Do You Know What Your Customer Expectations Are?
As business owners, most of us think our job is to provide a good service or quality product, and if we can deliver it with a smile we’ve met or exceeded our customers’ expectations.
Enter my father-in-law, who came home upset after visiting a NY deli (in DC). He claimed it wasn’t authentic because it was too clean and they didn’t yell at him.
I can just imagine this business owner striving to keep his restaurant clean, and the poor clerk or server who managed to smile in the face of all the questions flying at them from my FIT. All this good work, and it was wrong – according to my FIT.
Two days later, we found ourselves at Route 58 Deli in Virginia Beach, which my FIT had found online and declared ‘legit’ after reading on the menu that included “Noshes & Nibbles.”
The menu itself thrilled him (and eventually the deli did too), but it was the language on the menu he connected with. The item names and descriptions signaled to him that Route 58 was an authentic Jewish deli and that let him accept and embrace it long before we arrived.
Know Your Target Audience
All of this got me thinking not only about customer expectations, but audience targeting. It’s a term we throw around a lot because we think targeting our audience will help us sell more stuff, but how many of us actually dig so deep as to go into cultural expectations?
In this case, my FIT felt that if you are claiming to have an NYC deli, he wants an authentic NYC experience with the dirt and the attitude.
This example may be extreme, as most business owners will choose to have clean floors, and most customers will appreciate that. However, I bring this example up because I think it’s worth noting for two reasons:
- If you are going after a niche audience, you must truly understand all of the nuances that make that audience special and be prepared to cater to them. That may include floors that pass the health code, but don’t shine.
- When you are selecting your target audience, you must decide if you are willing to meet the unique customer expectations of a niche audience or would rather have broad appeal.
Whatever approach you choose to make, it’s certainly worth taking the time to explore the things that make an audience unique and figure out how many of their expectations you can meet.
Not sure how to do this? Start asking questions and really listen to the answers. Your customers will tell you want they want!