Do we settle for “just good enough” and “meeting expectations”? Or do we outperform ourselves and amaze the customer?

There are indeed rational arguments why we should merely meet the customer’s expectations and not go the extra mile. It is more costly to give awesome service. It puts an unnecessary pressure on the service delivery organization.

And while advocates of such rationale keep praising mediocrity, the amazing suppliers keep impressing customers and gaining market share.

Delivery contacts or Service Level Agreements should represent a worst case scenario, while the supplier should always strive for better, faster, more amazing. Or someone else will.

And if it seems too hard to keep up with the spoiled customer’s ever increasing expectations, then it is better to talk to the customer about this than forcing them to become less spoiled by delivering mediocre service.

Aim for “just enough” and you’ll miss half the time. Aim for amazing and you may just reach it.