Multiple independent researches discovered that customers’ expectations always follow the same patterns that could be generalized as “I want more, better, for less, with less harm.”  Hence, knowing what customers buy now, one can reliably predict what they will expect tomorrow.

On the other hand, researches demonstrate that customers don’t buy products or services; they buy solutions to their problems and needs.

Let’s take, for instance, one aspect of need for transportation: driving the vehicle.

Currently, customers buy the vehicles where driver controls main characteristics of movement, gets visual feedback and appropriately corrects her/his actions.  Customers expect such “manual” control, this is their “spoken” expectation. 

The key belief behind this expectation is simple: driver’s mind serves as “driving computer,” it is always efficient and adequate.  However, it is not always so: there are more and more tired drivers on the American roads, and their time and adequacy of reaction is even worse than those of drunk drivers.

The future expectation, or “Lighthouse on the Horizon,” can be formulated as a solution to this problem: safety of driving does not depend on driver; driver only decides when and where to go, and vehicle provides safe driving.  Nice dream, but total cost of ownership is more than prohibitive.  So, instead of jumping immediately toward this “Lighthouse,” customers will develop more realistic step-by-step expectations.

First, they will expect vehicle to keep safe distance from other vehicles.

Then, they will expect vehicle to keep itself on the road.

Then, they will expect vehicle to drive safely by creating the "safe zone" around itself,

and only then will leave driving completely to the vehicle.

Keeping safe distance automatically is already a “spoken expectation”: customers already are waiting for its occurrence in the market. Automatic safe driving is yet the “future expectation.”  What is in between, is the “exciting expectation”: it is not spoken yet, but seems already feasible and affordable; it will be happily accepted by customers when it appears in the marketplace.  In our case, it is “keeping on the road.”

This sequence represents the "string of Expectations"; this "string" is related to one operation in the Underlying Process of satisfying the customers' need.

Other operations in the Underlying Process produce their own "strings," from "what customers buy today" toward the "Lighthouses on the Horizon."  Together, they comprise the General Map of Expectations, the basic deliverable of OutCompete Service.

Here, we see the section of General Map of Expectations.  This Map is divided into three distinct zones: "Spoken Expectations," "Exciting Expectations," and "Future Expectations."