Experiences are where promises get kept or broken

21 Apr Experiences are where promises get kept or broken

Customer experience is often discussed as if it is a singular thing as “the customer has an experience”. However, customers continually have a whole bundle of experiences. And each one is a promise kept or a promise broken. 

In a past article, I talked about the dance of promises and experience. The idea holds true because every experience where a promise is kept or broken connects to and shapes how I feel about the next one.

A recent online shopping expedition is a good illustration of the dance in action. 

I had run out of eye cream and with a visit to the bricks shop to buy it off the list, I made my way to the clicks shop. So far, so good, after a quick look around, I found the product and added to my cart. The checkout process was fast and easy, and I made sure to check the box for ‘don’t add me to your marketing’. In not much more time than it would have taken to ring my purchase at the counter, I was on my way.

The bunch of experiences, finding the site, finding and then buying my product, confirmation they’d received my order all kept promises. The steps of the dance stayed in sync with my expectations. In this case, the expectations came from the implicit promises of a seamless online shopping experience. Which were in turn, built from shopping trips to other beauty product sites.

Then they tripped over a checkbox. The one explicit promise the organisation made. Because when they asked me to ‘opt-out’ if I didn’t want to get marketing emails, they promised that if I did opt-out, they wouldn’t send me any.

Imagine my sigh of disappointment when the next day, the first marketing email arrived. Hang on a minute, did I misread the opt-out and accidentally opt-in? I know I checked the box.

A quick trip back to the site confirmed I had read correctly, I had opted out. Of course, the company had my information as part of the purchase, and it was obviously set to filter into their marketing database. Toes smarting from the stomp of a careless step, they had broken the one explicit promise they made and sent me in search of a new dance partner.

It was easy enough to unsubscribe but I shouldn’t have needed to. As the promisor, the onus was on them to keep the promise. I played my part as promisee by telling them what I wanted to opt-out. They only had to do what they said they would and opt me out of marketing. 

Scale this example to more far-reaching promises, and you begin to see why the keeping starts with how you make them. All the talk about experience puts the emphasis on the wrong thing. Experience is an output, promises are the input. Be deliberate and conscious with your promises, make ones you can keep and keep them.

Thanks for reading