Customer Service Skills Knowledge Base and Frequently Asked Questions
Do customers have higher customer service expectations now as compared to twenty years ago?
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There is little doubt that customers WANT more from the companies and company employees they deal with, than they did several decades ago. Part of the reason is that Western society continues to become faster, and more harried and stressful, and people have become less patient, particularly when making purchases. Convenience and speed are wanted, even demanded.
Curiously, though, while customers WANT more from companies in terms of customer service, they don't actually EXPECT more. Thus there is a situation that we call the Customer Expectation Paradox that influences how customers behave during customer service exchanges, and generally makes providing customer service more difficult.
If you are wondering why customers want more, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. As companies have been less able to compete on pricing, they moved into providing more flexibility in some areas (for example, returning merchandise). Customers "got used" to this flexibility and started considering it as a "right". The more companies providied, the more customers wanted.
Robert Bacal is the author of two books on customer service: Perfect Phrases for Customer Service: Hundreds of Tools, Techniques, and Scripts for Handling Any Situation, and Defusing Hostile Customers Workbook. Most of the questions and answers in the Customer Service Knowledgebase (which you are reading now) is based on the material in these books.