Exceeding Customer Expectations Is The New Normal

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies

Customers are more demanding and have higher expectations of field service providers; you need to determine how to meet and exceed those demands.

Every service company wants to meet its customers’ expectations. If you can’t deliver on what you’ve promised — whether that’s repairing a pump on an oil rig or installing cable television equipment — you won’t be in business very long. In an increasingly competitive service market, however, just meeting those expectations is not enough. There are too many other providers willing to go the extra mile to gain (and keep) new business.

“Merely meeting customers’ expectations for service no longer gets the job done. In fact, it is doubtful that it ever got the job done in the first place,” says Bill Pollock, president and principal consulting analyst at Strategies for Growth/ PollockOnService. “In today’s market, the economy is much more volatile and competitive, and customers are much more knowledgeable and demanding than ever before.”