Managing, meeting and exceeding customer expectations

Customers have needs and they also have expectations about how these needs will be delivered. Customer satisfaction is the difference between expectation and actual delivery. Understanding, delivering and, if possible, exceeding expectations is a key skill of great organisations. Some organisations are able to make statements of clear intent that set expectations (e.g. “never knowingly undersold”), others set the expectation accurately (“delivery in 48 hours”). And then delight the customer when they exceed it.