Tyler Durden and ‘The myth of meeting expectations in marketing’

9 INCH AXIOM – Meeting expectations

‘Sorry kids . . .the 3 biggest myths are Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Meeting Expectations’

Last week I was in New York City with my colleague at Synergy  Brad Bossow.  Brad and I were at a rooftop bar waiting to meet a few people before heading over to a networking event.  I noticed a guy sitting on his own obviously waiting for someone.  I struck up a conversation about waiting.  I offered my standard line:

“Do you know that we spend 10% of our life waiting?”

We started talking about waiting and the importance of being on time.  Right then this guy said something that was a  paradigm shift for me [a true Tyler Durden 'rules' moment].  I’ll paraphase it:

“There is no such thing as being on time.  You are either early . . .  or you are late”

I immediately starting thinking about how this applies to business and the idea of meeting expectations.  I’ve always thought the idea of meeting expectations is a surefire recipe for losing business.  This new paradigm has only made it clearer for me.  Meeting expectations is a fallacy.  You either fall below expectations or you exceed. It bears repeating:

‘There is no such thing as meeting expectations’

In a world where 60-80% of customers describe their customer satisfaction as satisfied or very satisfied before going on to defect to other brands, ‘meeting expectations’ is no longer an option.

The Solution: 

Make it a practice to always overdeliver.  Find ways to give a little extra.  Simply set your bar higher than the expectations of your customers.   

Your goal should be to strive to bring unique value to the customer.  Never settle for being seen as a ‘commodity’.  Always remember . . . “The Competition is only a click away”.

Today’s Lagniappe (a little something extra)  - A great blogpost on innovation, a ‘Fight Club’ video and a parting shot on scales

Blogpost - Check out this post entitled, “Tyler Durden’s 8 Rules of Innovation” from the blog Lateral Action

Video – Fight Club video featuring ‘Where is my mind’ by The Pixies

Parting thought – when doing any type of survey that contains scales, make sure to eliminate any middle ground.  Force the respondent to take a stand in one direction or the other.  Eliminate the safety net.

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