Losing Business From Failing to Meet Expectations

How much attention are you paying to the expectations of your clients? If your behavior is too disconnected from their expectations you are likely to encounter conflicts in unexpected ways.

A client of mine was having some work done on his car a while back. He'd used the same place for servicing his care for several years. He was a bit irritated because they had billed him for some work that he had not requested and they did not alert him to before performing the job.

Regardless, he decided to call them to get some additional work done. When they spoke on the phone, he asked, "Would you set up an appointment?"

Without asking any questions, the guy responded, "Nope. We don't set appointments for that type of work."

My client asked, "Why is that? You set appointments for all these other types of work. Why not for this type?"

The guy responded, "Well, it takes longer than 45 minutes."

My client thought that was odd, so he ended the conversation. He wanted an appointment to avoid wasting time waiting for the service people to be available. He then called another service center and asked, "Will you set an appointment for this type of work?"

"Yes," that guy responded. So they set the appointment.

So what prompted my client to look at another place? It was a bad experience. But not the one you might think! He stuck with his original service center even after they charged him for work he didn't ask for. The disconnect was when they wouldn't set an appointment for more work.

He'd already spent several thousand with them, and had the potential to spend several thousand more. But because they didn't pay attention to his expectations, and adjust their behavior to match, they lost that additional business.

That's a great example of how careful you have to be about people's expectations. Are you paying attention to the expectations of your clients and adjusting your behavior as needed?