It’s not over! Sales doesn’t end with the Close. Because your prospect’s time and attention are limited, you’ll often only get to focus on key features that are relevant to your prospect’s needs when RECOMMENDING. Now that your prospect is officially a customer, you can afford to leisurely explain the finer details that are also important for them to know. Details such as:
- Setting up their account, product, or solution.
- Onboarding and how to use some of the other common features
- Implementation process
- Your return/refund policy
- Warranty
- Customer support channels, processes, or how to troubleshoot common issues
This process of explaining and further educating your customers plays a key role in setting and managing their expectations. It is so important that it justifies an entirely separate section for itself. The acronym I used should really be C.A.R.E.E. with two E’s (ENGAGE + EXPECTATIONS), but that wouldn’t make it pretty.
Expectations define Experience
Your happiness or disappointment with any and everything is directly related to the expectations you have before experiencing it. This not only applies to sales but to everything in life, including food, travel, and romantic relationships.
| If you have high expectations for something, and it doesn’t meet your expectations | = | You are disappointed |
| If you have low expectations, and they are exceeded | = | You are delighted |
My realization of this comes from a silly personal experience:
I was invited by some friends to watch the first Transformers movie when it came out. Advertising at that time wasn’t as prevalent as it is today, and I hadn’t bothered watching any of the trailers. Going into the cinema, I had no idea what the movie would look like. Not only did I have zero expectations, I actually had a negative expectation: I expected it to be total crap! Previous live-action remakes of animated films were terrible. I couldn’t imagine how they could use computer-generated imagery (CGI) to make vehicles transform into robots in a cool way; I thought it would be silly.
Fast forward 2 hours and 24 minutes, I was pleasantly surprised! I did not expect the style of animation, the interesting designs, and the storyline that came with it. It isn’t one of my all-time favorite movies, but because there was such a difference in expectation going in and coming out, it became one of my most memorable and delightful moments. I came to realize the power expectations have over our happiness. It shapes how we perceive occurrences in our lives as positive or negative.
For this same reason, we’re often disappointed by sequels. Creators attempt to replicate the success of the original by copy-pasting, but since we’ve already been exposed and developed a new baseline, we’ve come to expect all the usual bells and whistles. Merely meeting that expectation is neutral; creators need to constantly reinvent the experience if they wish to exceed expectations and create another hit (I don’t envy that challenge and truly respect those who are successful in overcoming it). With a mediocre storyline and nothing novel, all the budget in the world for cars and explosions couldn’t save the Transformer sequels from flopping.
Overpromise, Underdeliver
Don’t oversell to close a deal; remember, the goal isn’t to “close a deal”! Instead, focus on helping your prospect by adding value, and the deal will naturally fall into place. If you overpromise, you’ll only end up underdelivering.
If you claim to have the “best” product, warranty, team, level of service, or support, it comes across as false bravado and is seen as manipulative. Prospects will question your need to exaggerate and wonder if your solution isn’t excellent enough to stand on its own. Besides, everyone already claims to be the best…or so they say. Making the same claim doesn’t help you stand out and instead makes you more generic. It’s overused and no one believes it.
Worse yet, if you’re already at the top, there’s nowhere to go but down. Any minor flaw, or if you do indeed have a great solution but fail to meet their expectation because they misinterpreted something, will lead to disappointment.
Underpromise, Overdeliver
However, I’m not suggesting you underpromise and sell yourself short either. So, what should you do if you sincerely believe you excel in a particular area? Is there a way to humble brag?
- Show, don’t tell: If you’re running an ad, instead of cheesily saying “We operate with integrity”, demonstrate integrity by telling a short story about a time when you went out of your way to do the right thing for a customer.
- Another way is to leverage third-party reviews or let your customer testimonials vouch for you instead. After all, it sounds insincere when you’re tooting your own horn.
- Otherwise, the other option is to focus on overdelivering. Create memorable experiences by identifying areas in their buyer and user journey where you can exceed their expectations.
