Customer expectations in marketing - It's a Game of Expectations — And Phuket Is a Perfect Example
Part of the Shark 13 Phuket High Season Marketing Series.
Living and working in Phuket teaches you a lot about marketing.
Sometimes without even trying.
You can be sitting in a restaurant, checking into a hotel, waiting for a delivery, dealing with a supplier or, as I discovered recently, sitting in a car service centre wondering what happened to the last four hours of your life.
And suddenly you realise:
This is marketing.
Not the Facebook Ads kind.
Not SEO.
Not TikTok.
Not influencers.
Something much more fundamental.
Expectations.
And if you get expectations wrong, almost everything else you do in marketing becomes harder. This is why customer expectations in marketing is so important to understand.
"It Will Take One or Two Hours"
Here's what happened.
I took my car in for a service.
Nice service person. Big smile.
"One or two hours."
Perfect.
I can deal with that.
I'll answer some emails. Write some blogs. Scroll through social media pretending it's research.
Two hours isn't a problem.
Except...
Two hours became three.
Three became four.
And four hours later, I'm still sitting there wondering whether they're servicing my car or rebuilding it from scratch.
Now I'm frustrated.
But here's the interesting bit.
If they'd told me at the beginning it would take four hours, I probably wouldn't have been annoyed.
I would have planned for four hours.
Maybe I'd have gone somewhere.
Maybe I'd have arranged a lift.
Maybe I'd have brought more work.
Maybe I'd have mentally accepted that my afternoon was going to disappear into the exciting world of automotive servicing.
The four hours weren't necessarily the problem.
My expectation was the problem.
I had been promised one experience and received another.
And that's exactly what happens with marketing.
Expectation vs Reality
There's an incredibly simple equation businesses should understand:
Reality > Expectation = Happy Customer
Reality = Expectation = Satisfied Customer
Reality < Expectation = Disappointed Customer
The problem is that marketing departments spend most of their time trying to push expectations as high as possible.
AMAZING!
LUXURY!
THE BEST!
UNFORGETTABLE!
PARADISE!
ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME EXPERIENCE!
Everything is incredible.
Everything is five-star.
Everything is perfect.
Then the customer actually arrives.
And reality has to compete with the picture you've created in their head.
That's dangerous.
Underpromise. Overdeliver.
It's one of the oldest rules in business.
And still one of the best.
Underpromise and overdeliver.
If something normally takes three hours, don't confidently tell someone it'll take one.
If your hotel is 20 minutes from the beach, don't describe it as "minutes from the beach."
Technically, yes.
So is Bangkok if you use enough minutes.
If the sea can sometimes be rough during low season, don't pretend every day looks like a Maldives brochure.
If your restaurant gets extremely busy on Friday night, don't tell someone their food will be out in ten minutes when the kitchen knows it's going to take thirty.
You might think you're keeping the customer happy in that moment.
You're not.
You're borrowing happiness from later.
And you're going to have to pay it back with interest.
Customer expectations in marketing
Phuket Has an Expectations Problem
This becomes particularly interesting when we look at Phuket tourism.
Because Phuket isn't just competing against other destinations.
Phuket is competing against people's idea of Phuket.
And those aren't necessarily the same thing anymore.
For decades, Thailand has been marketed around certain ideas.
Cheap.
Easy.
Exotic.
Beautiful beaches.
Backpacking.
Friendly locals.
Tropical paradise.
Amazing value.
Quiet islands.
You arrive, rent a scooter, find a beach, eat some incredible Thai food and somehow spend almost nothing.
That image still exists.
It's all over social media.
It's in old travel blogs.
It's in films.
It's in people's stories from when they visited Thailand 15 or 20 years ago.
But Phuket has changed.
A lot.
Today's Phuket Isn't the Phuket of 20 Years Ago
Phuket has developed enormously.
There are luxury resorts.
Michelin-recognised restaurants.
International schools.
Beach clubs.
High-end villas.
Shopping centres.
Traffic.
International brands.
Fine dining.
Luxury marinas.
Massive tourism numbers.
And prices that sometimes surprise people arriving with an outdated idea of what Thailand should cost.
That's not automatically bad.
In many ways, Phuket has become a far more sophisticated destination.
But it creates an expectation gap.
Someone arrives expecting one version of Phuket.
They experience another.
And sometimes the disappointment isn't because the experience is actually bad.
It's because it isn't what they expected.
That's a huge distinction.
Marketing Can Accidentally Make This Worse
Imagine someone sees a beautiful Phuket beach on Instagram.
Nobody there.
Perfect turquoise water.
Perfect blue sky.
Long-tail boat sitting peacefully offshore.
Lovely.
They save it.
They book Phuket.
They arrive.
There's traffic getting there.
Parking is difficult.
The beach is busy.
There's a queue for something.
It's 34°C.
A tropical shower suddenly appears.
Someone is flying a drone.
Three influencers are filming themselves walking into the sea.
And the customer thinks:
"This isn't what I saw online."
Maybe there's absolutely nothing wrong with the beach.
The problem started months earlier.
Marketing created an expectation reality couldn't consistently deliver.
This Is Why Honest Marketing Is Becoming More Important
I think businesses sometimes misunderstand honesty in marketing.
