A suc­cess­ful cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence be­gins with a promise to meet a cus­tomer’s ex­pec­ta­tions and then de­liv­er­ing on those ex­pec­ta­tions. It sounds sim­ple enough. Make a promise and de­liv­er a cu­rat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence. Yet, if the for­mu­la is so straight­for­ward, why do so many busi­ness­es fail the de­liv­ery test? The an­swer lies in the art of cu­ra­tion.

A promise alone is not enough. A promise sets ex­pec­ta­tions, but it must be fol­lowed by the ex­e­cu­tion of a val­ue con­tract that aligns promis­es, ex­pec­ta­tions and out­comes. This is where in­ten­tion must meet strat­e­gy, sys­tems and skills, to cre­ate a de­liv­ery mech­a­nism that rarely breaks down.

In T&T, many busi­ness­es strug­gle to keep promis­es be­cause of the ef­fort re­quired to cu­rate a con­sis­tent­ly ex­cep­tion­al cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. Cu­ra­tion de­mands in­ter­nal ca­pa­bil­i­ty to man­age mul­ti­ple mov­ing parts, yet many or­gan­i­sa­tions lack the ex­per­tise to ex­e­cute this man­date ef­fec­tive­ly.

Keep­ing promis­es re­quires busi­ness­es to mon­i­tor sys­tems, pro­ce­dures, stan­dards and be­hav­iours. Too of­ten, busi­ness­es are built on a sales-dri­ven, rather than ser­vice-dri­ven mod­el. As a re­sult, they in­vest heav­i­ly in pro­mo­tions, brand vis­i­bil­i­ty and mar­ket­ing strate­gies de­signed to dri­ve traf­fic, while ne­glect­ing the in­fra­struc­ture need­ed to en­force com­pli­ance and sus­tain ser­vice ex­cel­lence.

True cu­ra­tion of the cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence re­quires in­ten­tion­al ser­vice de­liv­ery de­sign. This de­sign places the cus­tomer at the cen­tre of op­er­a­tions, en­sures the cus­tomer’s voice is cap­tured and in­te­grates con­tin­u­ous feed­back loops. Pain points must be cor­rect­ed with pre­ci­sion and care. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, many busi­ness­es un­der­val­ue the im­por­tance of a well-oiled ser­vice de­liv­ery de­sign and set­tle for su­per­fi­cial struc­tures that leave them vul­ner­a­ble to ser­vice fail­ures.

Promis­es are ex­ter­nal, but de­liv­ery is in­ter­nal. A busi­ness must be­come a well-oiled op­er­a­tion be­fore it can win with its cus­tomers. When in­ef­fi­cien­cy is tol­er­at­ed, ser­vice fail­ures are in­evitable. A well-oiled op­er­a­tion ex­cels in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, team­work, rapid re­cov­ery from set­backs, re­spon­sive­ness to needs, ac­ces­si­ble prod­uct in­for­ma­tion, seam­less pay­ment so­lu­tions and per­son­alised ex­pe­ri­ences.

An­oth­er bar­ri­er to keep­ing promis­es lies in the mind­set of some busi­ness­es. Lethar­gy and com­pla­cen­cy pre­vent them from pur­su­ing ex­cel­lence. They avoid stretch goals and fail to in­no­vate, leav­ing them stag­nant in a com­pet­i­tive mar­ket­place.

Cul­ture al­so plays a de­ci­sive role. Some or­gan­i­sa­tion­al cul­tures lack val­ues that sup­port promise-keep­ing and cus­tomer hap­pi­ness. Ur­gency and re­spect for time are cor­ner­stone val­ues that should dri­ve every busi­ness that is de­pen­dent on cus­tomer hap­pi­ness to dri­ve rev­enue. With­out dili­gent ob­ser­vance of these val­ues, re­spon­sive­ness suf­fers.

A pas­sion for ex­cel­lence is equal­ly crit­i­cal. Con­sid­er the sto­ry of a sup­pli­er asked to ship parts with a stip­u­la­tion that de­fec­tive items should not ex­ceed a cer­tain num­ber. The sup­pli­er com­plied by ship­ping the ex­act num­ber of de­fec­tive parts in a sep­a­rate con­tain­er. Why? Be­cause their stan­dard was ze­ro de­fects. They had to man­u­fac­ture their “fail­ures.” The les­son is clear. Out­comes should be fail­ure-free, every time.

Many busi­ness­es set­tle for medi­oc­rity. They de­clare their de­sire to keep cus­tomers hap­py, but op­er­ate at the min­i­mum thresh­old of cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. Ex­cel­lence is not op­tion­al, it is the on­ly path to build­ing trust, loy­al­ty and long-term suc­cess. It is about keep­ing promis­es to cus­tomers.