The thing about expectations and how that bar keeps being reset, whether we want it to or not, is that when expectations are met, we may give a slight nod of approval but, mostly, we move on to the next thing. After all, we expected an A so why shouldn’t we get an A? And, when we get an A, we expect to get it the next time, only better.
It’s when expectations are not met, when they come crashing to a possible deal-breaking halt that we crank our necks to get a better look.
That is why I recommend dropping the ball with your client now and again.
Okay I don’t actually recommend it, but when it does happen, and it does, it’s not so much about that client’s banged-up expectations as it is about what you’re going to do with that swan dive they just experienced.
How do you deal with it? Do you give up because the bar didn’t get raised – though it did get reset – right into a pit of failed expectations and fallen confidence?
There I was, November 2010, working closely with a new and referred client on their 3,000 custom-made, full-colour shopping totes – an investment in dollars, yes, but also in expectations. I was a new sales rep to the client, they were a new client to me, and the custom bags were a brand-new promotional product for them – high expectations all the way around.
Ideally, we quality check our clients’ orders before shipping them, however, this client needed the totes within an unusually quick time frame. I knew we could meet the in-hands date but it would mean shipping the totes directly to the client from my supplier, relying completely on the factory product quality assurance. While I explained the risks associated with this strategy, all they knew and heard was, “We can do it.”
The bags arrived on time.
The bar was rising as they ripped open the first box, then the second, then the third, only to discover that some bags – actually many – had holes in the seams where the sewing was incomplete. Equally awful, there were big, blotchy ink smears across the beautiful artwork.
“Better than expected” dissolved into “less than,” and in those moments my client was left with bitterness about that order, and (I am guessing here) any future business they may have done with my firm became dangerously jeopardized.
Regardless of who was responsible for the poor quality of the final product, I was the one facing the plummet of their hopes along with the ones I held for myself and my supplier.
What could I do?
Look the other way, chalk it up to a pithy, “Oh well, that’s life,” or save this client, the order and their perception of doing business with me, and my company.
If I believe Seth Godin (author of Meatball Sundae, Tribes and Linchpin) that successful business is about better than expected – and I do – then there was no choice but to do better than expected somehow. Some way.
We recalled all 3,000 bags from my client back to our office, where my sales support team (bless them) went through every single one, checking and rejecting any bags with flaws.
We quality checked what I certainly expected (what we all expected) to have been quality checked before ever getting in my client’s hands.
Two days later, we sent the totes we deemed perfect to the client.
The result?
The bar was raised.
In the final quarter, the last period of regulation play, my client went from high expectations that crashed in an instant – to receiving quality-approved products they could now use, knowing without a doubt they were not flawed.
They received a hop-to-it resolution they certainly weren’t expecting.
Yes, it should have been that way from the beginning but it wasn’t, so the only choice was to deal with the situation (and the expectations) as they were.
We rise and fall in business, which means more than just having expectations to deal with. It’s in how we handle expectations – all of them and, yes, even the fallen ones (especially the fallen ones) – that makes the whole ride not something to dread but something to move with.
Most of us may think “better than expected” means a perfect order from beginning to end. But what if better than expected also lies in the resolution of a failure, knitting together the pieces of a broken connection or picking up that ball and trying again, only better? Better than anyone expected.
Surely that will reset any expectation and could be the standard of success to rise up to.