Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you byEsther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowersbusiness owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. Welcomeback to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today we'retalking managing yours and your customers expectations. Expectations can bequite high.
Melanie
They definitely can.
Esther
That's my first thought when it comes to this episode. Imean, people tune into us with high expectations after almost three years andwe still... Joking, guys. Yes, we are a reputable pair of speakers.
Melanie
I wonder what you were going to say then?
Esther
Speakers.
Melanie
Yes, speakers.
Esther
We're speaking to them.
Melanie
Yes.
Esther
But how can you manage your customers expectations but alsoyour own? Sometimes we put our customers expectations above what we actuallyexpect for ourselves.
Melanie
Well, it depends on where you're going to start from. Imean, we've all come across the phrase and not always necessarily understood itis: What is CX? And CX is the abbreviation, the jargon for customer experience,and then there's the UX, which is the user experience. But today we're going tobe talking about customer expectations and what we expect of them as well. Andthere's a couple of ways we can do that. One of the first ways is, and I knowI'm probably going to bore people to tears here, is to do terms and conditionsfor your business. And these terms and conditions, okay.
Esther
I was just going to ask who reads them?
Melanie
Well, this is why it's so important to have them, becauseevery single lesson that business owners have learned over the years, over thedecades, we're talking over hundreds of years, has slowly but surely become acustomer or a personal expectation. And these have become terms and conditionson your website, on if you have a look at a user manual, it will say there arecertain expectations, there are certain ways things behave, and certain waysyou should behave with these products or these services. And if you have a lookat your competitors' websites, hopefully they've got a term and condition ontheir website as well. But every single time you make a mistake with a clientor they make an assumption about what you do, hopefully somewhere that isgetting stored and becoming a lesson that you have learnt. And I think,honestly, the best way to manage your customer expectations is to take thatlesson and make it a term and condition on your website.
Esther
Yeah. And then refer them back to it saying, if you rememberwhen we agreed to work together, this is what you agreed to, this is what Iagreed to do, if you have a contract with them, and this is what you agreed todo, eg. Pay on time, send over the information on time. Melanie and I, who workin social media management, how many times do customers send something the daythat they want it published?
Melanie
Too many times to mention.
Esther
Yeah. Or I just thought you could knock up a little imagefor today. No, I can't. It's not as easy as just knocking up a little image ora little blog. That one's just a real kicker. It won't take you long to...Terms and conditions can help you manage their expectations.
Melanie
And they should be on a formal contract, as you say, even aquotation. They should be on a quotation.
Esther
Oh, yes. And that's another thing that well, when we havesent out quotes at the bottom, there are terms and conditions even of thequote. The quote is valid for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever you want toput on it, and it's renegotiable inside a certain amount of time. Or once theyagree to this, then they have to hand over a) money, b) information, c) contentfor their website, whatever the case may be, within a certain amount of time.Otherwise the website will not be built in this case, or the content will notbe shared on social media. So just going, oh, here's my website, takeinformation from it for the social media will maybe keep us going for a week.On your terms and conditions or on your quote or your contract, who isresponsible for taking the images? Who is responsible for sourcing royalty freeimages? Who is responsible for making videos? Who is responsible for findingthe hashtags, doing the research? Break it up into who's doing what. Otherwiseyou'll be lumbered with everything.
Melanie
It's not even down to the actual work itself, it's howpeople contact you as well. One of my terms and conditions is how people cancontact me and when they can contact me. Cold callers, if you like. People Ihaven't worked with who aren't clients, they have a certain timeframe between8:30 and 06:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays and that sort ofstuff. But if you're a client of mine, then you can find me contactable 365days of the year at reasonable times. So reasonable being, you know, not 02:00in the morning
Esther
Before midnight.
Melanie
It could be anything if you're managing expectations.
Esther
Yeah. And any small bit, I think, face, or social media ingeneral, not just Facebook, has made it that a lot of people forget that thereare people behind the platform, so they expect an immediate response. Sosomebody sends a message to the jewellery maker at 11:30 at night, on a Friday,just before attending a wedding the next day or on the Monday, and expect notjust a reply, but, yes, that's no problem, I'll do that for you and I will postit express delivery at no extra cost. People are maybe expecting a little toomuch from small business owners.
