Over and under

I'm sure you've heard it before, but one great practice in customer service is to "underpromise and overdeliver". In short, the idea is that if you give someone a timeframe or promise a certain level of quality on a product or service, you should be prepared to meet (similar quality/within the timeframe) or exceed (better quality/shorter wait time) your customer's expectation.

Unfortunately, what we see all too often in practice is overpromising and underdelivering, where, despite the information provided by the company, a product or service is of a lesser quality or the 'deadline' is not met. I noticed a tweet today where a person was given the impression upon signing up with Young Drivers that he would be in the car sooner than the two weeks that he now finds himself having to wait. "Pretty annoying" is how he described his feelings. I think it's just plain poor customer service.

I'm having a similar issue with Donovan Homes right now. We purchased a lot in September 2008 under the impression that we'd be moving in sometime in spring 2009. As of today, there's nothing but a pile of dirt and rocks on what will eventually be our foundation. Now, we were aware of the backlog in new home construction here in the city and didn't necessarily expect that our home would be ready in April or May, but if we didn't have this prior knowledge, imagine the increase in our frustration in dealing with this company's overpromise.

Bottom line: customers would rather hear the truth now than excuses later!