• "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." – Voltaire

• The Abilene Paradox. Author: Jerry B. Harvey. Publisher: Lexington Books. Compassionate insights into the craziness of organisational life and other meditations on management. I particularly love the Captain Asoh story and enjoy recanting it during strategic planning workshops. The message is quite profound.

• www.shareware.com Lots of interesting software that you can download for free.

Honesty is a lot like pregnancy. It’s not possible to be a little bit pregnant. You either are, or you aren’t. Honesty is the same. It is impossible to be a little bit dishonest. You either tell the truth or you don’t. Good customer service is the same. You either do what you say you will do, or you don’t.

One of the aspects of customer service that annoys customers the most is businesses that don’t keep their word. Companies that don’t do what they say they will do.

This can happen in a variety of ways:

"Your car will be ready by 3.00pm."

You arrive at three to pick up your car and are told some tale about how a spare part needed to repair your car has only just arrived and therefore your car won’t be ready for another hour.

"The plumber will be at your house at 10.00am."

You delay going to the office to wait for the plumber. At 10.30am you phone the plumbing company to find out what’s going on. Again a tale of woe is told of how the plumber got held up at a previous appointment and ‘will be there soon’. No explanation is given of what ‘soon’ means.

"Come in tomorrow at noon and the document will be ready for signing." As requested you front up at 12 o’clock and the lawyer is not back from court, his personal assistant is away sick and the document is not ready for signing.

All of you have many similar tales to tell.

Now I am sure that in each of the above examples, the service provider had the best of intentions when advising their customers of the various time frames, and I know that in all businesses, the unexpected can occur and frequently does. But in every one of these situations, and in the vast majority of your similar experiences, the company concerned knew well ahead of time that it couldn’t deliver on its promise.

What makes it worse, is that on every occasion, a simple phone call would have solved most of the customer angst.

As with all agreements, there are three simple rules that will keep your customers happy.

1. Make only agreements that you are capable of delivering on and intend to keep.
2. Communicate any potential broken agreement as soon as you are aware that you may not be able to honour it.
3. Clear up any broken agreement at the first opportunity.

Customers will only be slightly annoyed if you advise them in advance of a problem. Most won’t be annoyed at all because you demonstrated care and consideration by taking the time to contact them.

Keeping your word, delivering on your promise, and doing what you say you will do, is about as simple as it gets in running a successful business. Your customers will love you for it.

Until next week, many happy customer returns!

Graham Harvey APS