Do you have a “problem customer” or two among the customers who buy products and services from you?

I have news.

It’s likely the problem isn’t the customer.

The problem is how you set expectations, and then meet or miss them, and how you interact with that customer.

False, you say?

Consider the quality of experience customers have with your company in these areas:

- What expectations you set

- How you meet those expectations…or how you miss them

- How easy it is for customers to contact you to get an issue resolved fairly, when things go wrong

- How you respond when expectations are not met

1. What expectations do you set?

Consider your advertising, marketing, and the experiences customers and prospects have with your employees through direct, as well as social media and other interactions.

What promises are made?

What expectations are created, whether intentionally or accidentally, by what is implied and what is written or said?

And are you attracting the right customers for the products and services you sell? If not, that may be a problem, as well.

You may be drawing customers to your company whose needs you really can’t fill.

Do a quick test:

Look at your advertising with “fresh eyes,” pretending you don’t know any more about your company than what you see there.

What promises appear to be made to the people who buy your products or services, based on the photos and words in your advertising?

For example, what are customers led to believe about:

- Product and service quality and reliability?

- The ease of doing business with your company?

- Guarantees about what will happen if they aren’t satisfied?

These are just a few of the many customer expectations you should assess.

2. How do you meet the expectations?

Customer expectations you set must be backed up by processes that can, and performance that does deliver what you promise or imply.

What specific processes in your company must be top-notch and perform consistently, every time, in order to meet the expectations your advertising and marketing set?

Once our daughter, then about 7, looked disappointedly at the burger in her hand compared to the one on huge posters around her that showed her what to expect.

Her question about the sad little patty slapped between two halves of a soggy bun?

“Why doesn’t my burger look like THAT?!”

I laughed, but her point was well-taken.

The frustration and disappointment created is even greater when the product or service involved affects more of the customer’s life or livelihood than does one disappointing burger.

3. How easy is it for customers to contact you to try to get an issue resolved fairly, and well, if things go wrong?

Make it easy for customers to contact you, and easily reach the department they need in order to be heard, and to get their problem solved.

Don’t try to shut them down, or lead them astray, hoping they’ll get lost, and give up, somewhere in a phone tree maze.

Make it easy for them to be happy – no, ecstatic – with your company.

Because if you create a minefield or a brick wall when problems arise, they’re likely to take their frustration with them…and to share it liberally on Twitter and Facebook…on their way to giving their future business to one of your competitors.

4. How do you respond when expectations are not met?

Train your employees so they’re well-prepared for the frustrated customers they may be working with, and trying to help.

Keep your employees well-informed about your latest products, promotions, and other aspects of your business that affect the promises you’re making to customers, and the expectations you are teaching them to have.

Help your employees understand that customer feedback of all types really IS gold…no matter what they think of it at the moment that they’re receiving it.

Think of it this way (and trust me on this):

- The customer doesn’t WANT to call customer support.

- He doesn’t WANT to need to get a refund.

- He wants the product or service and the ownership experience he was led to expect by your company’s expectation-setting practices.

Make it easy for your customers to say good things about you to other potential buyers.

Set expectations you’re committed to meet.

And then deliver what you taught your customers to want, and to expect from you.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who may find it useful, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

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Are you on your way to meeting your most important resolutions or goals this year?

Or are you already off-track, or being held back in some way?

If you’re in the second group you’re far from alone.

Here are a few problems you may be facing, and things you can do to get back on track again:

Too many things to do?

To get to a better future, first you have to take care of current circumstances.

When you look at that to-do list, what’s the one thing you need to do before anything else can get done?

For now…just one.

And if it’s not easy to figure out what that one thing is, imagine looking back on this time a few months from now.

Imagine that everything worked out perfectly.

What did you do, where did you begin or what did you complete that took care of now and allowed you to move on to what’s next?

Success just seems to far away to see it…or believe it?

Break your big goal down into mini-milestones. (My dad used to describe these as “ends in view”).

Choose that first small milestone.

Work toward that.

Finish it.

And celebrate in an appropriate way.

Then take on the next small milestone or goal.

Create a string of successes along the way to the big finish, your ultimate goal.

Don’t worry about the past.

Don’t worry about the future.

Take care of now, and do it as well as you can.

Reaching your goal is too hard, now that you look at it more closely?

Step back for a second.

Is it really so hard? Or is it that parts of the path ahead are just (just!) unknown, at this point?

Intimidating or invigorating? How you experience a challenge depends on your perspective.

And if you are intimidated right now, is there training you can take, learning by experimenting that you can do, or someone you can talk with you has the experience that you don’t?

Perhaps there’s an advisor you can hire, or a colleague who’s mastered this challenge from whom you can learn before you go farther.

Reaching your goal is too easy…and you set your sights too low?

Maybe you’re secretly (or not so secretly) bored.

That causes its own problems, too. You never quite get organized, never quite have the “oomph” to get over even minor milestones when your energy and enthusiasm is low.

But before you draw this conclusion, look a little deeper.

Sometimes boredom masks a lack of understanding about what customers, colleagues or managers want you to deliver.

Look deeper before you declare boredom.

There may be important things you’re not looking for or seeing yet.

The truth is that you don’t really want this job?

There’s a lot of that going around, if you believe recent statistics.

One study showed that, of course, in an economy such as the one we’re still working through, people are thankful to have a job.

But at the same time, fewer than half of American workers are happy in the jobs they have.

And that includes executives and managers leading organizations.

