Customer expectation management in new business sales

Abstract

In new business sales, guiding the customer experiences foremost tool is expectation management. Managing expectations gives a company the necessary power to form and guide the experience and turn a formerly reactive business element into a proactive tool. Objective of the thesis is to create and test a measurable customer expectation management program, that could be evolved to cater for various, different personas. Research questions corner the subjects of best practices on how, when and in what order should the touch points of customer journey be managed to best facilitate the work of senior managers, to manage expectations. The program aims to prolong customership retention and increase customer satisfaction in the long run. The thesis describes the employing company and its current situation and desires in customer expectation management. Theoretical framework consists of expectation management, with minor elements bordering customer experience when necessary. Customer journey, its modeling, process mapping and creating touch points is also studied in the framework. The thesis is an action research, a research into expectation management utilizing multiple methods. Main methods of action research in this thesis are semi-structured interviews, process mapping and coaching. The study is qualitative. Data is gathered from structured feedback before and after the implementation of the expectation management program. Implementing the program is started by coaching the program to the implementing Senior Manager. The senior manager implements the recommended actions and gathers notions and feedback and reports these. Feedback is read repeatedly to recognize recurring elements and to test a proposed explanation on how to enhance expectation management. The thesis results in a standardized expectation management program that forms an operating standard for the company in managing customer expectations