Mitigate Bad Experiences
As we now know, bad experiences arise from poorly managed expectations, when the real experience falls short of what one expects. Since no solution is perfect, complaints are inevitable, regardless of the effort we put into polishing our offerings before release. However, bad experiences can still be minimized by ensuring we’re clear on what we can or can’t do.
Be honest about flaws or shortcomings in your solution. Admitting to them isn’t a sign of weakness. Prospects are realistic, and as long as it’s reasonable and justified, they will appreciate your transparency and trust you more.
If they find out now that it’s not a fit for them, it’s OK, and it’s not too late for them to back out. Don’t force the sale or deliberately omit information, even if you only discovered after closing that a potential deal breaker was overlooked. Don’t assume they won’t find out! It’s better to be upfront and process a refund now than to wait for them to experience a nasty surprise that would necessitate a return for a refund or lead to negative reviews.
Storytime:
My second corporate job was in 2012 for WIND Mobile (which has since been rebranded to Freedom Mobile and acquired by Shaw, and later, Shaw itself was acquired by Rogers). At that time, WIND was a new, independent Canadian telecommunications carrier that introduced low-cost unlimited plans (back in the days when calling, texting, and data all had strict usage-based tiered pricing).
Although WIND was much more affordable, they had limited coverage. Reception was reliable in the city but often failed in certain areas. When engaging with potential customers, we were trained to address basic coverage to ensure they had reception at home and work. After closing the sale, we would conduct a more detailed analysis of other places where they commonly use their phone, such as their parents’ or in-laws’ places, schools, and travel destinations. We would take the time to properly educate customers on how roaming works, roaming fees, and how to disable or enable it for emergency use. This approach significantly helped reduce unpleasant surprises when they received their monthly bills.
If the customer realized, for example, “Oh no! It doesn’t work at my parents’ house”, we wouldn’t push the sale and would process a refund if they had already purchased. Otherwise, we were also taught to inquire more deeply to determine if that was a logical objection: How often are you really there? Do you use your phone much when you’re visiting? Do they have Wi-Fi? Ultimately, it wasn’t about arguing for a sale, but sincerely supporting the prospect in determining if the cost savings and unlimited value were worth some of these restrictions.
Comparing my experience at WIND with my first job at Bell (for those unfamiliar, Bell is one of the incumbent telecommunications carriers in Canada and boasts the largest nationwide coverage), we were trained to dismiss objections that compared us to these smaller, more affordable carriers. We would often criticize their poor reception and emphasize our excellent coverage. Despite that, there were still coverage blackspots in some areas, and because we had positioned our coverage as the best, customers would frequently return, angrily complaining that they didn’t have reception when they were out camping, hiking, or because they were charged unexpected roaming fees. Through good expectation setting, WIND was able to turn a weakness into a positive experience, and I found myself dealing with far fewer angry customers compared to when I was working at Bell.
Side note and fun history tidbit: Yes, Bell Canada was co-founded by Alexander Graham Bell (as was AT&T in the US), the individual credited with the invention of the telephone.
Proactively Evaluate Experience
For every complaint you receive, many others likely go unvoiced. Don’t wait for customers to complain (reactive) before taking action to resolve an issue. Instead, proactively check in with customers on their experience and solicit feedback. This allows you to address shortcomings in your solution, tackle user experience challenges, and catch issues before they escalate, potentially creating a negative experience for many of your other customers.
If you do catch something early, don’t stay silent and hope no one else notices. Never make assumptions; silence doesn’t always indicate a smoothly oiled machine. Ensure you’re meeting, if not exceeding, their expectations. Even if you’re unable to resolve an issue right away, the simple act of acknowledging it and mentioning that you’re working on resolving it is better than waiting for customers to complain. If you wait till then, they’re already dissatisfied.
Storytime:
As a new homeowner, I took on the role of strata council president in the first year of our newly developed apartment. We terminated our caretaking/janitorial company less than 3 months in. All of this could have probably been easily avoided had they proactively solicited feedback from residents instead of waiting for cleanliness issues to be raised as complaints through the council.