Melanie
I've gone to the point of actually putting down not onlywhat I do, but also what I don't do. I don't run courses in Google AdWords, Idon't run courses in SEO and I don't run courses in website building.
Esther
Yes, because, well, getting back to the jewellery designer,somebody might hire you to make earrings and a necklace and they get it and go,oh, that's amazing. Can you also make me a watch? Well, yes, but I'm going to needthree weeks or whatever. Oh, no, but I need it for tomorrow. Once they see thequality of the goods and services you produce, they will expect more and moreand more and maybe even for the same amount that they paid for earrings and thenecklace. "Just throw that in for me". A lot of people have becomelike because larger companies can give discounts from time to time, they expectsmall businesses to be able to keep up with those. You have to sometimes putyour foot down as well and refer back to a podcast that we did recently on howto say no to a customer. It's scary, but it sometimes has to be done. But yeah,even if you don't want to go as far as doing terms and conditions, FAQs on yourwebsite can help your customers or potential customers find answers easily. Howlong is the turnaround time?
Melanie
I still think you need Terms and Conditions though, becauseyou need it on your quotes you're going to be sending. Even if you're doing aproduct. And we're not just talking services here, we're talking products,there will be a set of expectations. They'll expect it to be delivered in acertain way, in a certain time frame. This time of year that we're recordingright now, it's coming up to Christmas. Okay, I know I've now stopped makingthis evergreen, so I'm now being overwhelmed with "get this byChristmas". "Delivery can be promised by Christmas" and all thissort of stuff. And that's a customer expectation and they're managing myexpectation. So they're saying five days until the cut off point, 4 days untilthe cut off point. Do you know what I mean? So they're managing my expectation,but they're also giving me a sense of purpose and a sense of, you need to makea decision. Now they're trying to convert me.
Esther
Yes. It would be wrong of you to then contact them in sixdays time and say, oh, can I still get it by Christmas? And expect them to go,yeah, that's no problem. They should refer back to, oh, well, I'm sorry, butcut off was yesterday. Can't make an exception for you because then if they dothat, you might go and tell one of your friends and then the exception has tobe made for everyone. Or they might have to take on extra staff to cover peopleputting in late orders. And how viable could thatbe?
Melanie
Well that just wouldn't be tenable at all. So when we'retalking about customer expectations, have a look and see what your competitorsare doing. Can you match or surpass what they're doing? Can you improve on ifsomebody's having a bad experience? Look at their testimonials and see if youcan if anybody got some bad stuff up there. Because sometimes you see theespecially on Facebook, they put up a recommendation. It's actually wherethey're saying they do not recommend. We see that quite a few times. And that'swhen you can go in and go, actually, maybe that is something I can work on.Maybe I can better manage my customers expectations. Terms and conditions areone way, but if you don't have terms and conditions, you've got to manage yourcustomer expectations in a different way and also what you expect of them too.And I think personally, terms and conditions are the best way to do it.
Esther
Yes, but it is a two way street. Don't be afraid ofincluding in your terms and conditions how, when, and what method you want tobe paid. Because too many people are like, oh, yes, next week.
Melanie
"I'll send it by Revolut" I don't even haveRevolut.
Esther
You shouldn't have to open a new way to receive money justbecause it's inconvenient for your customer. They should and will adapt to you.Okay, hope that's been useful. Let us know your feedback on that. And it stillis evergreen's content because Christmas is always coming.
Melanie
That's true. Winter is coming.
Esther
We'll be back next week, guys, with another episode of theMonday Morning Marketing Podcast. Until then, bye bye.
Melanie
Bye. The offshoots of Game of Thrones Jon Snow, apparentlyis coming up.
Esther
Have you seen the dragon one yet?
Melanie
I've started watching that.
Esther
Yeah, it's good.
Melanie
I'm really enjoying it.
Esther
I haven't finished it yet. Very long. Can't concentrate.
Melanie
Game of Thrones wasn't short either.
Esther
No, but I was in a different headspace then.
