Service quality is defined in terms of the customer’s perception of how well your services meet his or her expectations. Simple, right? But wait, aren’t expectations always changing? What do customers expect?

The good news is identifying customer expectations is not the hit-or-miss guesswork it might appear to be. The International Customer Management Institute, ICMI, has found there are 10 expectations customers have of service interactions. You can learn more about these expectations (as well as tangibles for in-person environments) in this LinkedIn Learning video from my course “Quality Standards in Customer Service.”

I recommend you put a small team together to discuss them and how these expectations might shape your quality standards. (This worksheet might help your discussions.) Then regularly revisit customer expectations with your team. These expectations are the doorway to establishing effective quality standards.