Many people wonder what it takes to get customers to talk positively about their company. After all, everyone dreams of a high ' Net Promoter Score ' and a stream of positive tweets on Twitter. The most creative and brilliant campaigns are devised for this purpose. Sometimes such a campaign is a hit and other times it is a waste of time. However, the answer to the question is very simple: people talk positively about a company if you do a little bit more than what is expected. Easy, right?
A company determines for itself where the bar is set. The trick is to do just a little bit more than what you promise. People generally tend to do it the other way around and promise just a little bit more than what they actually do. How often does a brother cell phone list company promise to call back the next morning and only do so in the afternoon? That is not a drama, but it is doing just a little bit less than the promise. A while ago I read a wonderful blog post about this, written by Guillaume Van der Stighelen . He described four situations concerning managing expectations.
Your company underperforms. Your company fails to fulfill its promises. The customer is disappointed. That is a reason for a negative conversation.
Your company delivers as promised. You have done exactly what you promised the customer. That leads to satisfaction, but not 10 out of 10. Conversations are quite limited.
Your company goes a little further than promised and manages to serve the customer just a little better, faster and friendlier than expected. If you succeed in this, positive conversations will arise. This is about sending a promised document faster, Apple's product packaging, washing the car during a service, providing a small extra dish that was not on the menu, solving problems with a smile.