We’ve all been taught that going above and beyond is good business. It’s baked into how we show up for customers: be generous, be thorough, be exceptional.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Over-delivering is one of the most overlooked forms of waste in a service business. It feels like great service, but often, it’s just a distraction.
The Hidden Waste No One Talks About
There’s a type of waste I see all the time in operations, but it flies under the radar because it’s wrapped in good intentions:
Doing more work or delivering higher quality than what the customer actually asked for.
It shows up like this:
- A customer is ready to buy, and you spend 45 minutes polishing a quote they skimmed in 10 seconds.
- A team member customizes a presentation when the standard version would’ve worked just fine.
- You send five follow-up emails when one would have closed the loop.
It doesn’t feel like waste, but it is. Not because it’s bad, but because it doesn’t move the needle for the customer. According to a study by the Project Management Institute, 37% of project failures are due to a lack of clearly defined objectives and requirements, which can lead to teams performing unnecessary work that doesn’t align with the client’s actual needs. This highlights how a lack of clarity can contribute to over-delivering and subsequent project failure.
Over-Delivering Isn’t Always Value-Adding
Here’s the nuance:
There’s a difference between adding value and adding extra.
Value is defined by the customer. If they don’t care about the additional detail, polish, or time you’re spending, then it’s not value—it’s overhead.
And in a business where your people, time, and energy are your most precious resources, extra for the sake of extra has a cost.
A report by Forrester Research found that companies lose an estimated $2 trillion annually due to poor customer experiences, often resulting from misaligned efforts that fail to effectively address customer needs. Over-delivering without understanding what the customer values can contribute to this poor experience and financial loss.
Why This Happens (and Why It’s So Common)
Most teams aren’t over-delivering because they’re inefficient. They’re doing it because they care. They want to do right by the customer. They want to be helpful, thoughtful, thorough.
But when you build processes that rely on heroic effort—going above and beyond as the norm—you create burnout, not scalability.
How to Tell If You’re Over-Delivering
Ask yourself:
- Are we doing things the customer didn’t request, notice, or pay for?
- Are our team members spending time on tasks that don’t influence the outcome?
- Are we perfecting instead of progressing?
- Are we repeating extra steps that don’t show up in our documentation or systems?
If the answer is yes, it might be time to re-evaluate your workflow.
A Simple Litmus Test
Before you add the extra email, the extra step, the extra polish, ask:
“Is this something the customer cares about?”
If not, it’s not serving them—or you.
Final Thought
Doing more doesn’t make your process better. It makes it heavier.
In a service business, clarity, simplicity, and alignment matter more than perfection. Your processes should support your people and deliver what the customer actually needs—nothing more, nothing less.
So go ahead—deliver with excellence. But remember: excellence isn’t about more. It’s about doing the right things, at the right time, in the right way.
In your service,
Hilary
