Expectations!

“Thank you for your purchase. Your package will arrive in…” four to six weeks….or four to six days… or maybe tomorrow.”

Do you remember when four to six—or even six to eight—weeks was the norm? Yes, I’m old enough to remember that so painfully clearly. There’s a moment of excited expectation when placing the order that was instantly cooled by knowing you wouldn’t see your purchase for over a month. But, that the norm in a time of far less automation, lack of regional warehouses and unattainable overnight services. We all expected shipping to be slow. And one month later we were like puppy dogs in the front window waiting for our person to drive up. Our person happened to be a mail carrier or UPS driver—as you recall, FedEx wasn’t around yet.

Expectations. How times have changed!

Now in an age of same-day order handling or next-day order delivery, it’s more critical than ever to set those customer expectations correctly…especially if you are not Amazon, and no, a drone will not be dropping your package in the hour after ordering! It’s even more important if you are shipping something only in specific seasons, whether it’s nursery root stock or a case of fine temperature-sensitive wine.

You and I know, if you operate a small business—even if you are not handling wines, seasonal produce or plant stock—there are all kinds of reasons you cannot offer that dream-level service and stay solvent. Those reasons include not being able to clone yourself to run boxes to the mail while still producing your product and keeping your sales efforts in operation, and not affording $60 to overnight a box the customer is only willing to pay $15 shipping to receive. So, what do you do?

Set realistic expectations. No matter how disappointing they may seem, a realistic expectation is better than expressing incorrectly optimistic expectations or setting no expectations at all…. When you tell your customer what to expect up front, you give them control and information. They can back out immediately if the length of time just won’t work for them. You also help them embrace the correct expectation of when you will come through. How often have you wondered if a company lost your order when something didn’t arrive when you thought it maybe, probably should?

Second, communicate with your customer if those expectations must be modified. This year in wine country, grape harvest coincided perfectly with the ideal temperatures for wine club member shipments to be mailed. Harvest had to come first so it was a great time to tell remote customers what was happening and that their box of wines would arrive a couple weeks later than they maybe, probably expected. In the insurance world, the glut of applications arriving to processors in a compressed six-week span caused a slow down on verification notices that coverage was in place. It is the perfect time to advise customers that while they might normally expect confirmation in three days, those notifications are running about 12 days behind.

Third, when customers know the expectations and complain, commiserate knowing that waiting is hard. You’ve heard your kids whine on Christmas Eve when they already know the rule is no presents until Christmas day. It’s not that you didn’t tell them. They know…but your product is so good, it’s hard to wait! You can commiserate; you know it’s hard to wait too! Maybe you can reaffirm the ETA and let them know that nothing further stands in the way of the delivery. If the delay is excessive, you might offer a “thanks for bearing with us” coupon for a future order or some tiny thank you gift in the box. You know, like letting your kids open one little gift on Christmas Eve to help them hang on until morning.

Finally, if you did not set expectations, set incorrect ones, or needed to modify expectations but did not communicate this to your customer, understand that their inquiries and disappointment with you is justified. Be apologetic, not defensive. Resolve to do better and implement a plan to do better. In this case, the customer is truly right!