I love shopping online. It's easy, convenient and fits my schedule. Last week I needed to make a simple change to an order, but, as easy as it was to make the purchase online, making the change was not so simple. I waited on the phone for almost 20 minutes before a customer service rep finally answered and made the quick change. The rep was polite and efficient, but the change was certainly something I could have done myself in no more than a few minutes. In this case, my customer experience was negatively affected.

Learn more about setting— and exceeding-customer expectations in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.

The bar has been raised on what it means to exceed customer expectations, yet many companies seem to be falling short. Research from Lee Resources discovered that 80 percent of companies say they deliver "superior" customer service while only eight percent of consumers think these same companies actually deliver superior customer service.

In a recent blog post, customer engagement specialist Joe Gagnon detailed seven expectations consumers have from brands today:

  • Know Me: The data collected and context of customer interactions should be carried over, even across platforms, from interaction to interaction, even if the customer switches from self-service to full service.

  • Make The Experience Mobile: Seventy percent of customers would rather text than talk. The customer experience should leverage all channels on a mobile device.

  • Let Me Do It: Customer satisfaction is higher when customers are allowed to do it on their own. Customers are more forgiving of themselves. Seventy-two percent of customers prefer self-service to picking up the phone and 91 percent would prefer self-service if available.

  • Make it Social: Social media is inherently simple for consumers, which is why they use it to complain, compliment and escalate issues. Social also allows advocates to help a brand solve issues.

  • Fit Into My Life: Customers expect to be able to conduct business at any time of any day on any platform.

  • Save Me Time: Consumers don't have time to wait days for an email reply. They also don't want to wait for a call center for simple items they could solve themselves. Today's consumer is self-driven and expects immediacy.

  • Makes Me Smarter: If a change in service is expected or an is action required, consumers prefer to be notified ahead of time. Reminders or notifications of actions to be taken, outages or changes in service should be proactively communicated.

Set your expectation to read PCT again tomorrow.

Source: Joe Gagnon is senior vice-president and global general manager for cloud solutions at Aspect Software, a provider of customer engagement solutions.