Overpromise and Overdeliver (Revised Edition): How to Design and Deliver Extraordinary Customer Experiences

by Rick Barrera

The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller-fully revised and updated

The old cliché is that smart companies underpromise and overdeliver. But in today's crowded market, underpromising is a ticket to oblivion.

Companies like American Girl, Best Buy, and Apple came out of nowhere to dominate their markets. How did they scoop their bigger and wealthier competition? It wasn't through a fat marketing budget. It was because they made, and kept, dangerously ambitious promises. In fact, they overpromised to lure customers in-and then overdelivered to keep them.

Rick Barrera shows how to make sure that every point of contact between your company and its customers is well executed and fulfills an over-the-top brand promise, to drive word of mouth and rapid growth.

Genres: Business

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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 · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept of the book overpromised and UNDERdelivered.