We were wrong: never less than promised and more than expected

You know what it is like, you believe in something for so long, everyone agrees with you, all the books tell you it’s true, and suddenly you have a blinding revelation: we’ve all been fooled! Do you know what my fellow gorillas were like? (If you’re not sure about my fellow gorillas then you really need to read the book – we’ve got a great deal right now!)

And you feel so silly, how did I fall in love with that? The logic is simply not there. I must have been a fool. Let me explain.

“Under promise and more delivered”

You know the old saying “Under promise and over delivery”? Well here is the idea behind it.

Shoppers these days are more and more willing to complain when they don’t like something (yes, even in the UK!). Customers are mobile and promiscuous and will switch providers if they can get better service.

So to meet these demands, for the past 20 years, we have all been applying the mantra “Promise and overdelivery”. For example, tell them that the job that will take 10 days will take 12 and then surprise them when you deliver ahead of schedule.

Now in theory this sounds great – your customer can’t help but be impressed by your overdelivery! Or can they?

Big mistake

Now, think about it a little more. The client comes in and promises to deliver the project at 2 pm on Tuesday, even though he knows he can finish it on Friday. Hey, that gives you the weekend to reflect, Monday morning to add the polish and you can deliver it on Monday afternoon. A great job delivered below promise and delivered in excess! But what really happens?

The customer is delighted: you delivered a day earlier. But then Mr. Client has some fleeting thoughts; Did this mean that it was not as complicated a project as you said? Or could you finish it on Friday? Maybe he has overcharged you?

Because he is happy that you did what you said and within the time scale, he pushes his doubts to the back of his mind.

However, the customer now learns to “expect” (that’s their job) for the service you created in the great way it promised. So, it gives you another project. It gives you a timescale and a price, again with no promises so you can deliver with confidence and with a big smile on your face. The client remembers your thoughts from the last project and asks you to “push yourself a little harder” on the timeline. You do it, because hey, you like the boy. I was really grateful last time.

And so the next time Mr Client asks him to do something, he hopes it will be done in the fastest and most efficient way and for the same price as before, now he will not be impressed by his overdelivery, this is just his expectation.

And sadly, when you deliver on time and on budget, Mr Client wonders why it took so long. You wonder if you pushed a little harder to lower your price or shorten your timescale. And push, and push …

You have taught your client that you can do it faster than you have been told. The doubts are there. He wonders if you lied to him! What a shame!

And what happens if something goes wrong, if you can’t deliver on the real time scale, or if the price goes up? Or does someone let you down, or do they change the goal posts?

Problems

Now, the problems are a bit broader than in the previous example.

Some of our clients even say that these days to get a chance to win a job they have to make big promises (and then figure out how to keep them 😉

Very often, the client needs to do their bit to make the project work well, and they will have their own clients and other things to do!

Increasingly, you are not working on a project in isolation, there may be other vendors in the equation

All of this can lead to dissatisfaction for everyone involved.

So what is the answer?

Well, all things considered, you still need to make promises to your customers, but the answer is in the details. The answer lies in understanding what is important to the customer and working with the customer to make sure they can deliver on that. Then, accomplish something that you have full control over.

In our “Coaches Can!” we talk about the difference between control and influence.

So before I tell you our secret, I’d like to clarify the difference between Control and Influence. For me, misinterpreting the difference between what you can control and what you can simply influence is the main reason for customer disappointment and feelings of failure.

Control VS Influence (Results and Intentions)

What is beyond your immediate and complete manipulation is not, like it or not, under our control. So what is in our control?

* Our emotions and motivation (although not all of us accept this)

* Our response to outside influences (although we don’t all accept this either)

* The direction we take in life

* Every action we take

* The way we communicate

* What we say, do and promise

* What we choose to believe or ignore

* Inanimate objects and tools we use

Everything else that is outside of us (especially other animals / humans) we can only influence. Here are some examples of things you can only influence …

* If someone likes you

* If people will buy

* What other people consider important

* If people believe you

* Convince someone of something

* Get someone to do something (even if you are a hypnotist)

Sure, you can exert enough influence that it looks like control. If someone were to point a gun at your head, they could probably influence you to do a lot of things. But despite that, they couldn’t make you think different things or feel different about something because they still only have influence.

Finally, there are some things that we have no direct control or influence over … like weather, space, time, where we start in life, but there is no benefit in thinking about the things we cannot do, because it is more empowering to do so. focus on what we can do.

The solution

You can’t control how your customers feel, but you can influence this. You should focus on explaining value, rather than cost. Understand your actual requirements, rather than time and budget standards. You need to find out what you are in control of and what you can simply influence. And then you must overpromise and keep the promise on those things that are under your control.

Simple 😉

Talk soon,