Great Expectation

How setting expectations makes life easier for all concerned

One the the roles of a Relationship Manager (be it CRM, Account or Project Director) is to balance the requirements, sometimes demands, of your clients with the constraints of resources, budgets, time or quality.

One of the most affective ways to handle this is managing expectations. Sometime it's OK to say "not right now" or "can this wait" or even "I can do this but we need to agree a scope change". It sounds so simple, so why do we find it so difficult to manage expectations?

Too often in business we forget that clients are people too. For the most part they are reasonable and will work with you to achieve your mutual success but you must communicate with them. The only ever appear unreasonable because we don't understand their view point.

I have been exploring this topic as part of improving service levels with clients and a very interesting fact came out. Upon review of 2nd and 3rd line calls the client was willing, in almost every case, to move the resolution date, upon request. What was even more interesting was at service reviews satisfaction levels went up! They felt more informed and in greater control of the situation.

Even more interesting,the support teams satisfaction levels went up because they felt more in control and under less pressure.


There are some great articles out there on this topic, one of my favourites is by Naomi Karten.