‘How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree? How ya gonna keep ’em away from Broadway, jazzin’ around and paintin’ the town?”
This 1914 song by Andrew Bird was a hit as soldiers returned home from World War I. The song captured the concern of farmers whose sons left their plows and cows to fight a war that opened their eyes to new experiences, altering their desire to return to a routine and dull rural life.

Service providers share Bird’s sentiment when their customers go off to find new experiences in “Paree” or Zappos or Nordstrom or Cirque du Soleil.

Customers judge service based on their perceptions. And perceptions are made up of customers’ needs, myths, aspirations, experiences, hopes, beliefs, and values.

Best-selling author Tom Peters wrote: “Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and total human terms. Perception is all there is.” Customers’ past and present perceptions shape their future expectations.

 …