Lead Generation: 6 steps to correctly setting customers’ expectations
“The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.”
-Roy H. Williams, Author and Marketing Consultant, Wizard of Ads trilogy
One way to know your customers’ expectations is to set them yourself. Recently, as we’ve been looking for speakers and case studies for Lead Gen Summit 2013, I’ve come across a few different lead generation pages that failed to meet the very expectations set by prior stages in the funnel.
For that reason, I thought it would be helpful to review six steps you can use to set expectations for your customers. But first, let’s look at a three-part process an insurance website requires to receive a quote on home insurance, and how it incorrectly sets customers’ expectations.
On the homepage, visitors see three main objectives: auto insurance, home insurance and business insurance. Each call-to-action promises an instant quote, and that message sets a certain expectation in the minds of customers.
Clicking on that button with that expectation, and prior experiences, I expected to fill out information about the home, myself and my desired coverage. I also expected to either receive the quote on a follow-up page or to receive it in an email immediately after I submitted the form.
Anything other than those two options and the process would come up short of my expectations. What else would you expect with a word like “instant” in the call-to-action?
The second step in the quote process includes a simple form, from which I immediately deduce a quote will not be coming from – despite the CTA’s promise. There is not enough information gathered to calculate even a basic quote.
Frustrated by the misleading CTAs, I went back to Google and continued my search on another website. But, to show you the full process, I returned to the form to see what hid on the other side. And, no surprise here, it wasn’t a quote. In fact, the subsequent page tells me a representative will contact me, which is the first time I’ve learned of the required contact to receive my quote. I wanted an instant quote, not a sales pitch.
The company sets customers’ expectations on the homepage and reaffirms them with “Get My Quote” after the form. However, customers find themselves without a quote and are left with anxiety over a looming phone call they didn’t want or expect.
Now that you’ve seen a subpar example of setting expectations, I’ll use that example to illustrate a better way to meet customer expectations, using these six steps:
Step #1: Know the expectation you want to set
You can’t properly set expectations if you don’t know what you want them to be. Like Stephen R. Covey’s second habit, you must begin with the end in mind. What will visitors gain from filling out your lead gen form? When will they receive that benefit? How will they receive it? Through email, phone call, mail or something else?
For example, if you want to provide leads with a free special report, you need to determine when and how they’ll receive it. Will they receive a hard copy in the mail in two weeks? How about in an email within 24 hours? Or, can they instantly download a PDF version?
When, what, where, why and how. These are factors potential leads will weigh to determine if the cost of their personal information is worth the value you are offering in exchange.
Once you know what your customers will experience through your lead gen funnel, then you can begin to set expectations based on that experience.
Step #2: Establish expectations using calls-to-action early in the funnel
You want to use any calls-to-action early in the customer decision-making process page to begin setting expectations. That could include a button on the homepage like the above example, a PPC ad, an email hyperlink, a Twitter post, and the list could on and on. You want to have continuity between all parts of your conversion process, so each part the customer interacts with should promote the value of converting.
Look at the example homepage. The yellow
call-to-action (CTA) buttons provide direct value, which is a good practice to follow. Many consumers looking for a quote to compare to others don’t want to wait, and they’ll find high value in an instant quote.
This would have been a great way to show the value of the click and the value of the rest of the quote process if the website carried through with the promise.
However, because the quote is anything but instant, customers now have incorrect and misleading expectations.
The button could leave out the word “instant” and still follow through. This leaves out the required phone call to receive the quote, which could cause some visitors to feel misled.
You want to use as much real value as you can to entice the click. So, if the company wanted to accurately set up customers’ expectation and earn the click, it might use call-to-action copy such as “Request a Quote” or “Learn How to Get a Quote.”











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