MC: 0:00

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, jJeanne 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.

Jeannie Walters: 0:31

Those pesky customer expectations. How do we make sure that we can deliver? But what happens if we can't? That's what we're talking about today on the Experience Action Podcast.

Listener Question: 0:45

How do you handle a situation where your customer expectations don't align with what you can deliver?

Jeannie Walters: 0:51

Well, thank you so much for this question because, really, when we are talking about delivering for customers with a positive, proactive, intentional customer experience, we're really talking about delivering on expectations. Now, if we don't deliver on those expectations, whatever they are, we simply disappoint the customer. It's really that simple.

Jeannie Walters: 1:16

So one of the most important things in the work that we do is around making sure that the expectations we're setting are the right ones that we can actually deliver on in the real world. Now, when that doesn't happen for a variety of reasons, we have to own that part too. So, when we find that what we can deliver isn't aligned with what a customer is expecting, it's easy to just kind of think well, that's the way it is and move on, and I've seen this too often. What I want you to do is think about, first of all, how can we acknowledge and simply empathize with the customer, with what they're going through? Because really, it's critical to acknowledge that maybe that is what they thought and you can understand why that would be disappointing. You could even use phrases like I understand why you are looking for this or I see why this is important to you. Using phrases like that to really empathize with somebody in the moment can go a long way. So the first thing to remember is to acknowledge and empathize with the customer. We don't want to simply shrug this off. This is important and this is something that, even if they misread something or misunderstood or just simply had the wrong expectations, we can certainly understand why that would create disappointment.

Jeannie Walters: 2:37

Now, number two I want you to clarify the misalignment. Look for ways that you can get very specific about what that is. You could even ask for more explanation. One of my favorite phrases is oh, tell me more about that, or can you help me understand that a little bit more? Let them clearly articulate why that misalignment occurred.

Jeannie Walters: 3:00

You might hear something that clearly means that we messed something up. We have to own that we have to say, okay, that shouldn't have happened. I'm going to follow up on this for you. When you ask for that clarification, make sure you're really listening to what are they saying and which part do we own or should we own? And which part can you simply say, wow, I'm not aware of how that was communicated. Can you help me understand? Was there something that was communicated that led to that expectation? Now, they might not have that exactly. They might say your person said this or I read this somewhere, and you can simply say, wow, that shouldn't have happened. I'm really sorry that happened.

Jeannie Walters: 3:43

And then look for anything you can do to really appease them in that situation. That could be simply I'm going to look into this and get back to you. I'm going to find out what I can do and I will call you back in 24 hours. Be sure you set clear time expectations and then live up to those as well.

Jeannie Walters: 4:02

So you want to acknowledge and empathize. You want to clarify the misalignment. And then you want to be transparent. You want to make sure that you are really being honest with them and, let me say too, respectfully honest where you say what you can and can't do and explain that. So you want to be very careful here, because we don't want to get defensive, we don't want to say things like well, I don't know why you would understand that or I don't know why you would think that. That's not really fair to the customer. So what we can do is simply say, all right, we might not be able to deliver exactly like that, but let me share what we can provide. Let me share why this approach works for most customers. You could even go into things like wow, it sounds like you really need that by Tuesday and unfortunately, because of the shipping delays that we've experienced, I cannot guarantee that we will get that to you by Tuesday. Here's what we can do. And then you can say we can refund it, we can offer you an alternative, or we can ship it and hope for the best, and then, if it arrives on Wednesday, those are the expectations. So really think about where can you have a small win with the customer, but be clear on what you can and can't do. Don't overpromise here. And then, of course, you do want to offer those alternatives. Can you meet halfway, can you find another product or service or even refer a competitor.

Jeannie Walters: 5:35

Sometimes the biggest way to build trust is to simply say, gosh, I'm very sorry, but we're not able to deliver on that. You may want to reach out to XYZ, or I can refer you to a partner or an external resource. Now you have to be really knowledgeable about that competitor, about that partner. So be careful, be cautious about when you do offer that as an alternative. But at the very least, we could say something like well, we can't do this, but we could possibly do this. By working with the customer, you're building that relationship. Remember your customer relationships are just like any other relationship. They are built on trust. And so, the more that we can build trust by saying, wow, I'm sorry that happened. Can you help me understand why those expectations were set? It sounds like we can do this, and by working together and collaborating. In fact, part of our CXI Navigator framework is about customer collaboration, because the more that we can help them feel ownership over that, the more that they know that we're working on their behalf. That's how you build trust.

Jeannie Walters: 6:50

And then, of course, at the end of all this, you want to make sure this doesn't happen again, if you can prevent it. So, if you realize, by working through a misalignment with a customer, that you know what some of those marketing materials make some promises that we can't keep. Or we didn't proactively inform our customers when we knew there was going to be a shipment delay. That gives you a great place to start on how to improve the experience, not just for that customer but for every customer moving forward. So you want to learn from these experiences. You want to dive in, do a little root cause analysis and if you identify that, then you can bring that forward and say we could do this better. We can make sure that we don't have this misalignment in the future. So a great question to ask is what happened? And then follow that up with why, why, why, why the five whys?

Jeannie Walters: 7:46

Now, once you start asking those whys, you may start identifying things like wow, there's a gap in communication here. Our supply chain folks didn't talk to our delivery people who didn't talk to our customer communications people, or maybe some automation didn't work the way it should have. This is why your work as a customer experience leader is so important. We bring the lens of the customer to everything we do. That means that when people think that these processes are working great, they might not be seeing what's actually happening in the cohesive customer journey. So, yes, your supply chain inventory might look like it's going fine because, yeah, there was a delay here. There wasn't as much as we expected there, but overall we're making our shipments. But if we're overall making our shipments but that one customer isn't getting theirs, we might not be connecting those dots in that role, but as a customer experience leader, we can bring this all together. We can show people how this all fits together and how it impacts the overall customer experience.

Jeannie Walters: 8:52

So make sure that as you identify these challenges in the moment, that it's not just a one and done. That you don't just look at it and think, well gosh, that silly customer, they didn't get it, right. They just didn't understand the expectations. No, there's usually a reason and if it is because maybe the customer misinterpreted something, you can look at what was it that they misinterpreted and why? Was it because we didn't say it in the right place in the journey? Is it because they didn't get the right type of alert?

Jeannie Walters: 9:23

We wanna make sure we're really thinking through things so that, as we continue to look at the customer journey and understand what our customers are sharing with us, that we can continue to improve and build on it. So gather feedback, look for patterns all of the things that you usually do, but don't forget about these individual customer experiences. They can help us really understand where can we do a little bit better, not just on behalf of that one individual customer, but on behalf of all our customers. And, at the end of the day, if we can make those improvements, if we can make things easier, more seamless, more consistent for every customer as they move through the journey, we know that will lead to better outcomes and business results. So, when in doubt, think about how will this have a greater impact on our organization? That's what gives you the language to ask for the resources needed to make those improvements.

Jeannie Walters: 10:21

This was a great question. I love hearing from you. Please don't be shy. Leave me a question, leave me a comment, and don't forget we're also looking for your ratings and reviews on this podcast. If you haven't, as the kids say, hit that subscribe button, let's go ahead and do that too. So for now, thank you for everything you're doing and I can't wait to talk to you again soon. Thanks, everybody! To learn more about our strategic approach to experience, check out free resources at experienceinvestigatorscom, where you can sign up for our newsletter, our Year of CX program and more, and please follow me, Jeannie Walters, on LinkedIn.