As I was reading Danny Brown’s, and Tanveer Naseer’s blogs today, I was thinking about my recent frustrations with Yahoo Mail. Danny spoke of being frustrated trying to cancel his blog on Posterous and Tanveer was talking about experiences he and his family shared while on vacation. In my own case, I was frustrated over the last few days that a service Yahoo offers ( importing your contacts from Facebook) does not work. In all three cases, the common thread was customer expectations.
When we expect something and the results do not meet our expectations, we are disappointed, frustrated and even angry. That annoying feeling can linger. We loose faith and trust. We wonder if other things will go wrong.
In business we must be able to look at our own products and services from the eyes of the consumer. Are we delivering what we promise? If we are not, our customers are left with bad feelings. Some will let us know. Others will let a lot of others know.
Yahoo is promoting the idea that people can import their Facebook contacts. I have heard stories that some have been able too. I have heard from others that they have not been able to. I am in the second group. The frustration I feel reinforces my image of Yahoo as a company of well Yahoos. It is not that I can’t import my contacts, it is the ideas that I am told that I can and my expectations are that I should be able to, but the reality is that I can not. Yahoo is promoting it, The system exists to do it, but it doesn’t work. AHH I want to pull my hair out. I left comments on my frustration and they have so far gone unanswered.
The funny thing about expectations is this. They can be managed through open communications. Even when the possibility exists that they wont be met, communicating that information in a timely manner can turn a possible nightmare into a very strong advocate for our business.
My experience with Discus, the blog commenting system, is similar but the end result is 180 degrees in the other direction. With Discus, I have the ability to customize the comment area CSS to match the blog it is installed on. But, I have learned that some items can not be styled. Ryan and the people at Discus stuck with me through my questions and followed up with honest answers. Even though my original expectations were not met, the addressing of the issue and explanations along the way has left me with positive feelings about the company. My expectations were managed in a good way. Trust has been built.
We are all different and as much as old school marketing tried to guess on product and service design. The marketing would attempt to control the release of information to appeal to a large group. Today, through social media, we are unbound by that restraint. In Social media we can directly ask the people we work with what their expectations are. We can tailor our products and services to meet or exceed those expectations, and we can communicate with our clients along the way. That communication can mean the difference of a sale, or a customer for life.