A year later, before to our Annual General Meeting (AGM), a similar issue arose, leading us to switch our property management company. The decision stemmed from our previous property manager frequently abruptly ceasing to respond to emails. In an attempt to address this, I took the initiative to advise him on potential improvements. The council was understanding and reasonable, empathizing with the need to take time off for personal issues or to maintain work-life balance. We strongly encouraged him to provide advance notice or set up an out-of-office (OOO) auto-response for his email inbox if he was away.
Unfortunately, none of these suggestions were implemented, and he persisted in periodically ghosting both the council and residents of our building. I raised the concern not only with him but also with the property management company itself. However, by the time they took action to resolve the situation and assign our building to another property manager, we had already initiated the quotation process and selected another vendor. Remaining with them would have been preferable, and they could have retained our business if they had approached the situation proactively rather than reactively.
Intentionally Design Experiences
Magical moments don’t happen by accident. Take a page out of how Disney approaches distracting people from queuing. Mindfully observe the distractions if you ever get the chance to visit; they are all purposefully designed to distract guests and keep them entertained. From the screens that narrate the story of the ride you’re about to embark on to the cosplayed characters.
How can you intentionally do the same? With the music or message you might play for someone on hold during a call, how you respond to emails, or your customer onboarding experience.
ASSIGNMENT
- Identify three touchpoints where you could exceed your customer’s expectations.
- Define what customer success means. What should an excellent experience look like? What is a neutral experience? Anything short of that requires attention.
To take it further, let’s hear from Brian Chesky, co-founder, and CEO of Airbnb, as he discusses Airbnb’s “11-star experience” in his interview with Reid Hoffman on the inaugural episode of the Masters of Scale podcast.
“We basically took one part of our product and we extrapolated: what would a 5-star experience be? Then we went crazy. A 5-star experience is: You knock on the door, they open the door, they let you in. Great. That’s not a big deal. You’re not going to tell every friend about it. You might say, ‘I used Airbnb. It worked.’ So, we thought, ‘What would a 6-star experience be?’
A 6-star experience: You knock on the door, the host opens and shows you around. On the table would be a welcome gift. It would be a bottle of wine, maybe some candy. You’d open the fridge. There’s water. You go to the bathroom, there’s toiletries. The whole thing is great. That’s a 6-star experience. You’d say, ‘Wow I love this more than a hotel. I’m definitely going to use Airbnb again. It worked. Better than I expected.’
What’s a 7-star experience? You knock on the door. The host opens. Get in. ‘Welcome. Here’s my full kitchen. I know you like surfing. There’s a surfboard waiting for you. I’ve booked lessons for you. It’s going to be an amazing experience. By the way, here’s my car. You can use my car. And I also want to surprise you. There’s this best restaurant in the city of San Francisco. I got you a table there.’ And you’re like, ‘Whoa. This is way beyond.’
So what would a 10-star check-in be? A 10-star check-in would be The Beatles check-in. In 1964. I’d get off the plane and there’d be 5,000 high school kids cheering my name with cars welcoming me to the country. I’d get to the front yard of your house and there’d be a press conference for me, and it would be just a mindf**k experience. So, what would an 11-star experience be? I would show up at the airport and you’d be there with Elon Musk and you’re saying: ‘You’re going to space.’
The point of the process is that maybe 9, 10, 11 are not feasible. But if you go through the crazy exercise, there’s some sweet spot between ‘They showed up and they opened the door’ and ‘I went to space.’ That’s the sweet spot. You have to almost design the extreme to come backward. Suddenly, doesn’t knowing my preferences and having a surfboard in the house seem not crazy and reasonable? It’s actually kind of crazy logistically, but this is the kind of stuff that creates great experience.”
- What would your 5-star experience look like?
- Better yet, what about 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 stars?
As an example, AirNorth, Yukon’s Airline provider that primarily services local routes, provides passengers with a warm cookie for their flights. It’s such a simple and small gesture, but because other local carriers have set the bar so low, that alone creates an experience that exceeds expectations.
Everyone I know who’s flown with AirNorth always raves about it, “I got a cookie! And it was warm too!”. Generating not only organic word-of-mouth, but also improving retention and ensuring that they return and book their future flights with them.