Satisfying your customers isn’t nearly enough

Satisfying your customers is a good thing, and it absolutely beats the alternative. In most environments, though, “satisfying” falls far short of where you need to be.

In the book “ Raving Fans “, the authors argue for this very point:

Blanchard and Bowles argue that there’s a clear distinction between satisfying your customers and exceeding the expectations of your customers. If you merely seek to satisfy your customers, they’ll only stay with you as long as you’re not worse than the competition. However, if you invest in the customer service experience to exceed expectations and build trust, your customers will be so impressed and happy that they’ll willingly contribute to your success.

In the book they share the story of a very popular gas station and the simple focus behind it:

In Raving Fans, the owner of the successful gasoline station explains how to continually surprise and delight your customers: Always deliver more than you promise.

This is key, but it can be tough. Essentially, to pull that off, you need to under-promise. That’s great when you’re in the midst of a project, but then selling the project in the first place becomes much trickier.

I remember a few years ago we were talking to someone who needed a website built fairly…