In the next post, I talked about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty and introduced the concept of the zone of indifference. This zone is the broad middle ground between the top and bottom boxes on a customer satisfaction survey. In this post, I will discuss the relationship between customer experiences and expectations and the zone of tolerance and its complement to the zone of intolerance.
Zone of Tolerance
In the ideal world, when two or more parties make commitments to each other, clearly defined expectations are made and agreed upon. For example, if I say, “I will pay you $500.00 for your Canon Digital SLR camera tomorrow at lunch when you give me the camera. I will test it, and if it does not work, I will return it to you, and this deal is off.” It is clear what both parties will do.
Unfortunately, frequently in the real world, expectations are not as clear as the example. The other party does not clearly understand commitments made by one party. For example, “Our service engineer will show up at your office early tomorrow afternoon, and the job should not take more than 2 or 3 hours to complete.” It sounds simple, but what happens if the engineer does not have the necessary part and cannot start work until 10 AM when FedEx delivers it? Assume the repair took two hours – the engineer and her manager feel they did what they promised. The customer is disappointed because he had to wait almost half a day to finish his work. They won’t be excited about the extended downtime but may tolerate it.
This figure shows the above situation in two forms – if the downtime is significant or if it is not so important:
Let’s talk our way through this figure. In the most critical case, there are two different expectations:
- The description of the desired service – arrive by 3 PM today and get the air conditioner running before you return to your shop today. The definition of what the customer will accept – diagnose the problem today and get the a/c running before noon tomorrow if you do not have the required part on your truck.
In other words, the customer says, “I want it fixed tonight but will tolerate a delay until tomorrow if you have to get a part and cannot come back before tomorrow morning.” A loyal customer since she is willing to accept an inconvenience because she trusts your business.
Now, let us look at the least essential case. The humidifier may have a very slow drip for the same air conditioner. The water is dripping into a large bucket that will hold a few day’s worths of leaks before needing to be emptied. In this case, there are lower expectations and a larger tolerance zone.
In both cases, the customer may still be delighted if you meet her desired service level. As long as you achieve an adequate service level, you will satisfy her and may even make her very satisfied. However, this will keep you nearly out of the well-done zone!
Zone of Intolerance
But what happens if you fail to meet the customer’s expectation of adequate service? Look here:
Once you fail to perform at the adequate service level, you fall into the zone of intolerance. This is where the customer starts venting to friends and associates, calls your helpline, and immediately asks for a supervisor, manager, or Vice President. Not a pleasant situation.
When you fail even to achieve the level of unacceptable service, you should start monitoring social media. And if they are a critical account, you need to start looking for a box to take your possessions home when you are fired. You rapidly transition from the zone of indifference into the zone of intolerance and turn your customer into a terrorist. In many companies, you do not want to be the person who helped a customer become a terrorist.
Key Takeaway
It would help if you did everything possible to keep your customers out of their zone of indifference. The best way to do that is to meet your customer’s desired service level; if you cannot achieve that level of performance, you MUST meet her adequate service level. Not completing that service level means you risk turning your customer into a terrorist who will do whatever she can to impact your future business negatively.
Learn this lesson well.
About Middlesex Consulting
Middlesex Consulting is an experienced team of professionals with the primary goal of helping capital equipment companies create more value for their clients and stakeholders. Middlesex Consulting continues to provide superior solutions to meet the needs of its clients by focusing on our strengths in Services, Manufacturing, Customer Experience, and Engineering. If you want to learn more about how we can help your organization minimize the risk of creating unhappy customers, please get in touch with us or check out some of our free articles and white papers here.