Overpromise and Overdeliver: The Secrets of Unshakable Customer Loyalty

by Rick Barrera

Companies like American Girl, Best Buy, Washington Mutual, and TiVo came out of nowhere to virtually own their respective markets. How did they scoop their bigger and wealthier competition? It wasn’t through a fat marketing budget. It was because they kept their promises . . . and not just any promises, but dangerously ambitious promises. In fact, these companies overpromised to lure customers in—and then overdelivered to keep them.

Rick Barrera, a respected marketing consultant and business lecturer, has studied these word-of-mouth-driven successes and concluded that they are masters of what he calls TouchPoint Branding—the art of making sure that every point of contact between a company and its customers is well executed and fulfills an over-the-top brand promise.

Barrera explains how TouchPoint Branding’s three major components—Product TouchPoints, System TouchPoints, and Human TouchPoints—can create dramatic market differentiation. The companies featured in the book start with an extraordinary product (like the Hummer), supported by smoothly running systems (like the Sumerset Houseboats Web site), and add satisfying human contact (like the service at an American Girl store).

It’s an old cliché in business that smart companies underpromise and overdeliver. But in today’s crowded market, that’s not enough. Barrera’s insights and case studies can help any company overpromise . . . and still overdeliver.

Genres: Business

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Tami]

"Over Promise and Over Deliver" This phrase sounds like a line used by a used car dealer. Don't all businesses try to give big promises just to get your money? How often do they actually live up to these promises? Not very often. So to exceed expectations seems a little unrealistic.

Over Promise and Over Deliver says that this need not be the case. Lots of companies like Google, TiVo, American Girl, and Washington Mutual not only deliver on their big promises but take customer service one step further. Their secrets are actually rather simple, find out what the customer needs and wants then take action.

Nearly all of the examples for companies using TouchPoint guidelines given in this book are large multimillion dollar businesses. Nonetheless, it is really easy to see how the system could be used in a smaller more moderate organization. In fact, I believe that TouchPoint probably works better in smaller situations where the employer and employees are all in daily contact with customers, allowing for more opportunities to understand what the consumer actually needs and wants.

[Deniss Ojastu]

Everything about branding and keeping your brand on top of the promise. Some quite good examples and interesting models, although no particularly mind-blowing conclusions. Quite straightforward message, which is stated in the headline of the book

[Michelle]

This is a decent book on customer service. They used many real world examples to illustrate points. There was an online component to this book.

[Kiessa]

The concept of the book overpromised and UNDERdelivered.