Exceeding Customer Expectations - A Hangover Hard to Recover

Marketing is a powerful weapon used by companies to create certain expectations on consumers, who create themselves a perception of a product/service after having been exposed to such things as advertisements or promotions. And which company is the final winner in the marketing race? The one promising everything and giving few, or the one keeping promise and meeting consumer's expectations? Obviously, despite less sales on the beginning, the long-run shall see the second succeed. And this is what many fail to understand: Exceeding your customer's expectations with promises you aren't able to deliver is surely one of the biggest mistakes you can do as a manager.

Here's a recent example... Two weeks ago I went to see the movie "The Hangover - Part 2". Given the success of the first movie, I was expecting a lot from its sequel and actually couldn't wait for the day to come. So I took a look on the trailer to have an idea of what the movie might look like... The scenes showed were extremely funny and the trailer promised a great movie, probably better than the first!

A couple of days later, I finally went to see the movie. Upon my arrival, I found the place covered with posters and lots of references to the film! Uau... an epic sequel was expecting me! Well, at least that's what I thought... After the movie ended I was extremely disappointed, basically because more than half of the funny parts I had already seen on the trailer! Me and obviously many others.

It's OK if your consumers have existing expectations upon your products or services due to previous use. But what it's NOT OK is when you elevate those expectations to a point where you cannot deliver them. What happens then is a feeling of dissatisfaction much worse than if you hadn't placed those expectations on their minds in the first place. And that was exactly what happened with this movie. I was expecting an entertaining and good film, but after watching the trailer, having seen all the ads displayed in the area and all the buzz created around it, my expectations grew even more! In the end, as the product failed to deliver me what I (and, again, many others...) was expecting, I was more dissatisfied than ever with the outcome.

Let us look now to the company side... What are the consequences of such actions? On the first few weeks will certainly provide high sales and maybe a couple of nice reviews. But eventually the end result will be a more negative evaluation of the movie, along with a decrease in customer loyalty and, most probably, a decrease in future purchases.

So manage this trade-off carefully. Take a look of what you have to offer and market it in the best possible way. But do not exaggerate, or you may never fully recover from that hangover.