The myth of wow

Me: “You don’t need to exceed expectations, just do what you say.”

Them: “So, under-promise and then over-deliver.”

Me: “No, set expectations, whatever they are and meet them — that’s it…”

I recommended they read the Harvard Business Review article ‘Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers’, and while the research is muddy, other studies do back up the premise — the way to happy, loyal customers is to meet expectations. There is limited return beyond that.

That’s right. If you are trying to be the hero and exceed your customers’ expectations, they might be grateful, but they aren’t MORE satisfied or MORE loyal than they would have otherwise been if you’d simply done what you promised.

I can hear the objections now. ‘That can’t be right.’ ‘Our customers love it when we go above and beyond.’ ‘Why would we want just to be average?’ ‘That might be true for others but not for our customers, we’re different…’

“Nature abhors a vacuum,” or so said Greek physicist-philosopher Parmenides in circa 485 BC. And I have to say, so do expectations.

In the absence of set expectations for what you can or can’t do, it is perfectly reasonable for the customer or other stakeholder to apply their own to the situation. And if you don’t set expectations for what you will and won’t, can and can’t do, there is slim to zero chance you’ll be able to meet them. Because in the absence of expectations you set, customers (or employees and other stakeholders, because this is just as much about internal as external) will bring their own to the party.

Which leads to why you lose every time. You won’t know what those other expectations are until you fail to meet them. Even if you ask people. Even if you ask them again. They still won’t be able to tell you. And if they do ante something up, chances are they will be different tomorrow.

It’s a game you have no chance of winning, but for reasons beyond any rational understanding, businesses keep trying to play.

Why?

My guess is because setting an expectation that you can and will stick to every single time is hard. Really hard. Pull your hair out and dig into the day-to-day nitty-gritty of your organisation hard.

It means you have to make choices. It means everyone is not your customer (which is OK because they weren’t anyway). It means you have to understand how A connects to B before you tell them you will do C.

Too many businesses work on a fly by the seat of your pants approach to delivering on expectations. And while that might have worked when it was you and a couple of others working together in one room, it’s not scalable or sustainable. As your business grows, you will die trying to keep it up.

So here’s a question to consider when setting an expectation (of any size): Do you have the information and capital you need to set this expectation so you KNOW you can meet it?

Information — what, where, who, how, why.

Capital — time, people, money, community, influence.

Because when it comes right down to it, whatever the expectations you set, being able to meet them is the most important thing — for your organisation and the brand result.

So set expectations, whatever they are, that you can faithfully repeat day in, day out — this is not a call to drop your standards, but please do be realistic. Meet them. Meet them again. And again.

Once you’re doing that across the board 95% of the time, then we’ll talk about the whole wow thing. But I suspect you won’t need to because you’ll have happy, loyal customers lining up out the door.

This article was first published on SmartCompany, and this updated version can be found in the upcoming book “The Unheroic Work.”

Michel Hogan is an Independent Brand Counsel advising organisations on the risk to their purpose and values of making promises they can’t keep.

* Parmenides and other philosophers are useful resources for thinking more deeply about questions of purpose, values and how the organisation behaves and operates.