Helpful Expertise #2: Responsiveness
Set a response commitment to give your customers a clear standard to reference when they're waiting for follow-up.
![](https://qualitycustomers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/settingcartoon.jpg)
Jim Stein
Published Date: May 7, 2024
![](https://qualitycustomers.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Picture1.png)
Responsiveness is the perceived time it takes for your team to act on promised and implied commitments. By definition these implied commitments are unspoken and often assumed by custom, like returning a phone call within two days. Since there’s no official rule of response times per channel between company and customer, unless you specifically set a response commitment, each customer judges your responsiveness subjectively based on their individual sense of what the standard should be for the channel of communication and the nature of the commitment.
As examples, a customer expects a faster response for a text than a mailed letter and for an act perceived to be simple (i.e. checking to see if a part is in stock) than a more complex commitment like the creation of a custom design. So, your customer’s expectations of your response time are greatly affected by the channel you use and the perceived complexity of the act you’re committing for them.
Explicitly setting a response commitment is a good solution because you’ve created a clear standard to be judged against. Then, you’ll need to meet or beat your declared standard even if it’s quite fast. If a customer was promised a phone call back in 15 minutes and receives a call back in two hours, they won’t be happy, whereas if they were promised a call back the next day and receive their call back the same day, they will judge you as very responsive.
Related Blogs
![](https://qualitycustomers.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/thoughts-e1708736828812.png)
Follow These 7 Steps to Increase Your Job Win Rate
Jim Stein
We are built to imagine future scenarios. Often without trying, we’ll catch ourselves thinking about an upcoming event or a process that we’ll be going through to attain a goal. We want to make good choices and avoid bad ones, so our brains keep imagining good and bad future scenarios. The higher the […]
![](https://qualitycustomers.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/clay-banks-Ox6SW103KtM-unsplash-scaled.jpg)
What’s Your Surprise?
Jim Stein
How your team delivers on your customers’ expectations forms the basis for their satisfaction. So, it’s worth reviewing the implications of this basic fact and relooking at your internal customer-related processes to ensure they’re having the desired effect.
Latest Blogs
![](https://qualitycustomers.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2754-4262-scaled.jpg)
Force Success
Jim Stein
Ask most company managers and they’ll tell you the key to satisfying customers is to “do what the customer wants.” Although this is a reasonable answer, I believe in adding to this by embracing the philosophy of “do what the customer needs.” Although it takes extra time to educate a customer and merge their wants with newly learned needs, it leads to a more satisfied customer and it’s the right thing to do.
![](https://qualitycustomers.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ego-3.png)
EGO and Customer Satisfaction: Part 3
Jim Stein
Establish up front what your customer expects from you by asking, “What results do you expect to see from our work?” When you understand the customer’s expectations, you can address any misconceptions before the work begins.