Managing customer expectations in professional services

This article is based on an empirical study and describes an approach for managing customer expectations to achieve long‐term quality and customer satisfaction in professional services. Professional services are somewhat different from other types of services, and often so are customer expectations. This article describes three types of expectations typical in the professional services context: fuzzy, implicit, and unrealistic. These types of expectations may represent a dangerous pitfall for long‐lasting customer satisfaction. Managing expectations is important since service quality and satisfaction result from how well the actual service performance, in other words the service process and outcome, matches the expectations. Much can be done to achieve long‐lasting satisfaction with sophisticated expectations management. This article suggests that making fuzzy expectations precise, implicit expectations explicit, and unrealistic expectations realistic, facilitates long‐term quality and customer satisfaction. The expectations‐management approach introduced in this article is particularly important when the goal is to create long‐term customer relationships.