Action-Oriented
Advice to Mesh Your Customers' Expectations with Your Own
About the Book
People have
expectations. Your clients, for example. Sometimes their expectations of you seem
unreasonable. But sometimes your expectations of them seem just as unreasonable
(in their eyes).
The problem is that these mismatched expectations can lead
to misunderstandings, frayed nerves, and ruffled feathers. More seriously, they
often lead to flawed systems, failed projects, and a drain on resources.
Managing
Expectations shows how to identify expectations and suggests ways to gain
more control of them. In today's turbulent business world, understanding and meeting
your customers' expectations is indeed a challenge, and it's not hard to understand
why: Expectations affect a range of interactions, including service responsiveness,
service capability, product functionality, and project success.
Expectations
are difficult to control and impossible to turn off. However, by learning to identify
and influence what your customers expect, you can dramatically improve the quality,
impact, and effectiveness of your services.
Contents include sections on
communication skills, information gathering, policies and practices, building
win-win relationships, as well as a concluding chapter on how to formulate an
action plan.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Expectations
. . .
Guard Against Conflicting Messages Use Jargon with Care
Identify Communication Preferences Listen Persuasively Help Customers
Describe Their Needs Become an Information-Gathering Skeptic Understand
Your Customers' Context Try the Solution On for Size Clarify Perceptions
Set Uncertainty-Managing Service Standards When Appropriate, Just Say
Whoa Build Win-Win Relationships Formulate an Action Plan
Reviews
"Naomi Karten puts forward advice that is simply not heard often
enough. Forget about all of the sensitivity nonsense and concentrate on forms
of communication that can be used to explain frustrations, demands, concerns,
and all of the other things that go wrong between people trying to work together.
"In
this book, you will learn how to approach customers with your feelings placed
in the background and all of your information receivers on high-band. With business
growing more competitive every day, this may be the only way to remain a viable
exonomic entity."
"This
book provides a systematic look at expectations and offers concrete ways to better
manage them. By defining the vital role that expectations play, the book shows
how you can do a better job of managing them, and in the process, dramatically
improve the quality, impact, and effectiveness of your services."
—William
E. Lewis StickyMinds.com
"To match our increasing
ability to produce excellent systems, we need to increase our ability to manage
our customers' expectations. Naomi Karten's pioneering book teaches us how to
do it."
—Gerald M. Weinberg from the foreword
"It's the sort of book that, in conjuring
up your own past failures, prompts you to slap your forehead and cry, 'Of course!
That's where I went wrong!'"
—CIO Magazine
"Karten does a great job of identifying why customer expectations are
not met. . . . This is good reading not only for information professionals, but
for anyone involved with pleasing customers."
—Randy
Rice Software Quality Advisor
"If the people crash,
it does not matter that the program runs. The purpose of Karten's book is to make
the people run."
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