Exceeding Customer Expectations

Originally published Aug. 10, 2008

In my last column I wrote about the family trip to Pigeon Forge. When the hotel staff was unwilling to change a light bulb, it didn't ruin our trip, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I had a very different experience in Pigeon Forge a few years ago. Within minutes of arriving at Splash Country, I lost my keys.

As an aside, the locker rental they offer is a pretty good deal after all.

I lost my keys in the landing pool at the bottom of one of the water slides. I asked one of the 16 year old life guards if there was any hope of recovering them. He told me they would have to close down the slide and dive for them. If they turned up, he would take them to the lost-and-found office.

To be honest, he sounded as interested in finding my keys as I would have been at 16 - not very. I spent the rest of the day wondering how I would replace each key.

Late in the day I decided to visit lost-and-found, just in case.

When I told them I was looking for lost keys, someone opened a desk drawer with about 20 sets of keys. Much to my amazement, my keys were there.

I really don't know who found the keys, but I was pretty impressed for several reasons. First, I know it was my own fault, but Splash Country had a plan in place for handling customer mistakes. The light bulb incident was frustrating because the hotel did not have a plan for dealing with its own very simple problems.

I was also impressed that the teenagers who run Splash Country actually used the plan. I know it's wrong to stereotype, but I really didn't expect much help from anyone at Splash Country. At the hotel, however, the staff looked grandmotherly. When I asked for a new bulb, I almost expected them to bring some homemade cookies along with the bulb.

In these two simple examples, there's a pretty important message for companies. Research on customer service shows that customers are satisfied when their expectations are met. When their expectations are exceeded, however, customers become loyal devotees of the company. When customer expectations are not met, they become ex-customers.

At the hotel, I felt like my very low expectations were not met. At Splash Country, I also had pretty low expectations, but they were exceeded.

Several companies have become very successful by exceeding customer expectations. Every day, employees at Ritz-Carlton hotels around the world gather before their shifts to hear "Wow" stories. These are stories about hotel staffers who go above and beyond the call of duty to help customers.

But you don't have to be the Ritz-Carlton to make use of this principle. Most people have pretty low expectations when they go into a fast food restaurant. On a visit to the Ritz-Carlton, Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy noticed that when he thanked anyone on the hotel staff, they always replied, "My pleasure." That's why you get the same response and outstanding service from Chick-fil-A employees.

In the last year, Chick-fil-A has been recognized by Zagat's and Business Week for their outstanding service that exceeds customer expectations.

It's interesting to think about what might have happened at my hotel if Chick-fil-A employees had been working there. I'm pretty sure the response would have been, "It's my pleasure to change your light bulb."