GUEST
ARTICLE - Eric Rutten
The
Service-Expectation Gap
The Gap Between
What You Deliver and What Your Members Expect, and What
You Can Do About It
I asked the E.D. of a small association
if providing excellent service to her members was
important. She gave me one of those duh – how
can you ask such a stupid question looks and then
replied “of course it is”. I then asked if she
was meeting her members’ expectations. She
became more thoughtful and started in on what was
obviously going to be a long explanation when she
stopped herself and said “Only by the lack of
complaints and my gut feel”.
Part of the problem that associations
manager have is that services are often measured more
for how they “feel” to their recipients than to what
they actually do. At a most basic level when
buying a product or service, a person is looking for a
solution to a problem. They measure their
satisfaction with their purchase buy seeing how their
problem was solved and by how they felt through the
process. Associations essentially sell services,
products that are “Invisible” and as there is little
to touch or hold, how people feel about the service
often determines their satisfaction. In fact when
it comes to services, the tangibles – what you can
touch and feel is only one of five attributes[i]
that are used by people to determine their satisfaction.
They are:
-
Reliability – the ability to
perform the promised service dependably and
accurately,
-
Assurance – Knowledge and courtesy
of employees and their ability to convey trust and
confidence,
-
Tangibles – Appearance of physical
facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication
materials,
-
Empathy – Caring, individualized
attention the organization provides its members,
-
Responsiveness – Willingness to
help members and provide prompt service.
I refer to these attributes as ‘RATER'.
The rest of the problem is that
member’s expectations are based on more than what you
tell them to expect. They base their expectations
about your service on four things:
-
What they have
experienced in the past,
-
What they have been
told about your service by others,
-
Their personal needs
(the “problem” we talked about above),
-
And what you have
communicated to them.
The rubber hits the road when a member
brings their expectations to your door and you deliver
the requested service. It is at this point where
any perceived gaps between what the member expects and
what you deliver occurs. I emphasize perceived:
when dealing with intangibles, it’s the perception
that is important.
A while ago I had an issue with my car.
The problem was fixed but because of a warranty issue, I
ended up paying for part of the repair. I related
this to friend who replied “Write to the president of
the company – I had a similar problem with my car and
wrote the president. He sent a nice letter and a
cheque covering my costs”. So I wrote to the
president requesting a refund. After a period I
got a cheque in the mail for the full amount I had
requested. So why didn’t I feel good about it?
All I got was a cheque. My minimum expectation was
a letter of apology and a cheque.
For associations, the problem is far
more complex that the delivery of simple services.
What are your members’ expectations about your role in
influencing government? What educational opportunities
do they want? I won’t go done the list of all of
the things associations do – you get the picture.
In the CSAE’s “Best Practices”
section “Membership and Services: 3. 5 Products and
Services” we find:
3.5.1 Live up
to Expectations
Practice
Summary
Establish a
formal process with criteria to deliver products and
services to members. Outline the schedule of product
offerings, so that the member is aware of what to
expect. By informing the membership of the publishing
schedule and number of annual issues the member is able
to respond if issues do not arrive. Letting the member
know when annual renewal is due, the member can expect
and budget for the anticipated commitment”
Essentially the best practice is to tell
member what to expect – and then deliver. While
this is certainly the foundation of managing
expectations, we know that expectations are based on
more than what you tell members to expect. So
let’s do some more digging.
In the “Best Practices” section
“Membership and Services: 3. 1 Understanding
Members”
3.1.1 Report
Card
Practice Summary
Associations must give members an opportunity to grade
the performance of their organization. This includes
such items as member services, initiatives the
organization is currently involved with or sponsoring,
deliverables such as conferences, educational
opportunities, support mechanisms, and perhaps forums
for career enhancement. Members constantly need a voice
and as many opportunities you afford them to exercise
that voice will be considered an investment in the
future viability of the organization.
Surveys, focus groups, evaluation forms
and market research are all solid forms of getting a
better understanding of expectations but regardless of
what tool you use it is critical to ask the right
questions.
Before any survey or focus group is done
you should ask the following questions keeping RATER in
mind:
-
Do I have any idea
what my members really expect and how important it is to
them? A good exercise is to take those things that
you are working on now or will be in the near future and
beside each activity see if you can write down
members’ expectations and their importance. If
you aren’t sure you need to do some basic research.
Without this knowledge you won’t be able to deliver on
expectations.
-
Is my organization
willing to meet or exceed member expectations?
Lack of commitment by the board, management and staff,
lack of resources, the belief that it’s not possible
to meet expectations may all be barriers that need to be
overcome. Key elements that help determine an
organization’s commitment are the existence of goals
and standards keyed to member expectations.
-
How well are we
organized to deliver on member expectations? Role
ambiguity and conflict, poor technology, poor controls
and lack of team work are the greatest organizational
barriers to the delivery of quality service. How
does you organization stack up?
If you have any doubts when asking these
questions, it is essential that you probe deeper and
gain an understanding of the impact of short fall on the
delivery of member services as they may point to root
causes. Not to do so may cause you to take action
based on incorrect assumptions potentially making the
situation worst. Perhaps the most startling
example I have of the importance of understanding root
causes is some work I did for a small computer sales
organization. They were losing money on their
service department and the owner was convinced that
people weren’t happy and didn’t pay their bills.
It turns out customers were more than happy with their
service. The problem turned was a staff that
didn’t value the work they did. Typical staff
comments were “It was so easy to fix, I only charged
them 15 minutes” or “Somebody knocked out the plug
– I couldn’t charge them for plugging the thing back
in”. If the owner had proceeded with his first
instinct to “fix customer unhappiness” he would have
missed the mark completely.
The three questions above will help you
understand: your level of understanding of member
expectations, the level of commitment your organization
has to service excellence, and how well organized you
are to meet expectations.
The last piece of the puzzle is to find
out how you are doing. Seeking member feedback on
their level of satisfaction completes the loop.
All of your questions, regardless of the format you use
to ask them need to be based on RATER and need to find
out the level of satisfaction member have as well as the
importance they place on the service. There
isn’t much value in scoring full points for
satisfaction if the members don’t care about the
service.
A well structured feedback program will
not only let you know how you are doing but will also
provide you with information about how you can improve.
It may also provide you with an indication of other
services or products that your members want. Conducted
overtime and properly recorded you will be able to track
how member expectations change giving you further data
to help better manage your association.
Closing the service – expectation gap
isn’t a straight line process and there is no one way
to do it. You’ll need to start where you think
you’ll get the most initial pay-off. We do know
that when effort is given to continually improving
understanding, commitment to, and organization to meet
member expectations, it puts you in a much better
position to manage you members’ expectations.
You’ll know what’s being told about you. You’ll
know what your members think. You’ll know what’s
important to them. Most important you’ll know
how to give them what they expect – and more.
[i]
Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Berry; “Delivering Quality
Service”, The Free Press, Toronto, 1990
Eric
Rutten is Principal of Rutten and Associates Inc. a
consulting firm that helps organizations design and
implement marketing and sales strategies to grow their
business. The firm specializes in organizations
that deliver service products, and clients include
investment advisor teams, charted accounting firms,
not-for-profits and technology companies.
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