September 5, 2003 11:35 PM

Broken: Same-day delivery

Barnes & Noble (bn.com), based here in New York City, offers to deliver almost any product same day for customers in Manhattan. That's pretty bold, setting such a high expectation.

The last time I ordered from bn.com, the "same day" delivery took several weeks to arrive. I alerted them via e-mail and never received an apology, let alone any compensation. That was two years ago, and I've never ordered from them since.

Now Phil Terry writes in with his recent experience on bn.com:

I experienced a problem with Barnes & Noble's (supposedly) Same Day Delivery in Manhattan when the courier service did not get to the delivery location until after 7pm. The name "Same Day Delivery in Manhattan" seems to imply guaranteed same day delivery; however, when you read the fine print, you find out that the service is in fact not guaranteed.

This isn't meant to bash bn.com. I'm sure that the site does lots of things well, they're all good people, etc. The point here is that when you set a high expectation with customers, you have to deliver on that - and not hide behind the small print - otherwise, customers are likely to leave forever.