What is the difference between desired service and adequate service Why are desired service expectations more stable than adequate service expectations?

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When designing services, it is good to understand customer expectations. The purpose of service design is to create a customer experience that exceeds customer expectations. Understanding customer expectations facilitates the design of services to be better and more customer-oriented.

This summary of Services marketing: integrating customer focus across the firm, 3rd European edition covers the key takeaways found in the original Part 1: Chapter 3.

Please note: this concise summary is unofficial and not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by the original book’s publisher or author.

Importance of customer expectations

Knowing what the customer expects is the first and possibly most critical step in delivering good-quality service. Customers have beliefs about what to expect when they are evaluating service quality what they believe as standards or reference points. Companies cannot trust that they know what their customers want. That can lead to spending money and other things that do not matter to the customer. In the worst-case scenario, the company will lose its customers.

Understanding the expectations the successful service marketing needs to focus on:

1. Types of expectation standards

2. Factors that are influencing the most

3. What role do these factors play

4. How can a company meet or exceed customer expectations

Meaning and types of service expectations

Depending on the reface point that customer holds the level of expectation can vary widely. For example, you are going to the restaurant, and your level of service expectations can vary from low to high. Your expectations are related to what kind of restaurant you are planning to have dinner at. That means that there are different levels of expectations.

Expected services: levels of expectations

For purposes of our discussion, we are focusing on two types: desired service and adequate service. Desired service is the highest and what customer hopes to receive. It is also a mix of believes “can be” and “should be” that customer holds. Adequate service is the level that customer is still accepting.

For example, you are planning to travel to Venice, Italy, at Easter. You are planning your trip among your what you hope and wish. However, Easter may not be ideal for finding the right flights and hotel with a central location to the key sights. You probably need to accept flights outside your optimal times, as well as the hotel that is further away than you originally planned. Adequate service represents the minimum tolerable expectation.

It is also good to note that customers typically hold similar desired expectations across categories of service. For example, restaurants are not all the same but can vary from fast-food restaurants to expensive restaurants. This quotation is a great example:

Levels of expectation are why two organizations in the same business can offer far different levels of service and still keep customers happy. It is why McDonald’s can extend excellent industrialized service with few employees per customer and why an expensive restaurant with many tuxedoed waiter may be unable to do as well from the customer’s point of view.

The zone of tolerance

The one of tolerance falls between the desired service and adequate service. That can be considered this as the customer is not particularly noticing service performance. If service performance exceeds desired service, customers are very pleased and surprised too. On the other hand, if service performance drops below adequate service, the customer is frustrated and not happy. When service performance falls outside the range, service gets the customer’s attention positively or negatively. The level of tolerance can be different between customers. It can expand or diminish with each customer in various situations.

Factors that influence customer expectations of service

For marketers, it is essential to understand the factors that are shaping the expectations. However, it might be challenging due to forces that influence customer expectations are uncontrollable.

Sources of desired service expectations

1. Personal needs: Factors that shape what customers desire in service.
2. Lasting service intensifiers: Individual, stable factors that lead the customer to a heightened sensitivity to service.

• Derived service expectations
• Personal service philosophy

Sources of adequate service expectations

1. Temporary service intensifiers: Short-term and individual factors make a customer aware of the need for service.
2. Perceived service alternatives: Other providers from whom the customer can obtain service.
3. Customer’s self-perceived service role: How well customers believe they are performing their roles in service delivery.
4. Situational factors: Service performance conditions usually are temporarily lowering the level of adequate service by widening the zone of tolerance.
5. Predicted service: The level of service that customers believe they are likely to get.

Sources of both desired and predicted service expectations

Customers are looking for information from several different sources before they decide on purchasing services. It can be external or internal information. For example, a friend can recommend a service, watching tv, or their memories about the service.

1. Explicit service promises: Personal or non-personal statements that are made by the company to customers.
2. Implicit service promises: Inferences about what the service likely should and will be.
3. Online and offline word-of-mouth communications: Very important in services that are difficult to evaluate before purchase or direct experience of them.
4. Past experience: Previous exposure to services, that is relevant.

Issues involving the management of customer service expectations

In this section, we discuss five of the most current topics about customer expectations.

What does a service marketer do if customer expectations are “unrealistic”?

Customers want services to be simple and basic as they want services to be delivered as promised. The company may no be able to address expressed expectations. Then it is good to let the customer know the reasons that desired service cannot provide. And how they have planned efforts to improve them.

Should a company try to delight the customer?

It may seem like a good idea to delight customers with unexpected, random, and extraordinary service. Delighting customers will be more difficult for the company in the future since customer expectations have risen. Delights are additional add to service musts and satisfiers features. Delights are things that customers would not expect. The delight strategy will give a competitive advance when other companies in the same industry cannot copy it.

How does a company exceed customer service expectations?

Companies should pay attention to their promises and provide the service they promised to provide. Developing a customer relationship is one approach for exceeding service expectations. Another is to under-promise the service to increase exceeding expectations. However, this method is risky due to patterns that customers will recognize, and under-promising reduces the competitive appeal. One way to exceed expectations is to position exceptional service as unique rather than standard.

Do customer service expectations continually escalate?

Companies need to regularly monitor adequate service expectations. Service delivery or promise will rise service expectations because those expectations are dynamic. On the other hand, desired service expectations are far more stable due to personal needs, for instance.

How does a service company stay ahead of the competition in meeting customer expectations?

Companies must perform above the adequate service level to use service quality for competitive advantage. They must reach the desired service level and not only exceed the adequate service level. It is good to remember that the adequate service level reflects the minimum performance level expected by customers.

Summary

As we can see, the customers have different types of service expectations: desired service, adequate service, and predicted service. These different levels of service are reflected within the zone of tolerance. Also, customer expectations and zone of tolerance are influenced by a variety of factors.

Source:

• Wilson, Alan, et al. (2016). Services marketing: integrating customer focus across the firm, 3rd European edition. (Part 1: Chapter 3)

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