometimes it's those short-term things that we really need to think through quickly, and brainstorming with the group can also help us communicate in that authentic way. So we want to have empathy for our clients in this situation. It's really not about us, it's about them. So the more that we can focus on the clients and figure out what is the defined problem, what do we agree as an organization is how we're communicating and what are our service standards? What do we all agree to with that service code? And then, how can we continue to innovate? How can we make sure that we are constantly looking at this as a challenge to be solved and not just something that we're overwhelmed by?

And then the last thing I want to say here and this goes out to not just Kelly, but every single individual listening, we cannot underestimate the power of self-care, of wellness, of making sure that we are taking care of ourselves and one another. So if you are a leader right now and you're feeling so overwhelmed every day and you look around, you see your team is feeling that way too. Sometimes we need to slow down a little bit in order to speed up. I see this a lot in customer experience work, because there's always more to be done and everything can be considered a priority. But what I challenge you to do is look for small ways that you can really take care of yourself.

If your stress level gets too high, if you're not taking care of yourself physically, if you're not getting sleep, if you're not staying hydrated, all the basics, then none of the things I just described will work. Because when we are not taking care of ourselves, when we don't have that wellness overall, we go into survival mode, we go into fight or flight, and that creates tension, not only with us and the client, but also us and our colleagues, our families, all sorts of things. So I encourage you, if you haven't taken that break, take a deep breath with me now. Make sure that you have that water handy, that you're hydrating all day, that you're getting up from your desk and walking around, that you're taking those moments in between those challenging customer calls and just making sure that you are pausing, because there is power in the pause, but we have to empower people to take it. So I hope that all of us who are dealing in these high stress situations, I hope that we have a chance to take that deep breath and figure out a better way, because not only do our customers deserve that and not only do our business results deserve that, but we deserve that as individuals. And so take a deep breath. You've got this. There are steps to take, and I encourage you to really think about the expectations being set, how you're communicating, and then continue to have that continuous improvement mindset so that in six months or a year you're not dealing with these same issues.

This was such a great question. I so appreciate every single one of you listening and watching and really just delivering for customers day after day after day. The work you do makes this world a better place. I truly believe that. So when you are digging deep, when you are trying to find that motivation, hang on to that, because every single time that we deliver for a customer, we are helping somebody achieve a goal, we are helping an organization do better work, we are helping someone just feel a little better, maybe more productive in their day. Those are no small things. So hang on to that and take that deep breath that you deserve and take care of yourself throughout all these high stress situations. Next week, I'll have another fantastic question from one of you, so don't forget you can always ask any question at askjeannie. vip, where you can leave me a voicemail. Thank you all so much for listening, thank you for everything you do, thanks for the great questions and we'll talk next week. To learn more about our strategic approach to experience. Check out free resources at experience investigators. com, where you can sign up for our newsletter, our year of CX program and more, and please follow me, Jeannnie Walters, on LinkedIn.