Managing Expectations

I work in customer service in a company where people have very high expectations of the experience that they receive. I came there from the Royal Opera House where I worked as an usher and later an usher manager. Unsurprisingly, the House also had very high customer anticipations. I also happen to lecture bored looking students on ‘customer expectation’. It came as no surprise therefore to find the wedding game has as many (or more) problems with managing high expectation as any other business.

You know and I know that this blog is ridiculous for many reasons. The very fact that I am writing articles about one day in my life and whether I will cope with it without turning into some kind of insane killing machine is in itself pretty absurd and not a little insulting to our intelligence. But the more I go on, the more the whole thing fascinates me. I am genuinely enjoying this indulgent journey into the day of possibly the Highest Customer Expectation any person will ever experience, whether they are bride, groom or [insert position near to the bride or groom] other. And I think I may have got to the bottom of why this one day, one in the average human’s 25, 000 days on the planet is such a massively joyful, stressful, ball ache to arrange. It all comes from what we Expect.

Customer Expectation is what the customer thinks should happen and how they think they should be treated when receiving it. Let’s be clear, expect is different to want. Wanting is something you would like, but understand you can’t necessarily have. Expectation is something you form the intention of definitely owning.

‘I want you to have this on my desk by tomorrow’ vs. ‘I expect you to have this on my desk by tomorrow’’.

Which sentence would make you more likely to get that piece of work for your manager done?

Here is an example for you. If I walk into a 5*hotel that I have paid a lot for having made a room reservation a few days prior, I not only want the following things, but I also expect them from the overall experience that I have been sold. I expect that I should be greeted in a clean and calm reception by a professional and well trained person, I expect to be told where my room is, I expect that my room is what I have asked/paid for and I expect that this will be done at the speed I want. I expect a close to perfect experience.

If I walk into a £29 a night motel however, certain elements of my expectation will be very different.

Similarly, if I am getting married I expect the day that I want, or I expect the day I have in my head at least. Every person has a picture of what they want: 

It doesn’t matter what you or I think of any of these pictures. If these are what you expect from a wedding, I cannot change that. Your expectations are yours and yours alone. You might not even know them yet until someone shows you a wedding cake and you think, ‘I really can’t see the point of a wedding cake, do we actually need one?’

The difficulty with wedding expectation is, I think, simply down to the huge amount of factors external to an individual’s expectations.  I might not be able to afford what I ‘expect’ to have, it might not be what my partner expects to have, if I’m not paying it might not be what my or my partner’s parents expect us to have and it certainly won’t be what everyone else expects to have at their own wedding or the wedding which they believe is how things should be/look/be done. When we plan a wedding we are always compromising on our expectations or having them challenged, be they for financial, personal or practical reasons.  And we are constantly managing expectations, whether they are our own or those of other people.

How we deal with these expectations is another matter. If I am dealing with a customer whose expectations of my business are higher than the service I can offer (e.g. they are going to complain whatever I do) then I would tell my students to mind the following points:

•       Effective Listening

•       Diffuse negative emotions

•       Use assertiveness

•       Negotiate

I would advise my students to keep your voice low, make eye contact, and explain calmly but firmly why you haven’t been able to provide them with 400 thread count Egyptian cotton when they paid £29 for the room, then try to work out where that expectation has come from. I am not saying that this will solve the problem (the human mind is a complex organ), but you will at least have given yourself some insight into why this person has built up the expectations they are now expressing.

Everyone has an expectation of what they think a ‘good wedding’ entails. For me it is mainly about a free bar. Really; it’s a free bar which floats my boat. Don’t judge. For other people it’s the food. Or they might have a bug bear about strapless dresses in a church or the order of service being a bit shoddy or the fact that the organist can’t play three notes together (actually, I’ll own up to that one too). Some people expect to only have close family to the ceremony while others expect to be at the ceremony as that’s the bit they enjoy the most (still on the free bar here). And I can guarantee those expectations are raised when it comes to anyone you are speaking to when you tell them about your wedding:

“But you HAVE to have….”

“ You can’t get married without a…”

“ You’ll regret it if you don’t have….”

When my colleague and close friend told me about her wedding and how she didn’t want a first dance I actually responded with, “But you HAVE to have a first dance!!”  We’re good enough friends that she gave me the eye and I retracted it quickly feeling pretty ashamed, especially when I found out she’d had the same response from about three other people. It’s not helpful, it isn’t constructive and actually, it’s a bit insulting. Why should she have a bloody first dance if she doesn’t want or expect one but everyone around her does?

And this is a minor expectation. What about the big ones? 

I know for a fact that M’s expectations were that I’d have a big wedding. Imagine how her expectations would have been challenged by my going to Vegas to be married by Elvis instead of the local vicar? I think she would have supported me if it was what I had always wanted, even if it didn’t match up to her expectations, but it would have definitely been a struggle and a disappointment.

It would not just have run contrary to M’s expectations. Friends who have known me for all of my life and who are highly traditional would have definitely made their opinions on this clear (as only these kinds of friends can) and I am sure that the expression, “But you have to’ or ‘You can’t do XYZ’ would have been forcibly drummed into me whenever I visited my parents. It wears you down and the temptation is to give in because it's easier. Don't start me on Shoes vs. Sandals....

Everyone has an opinion. Once you accept this is how it is and that people will always have different expectations to your own, it’s how you deal with these expectation conflicts that count. My advice is to make a game plan between you and your fiancé about what you both expect from your wedding day before you tell anyone and then make it clear what you’re having with no compromise from the start as my colleague has. But if you aren’t that organised like BF and I you have two choices:

1)

  

   2) Effective Listening, diffuse negative emotions, use assertiveness and if you feel you have to, NEGOTIATE!

I am going to leave you with my favourite expectation concerning weddings.

I asked my niece of five to draw me a wedding dress. I was expecting something big, something white and something magnificent (or  something  like a dress that Elsa from Frozen would wear). The results were surprising. 

Goes to show.