How do you set expectations?

The situation is that I got the last paperwork signatures from a case I’m working on and I hadn’t worked with this person before so I asked what needed to get done to place this case and to get paid.

This case manager replied to me via e-mail on Thursday. She said that everything needed to be in on Friday so if I wanted to meet that deadline then I would need to overnight her the paperwork and everything would be all set. I made a special trip to the post office and paid to have everything overnighted.

I then received an e-mail from this case manager on Monday. She said she hadn’t received anything. I went to my tracking information and found out that the paperwork was attempted for delivery on Friday but there was no one there so it was still sitting at the post office. Now I’m confused.

I call up the case manager and it turns out last Friday was Good Friday and they were closed and she said “I apologize”. Then she said she’d process all the paperwork and everything was all set.

While on the phone with her, I pulled up the e-mail she sent me. I said “I’m confused about this e-mail. It says to overnight you the paperwork and you would get everything taken care of on Friday and I will get paid on (such and such date). But that didn’t happen?”

She replies, “no, we were closed for Good Friday.”

“So why did you send me that e-mail?”

I stopped at that point as she just apologized again. It’s really not a big deal since I would have had to go to the post office anyways to send out the paperwork. I only wasted an extra $20 or so. Oh well right? Then why does it just leave this bad taste in my mouth? Do I really have anything to complain about?

Maybe my expectations of service are just too high?

Is this just a simple case of over-promising and under-delivering?  If she had said to me, we missed this Friday so as long as everything is set by next Friday we’ll be all set and you’ll get paid (a week or two later than original such and such date).  I wouldn’t have given this a second thought today.  I also wouldn’t have wasted $20 but it’s just $20.  What do you think?

When the weather man tells me the weather I take it with a grain of salt.  It’s probably not going to be exactly right.  In fact, it could be completely wrong.  I don’t run my practice that way.  In fact, I would never do business with a weather man, but that’s just me.  I guess I just believed what this case manager said, maybe I shouldn’t have.  Should I be the one apologizing?

Tagged as: apology, customer service, expectations