Set Better Expectations from the Start to Improve Customer Retention

How much time have you invested in thinking about the expectations your customers have of your company, and your ability to meet them?

A lot? A little? Or none at all?

Don’t worry – I’m not judging. If you answered “a little” or “none at all,” you’re certainly not alone. Overlooking customer expectations, or not giving them the attention they require, is a common mistake. Companies focus instead on creating an awesome product and offering great customer service. Those are obviously critically important elements of a business, of course, but while they’re doing that, consideration for what the customer actually expects (and whether those expectations are being met) falls by the wayside.

That’s a problem, because when you don’t meet a customer’s expectations, they tend to do one thing: leave.

It doesn’t even matter how good your product is. You could offer the very best product in your industry, but if what you offer doesn’t align with your customers’ expectations, you’ll struggle to keep them.

So why is that a problem? Why don’t we just put more time and effort into driving new business?

Well, for starters, it almost always costs more to acquire a new customer than retain one. It’s just bad business sense to focus on acquisition over retention.

But that’s not all.

Long-term customers are more likely to become advocates, and advocates are more likely to refer other customers. That means more new business, for minimal effort and investment. In fact, referred customers have even been shown to be worth more than customers acquired by other means – 16% more, to be precise.

So … we know expectations play a significant role in customer retention, but what do you need to do to reap the rewards? Here are a few ideas for improving how you set and manage customer expectations from the start.

Write Better Proposals and Contracts

Most people won’t read long documents. At best you can expect them to scan through before signing on the dotted line. However, corporate documents don’t have to be long and boring.

Make the documentation you send to clients easier to read and more interesting, and you’ll convert more leads into customers, all while setting better, more manageable expectations. Do this by:

• Only including essential information.
• Breaking up information into clear sections, and, where possible, using bullet points and images.
• Increasing visual appeal with brand colors, fonts and logos.
• Positioning details you want clients to pay the most attention to towards the top of the proposal or contract.
• Simplifying legal terminology – as much as possible, use language everyone can understand.
• Including a contract summary.

As Ryan Foster of Fostr explained in a Shopify article he wrote on writing contracts, when client relations don’t go according to plan, “a clearly written contract has helped to clarify issues and smooth out payment problems” – not a 100-page document loaded with legal jargon.

Communicate

Don’t rely on presenting customers with proposals and contracts and putting your faith in them getting read (see above: they probably won’t).

Talk them through the documentation. Make sure they understand its contents. Ask questions, too. This will help you ascertain whether the customer actually understands what they’re being told.

If you can, do this in person. Sit down with them and talk them through what you’re offering and what they’re signing up for. If this isn’t possible, set up a phone call.

Ask What Customers Want from You

In other words, ask customers, “What are your expectations of us?” or “What do you expect from us?”

Why is this so important?

Let’s pretend for a moment that we live in a perfect world, and all the documentation you send to clients is read and understood (a highly unlikely situation, whatever you do).

Even if that happens, customers can still harbor expectations that you might not be able to meet.

It may be that they assume you’ll offer x, y or z because a previous agency offered it, or they read something online that gave them false expectations.

It might be that they’ve just created a picture of your product in their head that doesn’t match the reality.

It comes back down to communication. The more you talk to customers, the better expectations you can set. Ask customers what they expect from you, so you can curb and manage unrealistic expectations before your working relationship begins.

Bear in mind that not all customers will even know what they want or expect. If you suspect this is the case, do as Userlike suggests and ask more specific questions like ““What would you like the product to do for you?” and “What is the issue you want to solve?”

You might even find it useful to send them a branding questionnaire, something web designer Kezz Bracey started doing upon realizing that many clients can’t articulate what they want unless given a little push in the right direction.

Train Sales Staff Properly

A common tactic used by poorly-trained sales staff is to promise something that can’t be delivered. This usually happens thanks to one of the following:

1. They’re desperate to close the sale, and so they will say pretty much whatever they think the customer wants to hear, or
2. They’re too keen to please and eager to say “yes.” Saying “no” just isn’t part of their vocabulary.

That said, the reason why sales staff does this isn’t the issue. The problem is that they’re making promises you can’t keep.

Sure, their approach might up your lead to sale conversion rate, but in the long run it’ll disappoint your customers and destroy your retention rate.

This is why training is key. Regardless of how skilled or experienced your sales team might be, your product is unique, and they need to adapt accordingly. Try implementing processes that forge closer relationships between product and sales teams and make sure to offer continuous training, as advised by product marketer Antonia Bozhkova.

Ensure, for a start, that sales staff knows that offering what can’t be delivered is a huge faux pas.

Even saying “I’ll see what we can do; let me get back to you” should be avoided.

Yes, that’s preferable to making false promises, but it still sets expectations. If the sales rep has to return to the customer with a “no,” they’re going to be disappointed, despite never being promised a thing.

Teach your sales reps everything about the product and help them learn to love it. If they truly believe in the product, they won’t need to overpromise.

Last but not least, make sure reps know what leeway they have (if any) when negotiating with customers. Can they offer discounts, and if so, how much? Can packages be tailored to a customer’s needs and if they can, in what way (or ways)?

Do all this and sales reps are far less likely to promise things that can’t be delivered, or tell a potential customer they’ll get back to them with answers. They simply won’t need to.

Make Sure You Can Meet Expectations

The responsibility for unmet expectations doesn’t always fall into the hands of those selling the product, or the customer themselves. Often the blame lies with the company for promising things they’re unable to deliver. This is why it’s essential to ensure you can meet the expectations you yourself set, before outlining to customers what you, and your product, can offer.

This means:

• Ensuring expectations are realistic.
• Making sure staff responsible for meeting those expectations knows what’s expected of them.
• Training staff where needed to ensure they can meet expectations.
• Ensuring staff has the time, resources, and authority needed to meet expectations. To do this you’ll need to track and manage staff members’ time properly, and trust them to handle customers without being micromanaged.

Implement a Contingency Plan for Mismanaged Expectations

Nobody – no person, and no company – is perfect. Even if as a company you do everything outlined in this article, at some point you’re going to let someone down. That’s just life.

Thankfully, most customers understand this. What really matters is how you deal with letting them down.

Decide what will happen in the event you fail to meet a customer’s expectations ahead of time, and make sure all your staff knows what they can do and should do when this happens.

This should include, for example:

• If you realize you’ve messed up before the customer does, coming clean.
• Telling the customer what you’re going to do to resolve the situation/make things right.
• Offering them something to sweeten the deal and/or send an apology note/gift.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how much you make things up to an individual customer if you don’t learn from your mistakes and implement changes to prevent a repeat.

Don’t dwell on what went wrong, or beat yourself up over it. Treat it as a learning exercise that will help you manage expectations more effectively, and create better customer experiences in the future.

Do you have any other tips or ideas for setting better customer expectations? I’m always keen to hear your thoughts, if you want to share them in the comments below:

Image: Pixabay