Great Expectations

1. Google Analytics has been giving me troubles lately. For some reason, the tracking code disappeared from this blog, but Analytics was still saying that data was being received correctly.

My expectation was: "It's weird that I'm no showing any visits, but hey, it's Google. It'll probably fix itself. This should be idiot-proof."

I guess there's a real risk in people thinking too highly of you.

2. Waiting for a bus last week, the one scheduled for 10:00 never arrived. No sign of it anywhere. No notice on their Web site (or anywhere else) that there was a problem. The 10:30 bus arrived a couple of minutes late, but within the normal time. It was as if the 10:00 bus never existed.

My expectation should be: "It's the bus company. Their entire purpose is to move people around on a specific schedule."

Instead, my expectation (because this has happened countless times before) is: "Don't count on the bus system to get you anywhere at the time its supposed to. Only use the bus when you've got plenty of time to kill."

No wonder ridership never reaches the levels it should.

3. Went up a local mountain yesterday for a hike. Discovered that there's a lot of snow up there still, but we decided to hike up anyway. Nothing too dangerous or steep, but it's still a good workout to walk in the snow uphill. Coming down we decided, totally out of the blue, to pull a plastic bag out of the backpack and slide down the hill. One of the most fun things we've had a chance to do for a while.

I knew I was going to have an enjoyable hike, but had no idea that it would be such a fun day.


Based on these rigorous experiments, here's my expectation formula:

s = a/e

"s" being "satisfaction"
"a" meaning "actual"
and
"e" meaning "expected"

When the actual experience is better than expected, satisfaction is high. When the expectations are set high, and the actual experience is relatively poor, satisfaction is low. When actual and expected experiences are similar, satisfaction is minimal.

Might be a bit obvious when you think about it, but it looks more impressive as a formula, doesn't it?

Thinking about changes over time, you could make this more complex...
As "s" decreases or increases due to the above, it causes "e" to decrease or increase, which then sets a new level of "e" (e2), resulting in a new "s" (s2)...

I guess the main thing I'm getting at is that it's a good idea to think about this relationship from time to time. If you aren't keeping up with expectations, you need to either improve your actual experience or lower the expectations that you're setting. If you don't, consumer expectations are going to change anyway (and you've lost the chance to direct that change in a desirable direction).