Managing Customer Expectations

At every level of interaction with a customer we are influencing expectations. As the previous owner of a pest management company, I made an effort to only promise what I thought I could actually provide. For instance, if a technician is treating an account that has thousands of cockroaches and within a month they achieve about 80-90% reduction of the population, this might be considered a successful treatment program. However, if the initial conversation with the customer led them to believe that they would not see a single cockroach, the PMP might have an unhappy customer. Although nothing is ever set in stone, as PMPs it is in our customer’s and our own best interest to make sure we are all on the same page. I like to call this, “Shared Expectations.” In my experience, a customer is far less likely to be upset or call you back when they know what to expect. If you tell a customer, “you will most likely see a few cockroaches for a few weeks, but the population will slowly decline” and that is what they see, then you were correct. If you say the same thing and they don’t see a single cockroach, then in the eyes of your customer, you’re just really good.