The Gap Between Expectations and Experience
This one’s a day later than usual, but it’s a topic I’ve come back to time and time again, both as a client and a consultant.
On paper, everything looks fine. The project is on track. The meetings are happening. The deliverables are getting done. But something feels… off.
The client starts getting a little less responsive. Feedback gets vaguer. Subsequently, your internal team’s energy dips. But no one can quite put their finger on why. You might even get ghosted a few times in between scheduled sessions.
This is what happens when expectations and experience quietly drift apart.
When what’s promised and what’s felt no longer match. It’s rarely a big dramatic event. And not being able to preemptively spot this situation is actually the real danger.
Because when things break loudly, they get attention. They get addressed. But when they unravel slowly, they often go unnoticed until it’s too late. I’ve seen this happen even when we’ve done everything “right.”
Now, imagine you’re the client and let’s remove ourselves from the agency world for a moment. Imagine you’re remodeling your kitchen. The designer you worked with was incredible: creative, collaborative, completely tuned in to your vision. You might’ve walked out of that meeting energized, hopeful, confident, and genuinely excited about what would soon be built despite the significant materials transaction that just took place.
But after you signed off on the design and paid the for the materials, you were handed off to a faceless email system. Suddenly you are dealing with a logistics team that you never met. The emails were cold and transactional. Automated updates, vague shipping timelines, and constant pressure to sign install contracts that didn’t match any of the original communication.
No one followed up to explain next steps. No one checked to see if the delivery dates made sense with the install window. Not one person seemed accountable for ensuring that you actually had a good experience.
Not only did you not feel taken care of. You felt like a number in a queue. And even though you loved the beginning of the process, that slow, quiet frustration built up until you eventually canceled the entire thing and went somewhere else.
Not because the materials weren’t beautiful. Not because anyone was overtly rude. But because the experience was quickly unraveled and no one even noticed.
In a world obsessed with optics, it’s easy to forget that trust is built in these ‘in-between’ moments (usually requiring someone with higher eQ to keep things on track). It’s about:
How you respond when something’s unclear.
How transparent you are about process, pace, and tradeoffs.
How consistently your actions match the intent behind your words.
Simply put: how much you genuinely care about that client having a positive experience.
Closing the gap between expectations and experience isn’t about doing more.
It’s about paying closer attention.
Listening for what’s not being said.
Clarifying before executing.
And remembering that delivery is as much emotional as it is operational.
Because the best client experiences aren’t built on perfection.
They’re built on mutual alignment.
If you enjoyed this, you may also be interested in this interview with an EVP of Operations.
Have you ever walked away from a service you were excited about not because of the work, but because of how the experience made you feel?