Don’t let unrealistic expectations skew the experience

I write this as I am being served coffee and breakfast about an hour and a half of remaining flight time from Dublin Ireland.  That’s not all.  The flight has a complete entertainment package of individual movies, tv shows and games all delivered to your seatback video display.  The only item lacking – the new wireless WiFi service from GoGo!  How dare this flight not offer it!  Of course, I am being sarcastic.  I may have been planning on writing a few e-mails, modifying some blog settings, etc.  How quickly, I forget this capability didn’t exist a few years ago.

That brings me to the main reminder – we all take things for granted.  sometimes they are large things, and sometimes they are the small details.  Seriously, I was planning on doing a little bit of work.  I figured I would not be able to sleep on the flight – luckily, that premise proved incorrect.  I was also going to log on so that Barb could do the provisioning for a last minute order she received while we were at the airport waiting for our flight to leave.  This item remains to be done only because the website was not very friendly to the iPhone’s Safari browser. OMG! – Again sarcasm.  We, collectively as a society, have become reliant on instant gratification.  And sometimes, that desire for instant gratification gets in the way of customer service.

In this situation, I could go away thinking about all the things I couldn’t do or that I didn’t receive because I am used to them elsewhere.  Or, as the Irish say, I can enjoy the craic (good fun).  I may not get instant gratification, but being able to write a blog post at 30,000 feet as well as queue up some e-mails for delivery later is just plain cool.

So where have your customer experiences been skewed by your own unrealistic expectations?