Over Promising and Under Delivery -- What's wrong with Companies these Days?

I should know better. After years and years of watching sales pitches and seeing the hypnotized look from decision makers in corporations who believe every word that comes out of a supplier"s mouth in pursuit of business and then equally experiencing the issues and problems arising from under (or no) delivery to expectations I should have known!

So what am I rambling about? I recently decided to get myself the Blackberry Curve. I'm not a Blackberry virgin either, because I had one of these devices in my last corporate stint. So I went to the wireless provider's store (who shall remain nameless) and after more than an hour -- which was just the paperwork, I happily trotted off with my device. I had received confirmation from the store that when I get home, it will just take a few minutes to set up and I'll joyfully get vibrated as my mail is continuously being transferred from the great beyond to my little device.

Clap if you believe it was so simple. Well Tinkerbell, let me tell you, after a couple of hours I was ready to find the highest cliff and catapult the device to the bottom -- not because of the device itself...but because of the difficulties in getting the wireless aspects to work at all.

I was given a number by the store to call to assist in this task. When calling (on a Sunday) the recorded message said that wait times could be up to 30 minutes! Eventually, after much less than 30 minutes (do they say 30 minutes just to get people to keep from staying on the line?) I got a fellow from a call center in India, who was very pleasant and seemed to get me up and running.

Of course my euphoria was short lived, when I realized my emails were taking close to 1/2 hour to come onto my device. I called again, listened to the same 30 minute warning, and got another fellow from India, who told me that is what I should expect. Because I was not part of a huge corporation with it's own Blackberry enterprise server....so sad, too bad. Not as advertised right?

As my frustration continued to grow, I decided to call the company that hosts my website and lo and behold, they walked me through a way to ensure that my emails were simultaneously sent to both my wireless device and my Outlook Inbox. Kudos to the support team at Korax who kept my Blackberry from suffering a painful demise.

Whether in corporate or as a consumer, we are constantly faced with promises which can't be delivered on, or purposively left out information, which could allow us to make an informed decision on a make or buy proposition.

Quite honestly, I would become an intensely loyal customer to any company who actually stood for full disclosure. I would even be willing to pay more money, because I consider that ease and lack of frustration is priceless.

So to all the corporations out there -- forget the glitz and provide the truth.

Of course, I should have known better -- and Tinkerbell, I'm not going to clap anymore!

(*note that the above Customer Hall of Shame came from an article on MSN Money April 26, 2007)