Improving the customer experience your organization delivers is difficult. If you want to create enhanced customer experiences, it is critical that your team understands your customers. That sounds pretty obvious — but how does an organization make that happen?
- It’s clear that expectations should be set during the interview process, but how can you ensure that all your employees understand what is expected of them?
One way to do this is by instituting a training program that educates your team members on the customer experience. This should include standards of excellence they are expected to meet, as well as how they can exceed expectations.
Another way to set expectations is through recognition programs. When employees feel appreciated for their work, it encourages them to continue exceeding expectations. “Behavior rewarded is behavior repeated,” as my friend, Dr. Michael LeBoeuf has famously written.
For example, at superior hotel chains like Ritz-Carlton or Fairmont, guests expect to receive a level of experience that many employees have not. If that’s the case, how do you educate your team members to deliver what your guests assume they will receive?
Answer: You provide them the opportunity to participate in the customer experience. These companies encourage their employees to become guests at other properties in the system through extraordinary discount pricing and privileges. This is presented as part of the package that prospective employees discover during the application and interview process. Not only is it a benefit that attracts prospects, but it also sets the expectation that their organizations have a high standard that employees must attain.
Recently Door Dash instituted a new policy. According to Nexstar News, they “recently announced a company program that tells employees – including engineers, managers and top executives – to make one food delivery (or “dash”) a month. It turns out, not everyone was interested in performing the company’s eponymous task.
“I didn’t sign up for this, there was nothing in the offer letter/job description about this,” a post from an employee about this policy read.
The problem isn’t just that an employee doesn’t want to exceed what they “signed up for” — it’s that:
- Door Dash failed to set this expectation for their prospective employees in the interview process
- organizations are hiring people who do not want to exceed expectations for customers
- employees are not being adequately educated on the importance of the customer experience
Here’s how you can overcome this challenging situation:
- expectations should be set during the interview process
- educate your team members by instituting a training program that trains them on the customer experience
- another way to set expectations is through dynamic recognition programs
- when employees feel appreciated for the work they do when it encourages them to continue exceeding expectations
How do expectations we have of people influence the performance they deliver? “The Pygmalion Effect” is the name given to the phenomenon where expectations about someone’s performance actually cause that person to live up to those expectations. So, if we expect more from people, they’re likely to deliver more.
On the flip side, “The Golem Effect” is when our expectations of someone’s poor performance influence them to perform worse than we anticipated!
Are you setting positive expectations from the onset of the onboarding process? Are you making the customer experience an integral component in EVERY potential employee’s communication with you from the start of your engagement with them?
Remember:
- expectations about someone’s performance cause that person to live up (or down) to your expectations
- our expectations of someone’s poor performance will lead to them performing worse than anticipated
- however, if we expect more from people, they’re likely to deliver more!
(Thanks to my friend, Derek Sweeney of The Sweeney Agency in Toronto, for bringing this to my attention!)
