Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

My expectations about expectations


I’m surprised to find that the subject of psychology of quality and expectations is so complex.

Tore Pedersen explains regarding quality & expectations: If the expectations are high the quality is valued higher. But if expectations are low, the quality is valued lower. If the expectations are low it requires a lot of effort to overturn our experienced quality.

The sense of quality is built over time. It takes a lot of effort for our restaurant to build up high expectations and high experienced value for our menu.

We could try and learn to understand our guests by asking our guests about their expectations and feelings. According to Professor Margareta Friman we can ask our guests before their visit or after their visit.

Asking before their visit will be based on affect forecasts: how do you think you will feel when visiting our venue?

Or we can ask after the visit: How did you feel?

There are different ways for us to build up expectations before the visit. The more contact and more “top of mind” our restaurant is before the visit, the higher the expectation will be. High end- restaurants, like owned by chef Heston Blumenthal are experts in building up expectations. Before you visit you are to send them a whole questionnaire filled with information about your preferences, interests, expectations, emotions and memories. The restaurant will then create a tailor made-menu for you. Naturally the expectations are sky-high, but met every time because of the research beforehand.

So how can our small restaurant create higher expectations when we don’t have the resources to send and analyse questionnaires (nor do we wish to have menus costing €200-€1000)? We can use story-telling as a way to build up emotions, expectations and mystique . Social media using pictures and stories are also effective in building the right ambience.

Kommentarer

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

A visit to a funeral agency

Due to a recent personal loss, last week I visited a funeral agency. Since this visit for obvious reasons is very much on top of my mind, I will take this opportunity to reflect upon the physical space and servicescape of the funeral office. This being my first visit to a funeral office, I did not know what to expect, more than what I had seen on tv, or a different kind of agency (general script). Physical space: The office entrance was discrete with a small waiting room. The office space had a clean scandinavian design. There were two private offices. An agent geeted us by the door, and was kind to squeeze us in on a short notice. The office room was small and overfurnished, filld with piles of paper. But there was a shelf of miniatures of coffins, which made it easier for us to pick the right model, according to our budget.   Digital space: The agent used their web page as a reference, a lot of information and their enlisted products and services where easily accessed. For

Moduel 4 about customer interractions

In the coming blogs and in the course we will dive into the exciting world of customer interactions. This I believe really is the core of any business: the customer and the service provider interracting with each other. I’m looking forward to learn about the theories connected into customer interraction.  Having worked in customer service my whole life (since I was 14, and still going strong!) I have decades of emiprical experience on the subject. I absolutely love meeting and talking to my customers. My style of service is personal, engaging and preferably humoristic, when applicable.  Although I consider myself being a person who gets along with everyone, I still meet an angry or dissatisfied customer every now and then. The challenge is to try to change their perspective, and make things right. 99 times out of 100 it works out well. I’m looking forward to read about the academics point of view when it comes to good practises in customer interraction, and what to do when thin

Resource integration and servicescapes

Resource integration gives a new perspective to how the customer's are affected and co-create value to the product or service. In her tutorial video, assistant professor Maria Åkesson decribes resource integration as how the customers interact with each other in the servicescape. Very little of this process can be influenced by the firm (open part), most of the resource integration happens without the firm's inclunece, only on the customer's terms (closed part). Customer for instance uses resources before and after a direct contact with the firm, such as finding information online, or asking friends for advice. Here the firm's assignment is to make the resources as user-friendly as possible. In a restaurant this could be easy-to-find-menus and other information on web-sites and the social media. The word of mouth becomes a useful tool, when the restuarants reputation is on the top. Other customers recommend the place to their friends, and talk about in positive terms