I occasionally go back through my synopsis handouts for books I presented years ago at the First Firday Book Synopsis.  Here’s a book from 2005:  Overpromise and Overdeliver: The Secrets of Unshakeable Customer Loyalty by Rick Barrera.

He writes:

If unshakeable loyalty is your goal, overpromising and overdelivering should be your methodology.

And then he adds:

After brand promises have been established clearly, managers need to get their entire organizations aligned to deliver flawlessly on those big promises and, above all, consistently, every day, with every sale or interaction.  …  When you overpromise you are putting your whole reputation for honesty on the line.  You are saying that you are confident your brand will perform, and you’ve made a solemn contract with hundreds or thousands or millions of customers.  If even a few customers find you reneging their contempt may well spread like a California wildfire…  The price for squandering trust – sabotaging a brand’s promise – is always too high to pay, because at the end of the day, the priceless intangible called integrity is the richest asset on any company’s balance sheet. 

Capturing customers is all about creating brand promises and keeping them. 

So, here is your customer service and business success reminder of the day:  overpromise; then, overdeliver. 

And, in case you can’t tell, this is not all that easy to actually pull off.