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.