Missed Expectations Equal Customer Dissatisfaction

I’m on vacation.  I’ve been looking forward to this week for more than half a year.  A cabin in the Smokey Mountains of Gatlinburg, TN.  Reconnecting with nature that fuels my creative juices so that I can write my next book: Make or Break Moments: Revolutionizing Customer Relationships.

 

The website pictures look enticing – log buildings built into the side of the mountain, sun streaming down and you can almost hear the robins singing in the spring air.  Ahhhh.

 

I arrived on Saturday to discover quite a different experience. 

 

The largest waterpark in the South is just seven steps outside my room.  Instead of robins chirping I hear Robin and Robert and Rita screaming at Mommy and Daddy, “But I don’t want to go to bed!”

 

Instead of a log cabin I’m in a room connected to the two most restless people in the world.  If they slam their door one more time I’M GOING TO GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO SLAM THE DOOR ABOUT!

 

Truthfully, the Westgate Smokey Mountains Resort is beautiful, clean, upscale and a wonderful place to bring your family for a week of fun. I have found every staff member to be extremely helpful and friendly.

 

Just a few miles away (allow about an hour to drive four miles) is Dollywood, Elvis impersonators, a Jurassic Park ride, mini-golf, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, haunted fun houses and some upside down building called the Wonder Works.  Lots to see and do for a family.  If there is a recession going on, no one has told this part of Tennessee because it is packed with people spending money and having a great time.

 

Unless you EXPECTED a quiet, solitary connection with nature to write and reflect and rest. 

 

Then it is just pure hell.

 

Last night there was a Patsy Cline tribute concert.  I walked over to the concert from dinner (food here is wonderful, by the way) and sat with a couple from out west.  They’d arrived a day before me and I asked what they thought.  They exchanged looks and the husband said “I’ll never be back.”

 

“We expected a lovely, quiet cabin in the woods,” explained the wife. 

“And this place is anything but quiet,” he added.

 

The Westgate is highly rated by Interval International, the company I have an account with so that I can trade my Cancun time share for other vacation spots.  Please know – this is a great place to vacation – if you are looking for a family spot and indoor water adventures. 

 

Yet the couple I sat with last night is having a miserable vacation and plan to leave early.  Why?  Their expectations were missed by a mile.

 

So whose fault is that? 

 

This morning I decided to make the best of it.  I had brought all my office equipment and food for a week (there is a mini kitchen in my room) and I set about the business of being creative.  However after two hours the outdoors beckoned. 

 

I went in search of a quiet spot – surely there was a porch or balcony, a chair or a bench that I could call my own.  I asked the security guard greeting new arrivals in the parking lot.  I asked the shuttle drivers.  I asked at the concierge. 

 

“Hmmm,” they all pondered.  “Nope.  Don’t think we have anything like that.  You can sit here in the lobby if you want.”  I looked around at the people waiting to check in, the kids running through from the gift shop and wondered if my iPod ear-buds would block out the chaos enough so that I could write. 

 

But what about the fresh air?

 

“Oh, there is a picnic table on the other side of that building,” the woman at the concierge suggested.  “No one ever uses it because I don’t think they know it’s there.”

 

I rolled my office over to the other side of the building to discover a picnic table nestled between the parked cars and the trash dumpster.  Perhaps a little too much outdoors for my creative juices.

 

So here I sit, in the game room which is surprisingly empty.  My view is the soda pop vending machine and the water cooler. 

 

Gotta tell you: the view from my porch at home is a lot more appealing.

 

Expectations. 

 

If we miss our customer’s expectations; we miss the opportunity to build a relationship, to earn their loyalty and ensure their return. 

 

How can you gauge expectation?  It requires conversation.  It requires active listening.

 

Will this resort care that the couple I met are unhappy with their experience or that I’m struggling to find my piece of outdoors in which to write?

 

No.  Why?  We aren’t their target customer.

 

Exceeding expectations isn’t always the responsibility of the company.  We as consumers also share a bit of the responsibility.  If we have certain expectations, we need to ask the right questions and do our homework to ensure we aren’t setting ourselves up for disappointment.

 

Will I recommend Westgate Resortshere in Gatlinburg?  Actually, YES.  It is a wonderful place for fun and family.  Will I return?  I just might but next time I’ll leave the computer at home, bring my kids and our bathing suits!

 

p.s. After writing this I set my computer aside and hiked the trails on property to the top of the nearby mountain.  Glorious!  Nature abounds.