If the unhappy camp includes you, and you’re one of many who plan to change jobs when the economy improves, what can you do now – where you are, at this time – to make yourself a more engaging hire when you apply for the next one?

How can you do a better job (yes, at this job you don’t like) for your customers?

For example:

- How can you make the work easier to do?

- How can you improve communications with people you work with and for?

- What do you control? (It’s probably more than you think, and less than you wish). Do what you can to improve that.

This is not a complete list of what might be holding you back, and what you can do if you’re now off track.

You will get solid footing soon.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who may find it useful, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

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Looking for more ideas about ending one year (or project) and beginning the next one well?

Here are a few posts you may appreciate from Fresh Eyes, a blog I write and photograph with observations from work and life:

Finding a way to want to do what you must

Enough discomfort leads to change

Beginning well

If at first you don’t succeed, take a step back

Re-believe

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who may find it useful, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

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The basic process of change is largely the same, whether you’re trying to transform in a major way or just streamline one process or part of your life.

To make successful change requires changes in your:

- Expectations

The “story” you tell yourself has a lot to do with the opportunities you can even see.

- Focus of attention

If you believe change is possible, you’ll look for small but steady signs of progress.

And if, at your core, you don’t think change can really be made, you’ll notice signs of that.

Either way, what you notice and give your attention to consistently is a powerful reinforcement for the direction you’re moving…for better, or worse.

- Daily actions or habits

Making a change means changing day to day habits in some basic but essential way.

Perhaps the way you spend your time, money or energy needs to change in order to reach the goals to which you’re now committed.

Somehow, some way, habits will need to change.

- Some relationships may need to change, as well

You may need to spend more time with some people and less time with others in order to make the changes you want to make.

It all depends on how substantial the change is, and how supportive your current environment is for “remodeling” you are doing in your work, yourself, or your life.

Here are five steps to make successful change:

1. Make a clear choice

Decide specifically what change you want to make.

That sounds simple and straightforward, but often, it isn’t.

Sometimes people – or companies – know what they don’t want, but they don’t really know what they DO want, instead.

Be clear about what your target is, or take the time to find out what it is.

Otherwise, you’re just shooting arrows into the air, anywhere.

Get a clear target.

2. Believe

To make change that lasts, you have to believe the change is really possible.

And if you don’t?

Work on that.

Start by reading about and talking to people or companies who have made the changes you hope to make – or dream about.

3. Reinforce

In simple ways, reinforce your goal, again and again.

Find a picture, create a drawing or mural, or select a simple phrase or theme song (or “rallying cry”) that captures the essence of what you think success will be like, as you move toward it, and when you get there.

Use that reminder often to remind you of your target.

This goal reinforcement sounds simple…simplistic even…but it works.

4. Review

Monitor your movement toward the goal.

And measure the positive impact of progress, along the way.

You’ll see positive results long before you reach your final destination.

Notice and appreciate them. They matter, in a big, BIG way.

5. Adapt

Pay attention to how the change is playing out.

Often the plan for how you will make change requires some changes, itself.

Some things you thought would be easy may turn out not to be so. Other things you thought would require great effort, energy and sacrifice? They may turn out to be simple, after all.

Just be ready to adapt your plans as you move ever closer to your target.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who may find it useful, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

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January.

It’s the month when, full of the possibilities of a fresh new year, we assert, “This year things are going to be DIFFERENT.”

And by February 1, many of us are back to our old habits again.

Why IS that?

What prevents us – well, many of us and many companies, as well – from making substantial, meaningful, sustainable change?

It’s because the pull of the old stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves or our organizations, is astonishingly strong.

We need to break free of the power of their orbit.

Unwittingly, unconsciously, many of these stories box us in, tie us up, hold us back.

They make us blind to many possibilities, and much of our potential and our power.

The old stories limit:

- Who we are

- What we’re capable of, based on a variety of stereotypes we may be telling ourselves, about ourselves

- Our chances for success, for in many ways we fall prey to what they “predict” is likely to happen next

Think of it this way: if someone were looking at a movie of your life, or the life of your company, would they be watching a:

- Comedy?
- Drama?
- Action/adventure tale?
- Or (hopefully not) a horror story?
- Documentary, perhaps?

And then, consider:

- What’s the plot?

- Who are the main players?

- What’s your role in the plot?

- What’s likely to happen next, if you continue to play out this story and this role?

Now, of course, the audience for any movie wants surprise and high drama in the plot…that’s what keeps them in their seats.

But if you’re the person living that drama-filled life…well, you get the point…you want to take the drama out, wherever you can.

It will bring you far greater results which is much more fun, in the end, than the highs and lows of a drama-filled ride can ever be.

For example, if you viewed your life as a comedy, your secret wish might be to entertain those around you.

The primary “scenes” in that case might focus on pratfalls, near-misses and other assorted things that go wrong…except for the entertainment value they provide your friends.

However, if you view your life as an “overcoming all odds” story, then the plot line may focus attention on the odds stacked against you, followed by the many ways you did not fall victim to being beaten down by life, discouraged, depleted or otherwise kept from doing the most you could with the resources and talents you have.

To change, we have to see our stories in order to be able to move to a more positive path.

It is not easy to do.

But it’s definitely worth the effort it takes.

Make your story a good one, and one you want to live…not just the one you inherited, or were “assigned” by someone in your past.

In future posts I’ll give you steps you can follow to see your story more clearly. I’ll also share ideas you can use to create a better story, leading to a more satisfying path and far better results along the way.

If you found this article valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who may find it useful, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

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