I had an enlightening incident with a major retailer last month. Let’s call them Walmart, and let’s say I placed an order for a children’s swimming pool using their site-to-store shipping option.

The confirmation email said the pool would arrive at my local Walmart after two weeks. That’s longer than Amazon. But, Walmart offered the item much cheaper, and that made it worth the wait. I was happy with the promise.

But, after two weeks, it hadn’t arrived. When I called customer service (an epic maze of phone robots), they said it hadn’t left yet. They promised instead to deliver it to my house in another two weeks. But, after two weeks, it again hadn’t arrived. It took an additional two days.

At first, I found all that very irritating. Then I began to consider why it was frustrating me. I thought, what if the retailer had promised delivery in five weeks, and then delivered in four? Would I have been angry then? Much less so. Why? Because it wasn’t really a matter of the time. It was a matter of trust. They made a promise, and they broke it.

Zappos.com, the world’s biggest shoe retailer, has learned this concept and flipped it around. Instead of promising a bit too much and then coming up short, they intentionally over-deliver. If you order a pair of shoes from Zappos.com, they will likely arrive faster than promised, by design. The result? Customers rave to their friends about the over-performance.

I think the lesson here is that meeting expectations builds trust, and trust keeps customers. Exceeding expectations builds trust even faster, and makes customers rave to all their friends.

Christian