Deliver on what you promise. As a business proposition, that sounds very simple. But there are two problems. First, look at most advertising. Marketers are more likely to over promise than to just make a solid, deliverable, and believable promise. Yet, ironically, survey after survey indicates that this is what they want from their organizations: Deliver on your promise. Not "knock-your socks-off" customer service or product quality or outrageous pricing. Just deliver on the deal.

Second, according to such reports of consumer sentiment as the Edelman Trust Barometer, an increasing number of people don't believe the promises made by organizations because they don't believe what organizations and their leaders say.

This lack of trust, which has been on the rise, should terrify executives. Without customers' belief in your basic reliability—that you will deliver on what you promise—nothing else you do will matter . . . not clever ads and promotions, not the price of your product or service, not the quality of that product/service or your customer service, not the performance of your operations, not anything else. Because customers will desert you and avoid you at every turn because they will not believe in you or what you say and do. And it will cost you more to convince them that you will deliver on your promise.

That's what makes Promises Management and Reliability Rules so important. Promises Management is a business management process that enables executives to match their organizations' promises with what they can and do deliver. It gives leaders a method for avoiding over promising—the greatest pitfall in business today—and instead create satisfied, loyal customers who believe what you promise and, if you make a mistake, will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Chapter

1. Trust and Confidence: The Hidden Crisis for Business
2. The View through a Reliability Lens
3. Using Reliability to Challenge the Way People See Their World
4. Strategies to Reach an Aligned Promises Management Position
5. Getting Your Arms around Reliability
6. Building a Firm That Is True to Its Brand Promise
7. Partner Reliability Management
8. Customer Promises Management
9. Dependability Within: The Processes
10. Dependability Within: The People
11. Summing Up and Shaping Up for Outstanding Reliability

Index

Reliability Rules is great! It really is a winner. It is the secret weapon for companies for the next decade. The authors' formula for gaining trust and reliability is the first of its kind. Promises Management will become the new paradigm for the 21st century since trust and reliability are the cornerstones for success.



They have uncovered the hidden asset within companies by linking the culture on the inside with the brands and customers on the outside.

Thomas D. Kuczmarski
Kuczmarski & Associates
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

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Following upon three recent revolutions in management theory—Quality, Lean Management, and Customer Driven Value—Reliability may well become the next revolution in management thinking and practice.

Philip Kotler, S.C.
Professor of International Marketing
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

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Promises management lies at the heart of delivering a superior and consistent customer experience.

Adrian Payne
Professor of Marketing, School of Business,
University of New South Wales

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Among consumers there is a growing lack of trust in firms, to a decisive extent caused by a widespread habit among firms to overpromise, which has made unreliability a major concern for consumers. 

Concentrating on promises management as a strategic issue with tactical implications is an effective way of regaining trust.

Christian Grönroos
Professor of Service and Relationship Marketing
Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Finland

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There is wide acceptance that promises are at the heart of commerce, yet there is nothing substantive written on the topic to show how it is done. Reliability Rules shows managers how to adopt Promises Management business-wide in order to boost dependability at multiple levels—brand, partners, customers and employees.

Kaj Storbacka
Founder and Chairman of Vectia Ltd.
Professor of Account and Sales Management at Nyenrode Business Universiteit