The Power of Expectations: USPS

How can the miraculous services and products we use every day make us so unhappy?

Consider the United States Post Office. For almost no money they shuttle my personal parcels from door to door in days. That any letter travels the miles on time, and unmolested, is a minor miracle—the result of an operational force of will. And automatic forwarding? Even more amazing. At no extra cost.

So when the gears grind and my forwarded mail gets lost in the ether, I don't reflect on my lifetime 99.99% success rate. I flip out. Because I was really counting on that mail. Now I'm mad at the post office.

Behold the power of expectations. All day long, consumers construct their own implicit promises, never spoken until they are violated. Good businesses don't just offer knock-out service. They anticipate the promises consumers make with them in their own entitled heads. Then they state them, reshape them and manage them at every opportunity. I'll go as far as to say that great business don't try for 100% perfection. Rather, they endeavor to be great at managing a relationship through all of it's ups and downs.