What organizations should do is make a brand promise that they can exceed in delivery, and thus making it seem truthful, sincere and likeable. What they actually do is make lofty promises which they always fall short of. That’s where a little problem call over-promise and under-delivery comes in.

If you got it flaunt it. Even if you don’t got it, make a lot of noise so it seems that you actually got it. That’s pretty much sums up the way companies approach marketing. With our obsession to treat human beings as customers and solving problems as short terms sales, we forget that when you promise a tasty fried chicken and actually deliver a tasty fired chicken, the best possible outcome you can expect is customer satisfaction.

But satisfied customers are not loyal customers. Loyal customers come through constantly experiencing delight and delight comes when your brand delivers more than it promises. Its only when your promise a tasty fried chicken and provide a tasty fried chicken that also has health benefit and comes with free home delivery, that’s when you catch your customers off guard (in a good way), create word-of-mouth and eventually create brand fans.

So you should build an “over-deliver” and “under-promise” policy into everything you do. If you have 3 good things to say about your service, mention only one and let customer experience the other two. If you’re selling pencils, and promise that a pack contains 20 pieces, fill the pack with 22 pieces. The trick is not to say anything about it, but letting the consumers find out the surprise. LEGO is a brand that practiced this. LEGO packs used to contain extra bricks, because they found out that a lot of LEGO bricks get lost as children play with it. So being mindful of that particular bit of consumer information, they packed extra bricks which came as a surprise gift.