They think honesty means highlighting negatives.
It doesn't.
It means setting the right expectations.
For example:
Don't say:
"Perfect weather every day."
Say:
"It's green season. The weather can change quickly, but you also get beautiful days, fewer crowds and some incredible conditions."
Now you've changed the expectation.
If it rains for 30 minutes?
That's okay.
They knew it might.
If they then get six hours of beautiful sunshine?
You've exceeded expectations.
The exact same weather can create two completely different customer reactions.
Marketing created the difference.
Cultural Expectations Matter Too
Working in Thailand adds another interesting layer.
Different cultures communicate expectations differently.
Sometimes there's a language barrier.
Sometimes people simply interpret words differently.
And sometimes there can be a reluctance to deliver bad news directly because maintaining harmony and avoiding embarrassment or loss of face can be culturally important.
So rather than:
"It's going to take four hours."
You might hear:
"Maybe one or two hours."
Smile.
Everyone's happy.
For the moment.
But then hour three arrives.
And now nobody's happy.
The customer becomes visibly frustrated.
The staff become uncomfortable because the customer is frustrated.
The customer becomes more frustrated because nobody seems to be acknowledging the frustration.
And suddenly a perfectly normal four-hour job has become a negative customer experience.
Not necessarily because anyone did anything maliciously.
Because the expectations weren't aligned.
For multicultural teams in Phuket, this is something managers need to understand.
You can't assume everyone communicates promises, problems, deadlines and bad news in exactly the same way.
Your Team Is Part of Your Marketing Department
This is where businesses need to stop thinking marketing belongs exclusively to the marketing team.
Your receptionist is marketing.
Your reservations team is marketing.
Your waiter is marketing.
Your tour guide is marketing.
Your salesperson is marketing.
Your WhatsApp responses are marketing.
Your delivery driver can be marketing.
And the person who tells the customer:
"It'll be ready in 20 minutes."
is definitely doing marketing.
Because they've just created an expectation.
Every promise creates a tiny contract between your business and your customer.
"It'll arrive tomorrow."
"Your room will be ready at 2pm."
"We'll pick you up at 8."
"The journey takes approximately 30 minutes."
"Someone will reply shortly."
"The tour finishes around 5pm."
Each one sounds insignificant.
But every time reality doesn't match the promise, trust gets chipped away.
Stop Trying to Make Everything Sound Better
This is especially important as we move into another Phuket high season.
Businesses are about to start shouting louder.
More advertising.
More promotions.
More Reels.
More influencers.
More "BEST IN PHUKET!"
More "ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE!"
More "HIDDEN GEM!"
But maybe the smartest businesses won't be the ones shouting the loudest.
Maybe they'll be the ones communicating the clearest.
Tell people what they're actually getting.
Tell them who your product is for.
And occasionally tell them who it isn't for.
Tell them what happens if it rains.
Tell them how long something actually takes.
Tell them what isn't included.
Tell them that the famous attraction might be busy at certain times.
Tell them that Phuket traffic exists.
Because here's the funny thing.
Customers can handle reality.
What they don't like is being surprised by reality.
Reviews Are Often Expectation Reports
Go and read your negative reviews.
Really read them.
You'll probably notice something interesting.
A huge number aren't really complaints about the product.
They're complaints about expectations.
"I thought..."
"We were told..."
"The website said..."
"We expected..."
"The photos made it look..."
"They said it would take..."
"We didn't realise..."
Those phrases should terrify a marketing manager.
Because they're telling you exactly where the expectation gap exists.
Instead of immediately dismissing a bad review as a difficult customer, ask:
What did this person expect, and why did they expect it?
Then trace it backwards.
Was it your website?
Booking confirmation?
Salesperson?
Social media?
Google listing?
Agent?
Influencer?
Receptionist?
Maybe your product doesn't need fixing.
Maybe your promise does.
The Best Marketing Makes Reality Better Than the Advertising
There's a temptation in marketing to make everything look as impressive as humanly possible.
I understand it.
That's our job, right?
Kind of.
Our real job should be to get people excited enough to buy while still allowing the actual experience to beat what we've promised.
That's the sweet spot.
Because when reality exceeds expectations, something powerful happens.
People talk.
They leave reviews.
They tell friends.
They create content.
They come back.
They become advocates.
You don't have to ask them to write:
"The photos don't do this place justice."
They just do it.
And that might be one of the greatest reviews any marketing team can receive.
So Back to My Car...
Four hours later, I eventually got my car back.
Was four hours unreasonable?
Maybe not.
That's the point.
If they'd said:
"Jay, we're busy today. It could take up to four hours."
I'd probably have said:
"No problem."
And if they'd finished in three?
Brilliant.
They're an hour early.
Same company.
Same service.
Same car.
Same amount of work.
Completely different customer experience.
All because of one thing.
Expectation.
So whether you're running a hotel, restaurant, tour company, property business, spa, event venue or pretty much anything else in Phuket, remember one of the simplest rules in marketing:
Underpromise.
Overdeliver.
Because great marketing isn't about making the biggest promise.
It's about making a promise your business can beat.
Shark 13 Productions
Part of the Shark 13 Phuket High Season Marketing Series.
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