Dare to dream !

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Disappointments are often resulted from people’s failure to meet expectations. Or put it in another way, people’s habit of setting the wrong expectations.

An angry customer threatening to sue the company he used to love because the salesman did not tell him the important terms and conditions, or a motivated employee who decided to resign from his so-called ‘dream’ job once he realized a lot of the promises made during the interview could not be materialized.

Yes, we’ve seen and heard about all such examples. And all of them are due to (in one way or another) this reason – the failure to set the right expectations.

You can argue that it is the customer’s fault (or the interviewee’s) for not asking the proper questions. Yeap, you can definitely do that, just like what most people did. The thing is, this same group of people always end up finding themselves with a pissed off customer or an extremely demotivated employee. And the end result is not going to be the win-win situation everyone wants to achieve – for the customer, he will spread the negative comments (well, you don’t really need to care if your product is so good that everyone will still flock to your shop) and stop buying from you…..and the employee will also spread the negative comments and go look for another job. Either way, it’s definitely not good outcome for both parties in the long run.

Why do they (the customers and the employees) behave this way? Speaking from experience, it’s because we feel betrayed by the people/companies we trusted. Let’s say we buy an expensive product from you. We thought about it for a very long time and finally decided to buy it. We asked A-Y but missed out on Z. And you assumed you don’t have to tell us about Z just because we didn’t ask about it. Big mistake. If Z is important, then you should tell us about it. If you don’t, and once we found out about it, we’ll be very angry.

That’s why I always believe in setting the right expectations. It’s part of being a good salesman, consultant, interviewer, customer service officer, etc. Heck, I can even say it’s part of being successful in life!

So always always remember to set the right expectations and stop assuming people know about it just because they never ask. If you feel it’s important, then say it out. Set the right expectations before they make their decision. Remember that you should be helping them in making the right decision, and not trying to cheat them into making one.

p/s…. I understand that sometimes it’s not possible to clear all their doubts and set all the expectations right… so if you are unsure what kind of expectations to set, try to look at what are the important things that they should know. Things that they will be very pissed off if you don’t tell them about it. Things like conditions, clauses, possible contracts or bonds, etc.

p/s…. I’m writing this post because I became a victim twice in a month just because the salesman did not set the right expectations. I asked many many questions and they assumed I would know the few important points (clauses, missing software, etc) which I did not ask. Yes, I was pissed and they received a lot of lectures from me.