Under Promise - Over Deliver

The week before Thanksgiving I took a break from my house designing activities to travel to New York City to teach an ITIL Foundation class.  Since the Country Music Awards show was in town, I wound up having to stay at a hotel in Secaucus, NJ.  That actually wasn't that bad since the hotel was only a 10 minute shuttle ride from the train station in NJ and the train went to Penn Station which was only two blocks from the class location.  All should have been right with the world.  All is rarely right with the world, however.

At the end of the second day I was there I took the train to Secaucus and called the hotel to request a shuttle just as I had done the day before.  Dimitrius (the clerk at the front desk) answered the phone and told me that the shuttle was on another run but was on its way back and would be able to pick me up in about 15 minutes.  I said that would be okay and sat down to read the paper while waiting.  Some time later I realized that I had gotten engrossed in the paper and had lost track of time.  I looked at my watch and discovered that it had been 45 minutes since I called for the shuttle.  I called back to the hotel and spoke with Dimitrius again.  It was clear that he had forgotten me and was profusely apologetic.  He said he would send the shuttle immediately and offered to have the driver bring me a "chilled beverage".  I told him that wouldn't be necessary.  The shuttle would suffice.  Once again, he promised me that the shuttle would be there in 10-15 minutes.  After twenty more minutes and still no shuttle, I flagged down a cab and took it back to the hotel.

The next day when I checked out I filled out a comment card and left it at the front desk.  Later that day I received a call from the service manager inquiring about my complaint concerning the shuttle.  I explained that my complaint wasn't about the shuttle not coming to pick me up.  My complaint was about Dimitrius telling me twice that it was on the way when he knew full well that it was a busy night for the lone shuttle.

Unfortunately, this same scenario is played out every day in companies around the world.  IT professionals are unwilling to tell the business that they can't deliver a required level of service and as a result they over-promise and under-deliver.  As I've mentioned before, managing the customers' expectations goes a long way towards achieving quality service in their eyes.  A well run Service Level Management process will help ensure that this takes place.

The other ITIL process that came to mind as I was waiting for the non-existent shuttle was Incident Management.  One of the guiding principles of incident management is that as much as we'd like things to not break or go wrong, they inevitably will.  What separates the world class organizations from everyone else is what they do when things go wrong.  If Dimitrius had taken my cell phone number and kept me updated on the status of the shuttle, I could have made the decision to take a cab much earlier.  In the same way, studies show that in the event of a service outage, if IT keeps the business informed about the progress being made towards resolving the incident, the business is would be happier with a longer outage than they would be with a shorter one and no information.

IT organizations desperately need to work to communicate honestly and openly with their business customers.  It's okay - and in fact, preferred - to tell them that you can't deliver a requested level of service.  Eventually they're going to realize it anyway and at that point you've moved down a few notches on the credibility curve.  It's always a good idea to under-promise and over-deliver.

I haven't decided if I'll stay at that hotel again when I'm back in the area.  I suspect I'll give them another chance - if only to use the free breakfast coupons the Service Manager gave me!!