Getting more than what you paid for feels good. It is a rare occasion in the offline world but it is even more uncommon online. Recently, an Elance provider unexpectedly went above and beyond before they were even hired. Here’s the story.

I posted an hourly job on Elance, it was a simple data mining and spreadsheet creation type job and it got quite a few responses. I did not include the URL of the site I wanted mined in the job description but many potential providers asked for it so they could give a fair estimate of how much they should charge. Most of the replies I received were only about the amount of money or number of hours involved to complete the task. One reply, however, contained the finished spreadsheet. This occurred before I awarded anyone the job. One provider just went ahead and completed the work instead of telling me how much it would cost.

A small part of me wanted to be like, “Hey, thanks for the freebie”. But the moral side of me felt like I needed to pay this individual. After all, they did the work. And they presented it in a way where they didn’t ask for money, but were mainly showing proof that they could in fact perform the job task. What better proof of ability than handing me the finished spreadsheet, right? And the data was spot on; no errors. When I asked how much they wanted for doing the job the price they quoted was about half that of anyone else.
This was a very smart play on their end. How does one stand out in a sea of low cost labor? Especially for a job that doesn’t require a degree or special certification, where one applicant’s bid looks the same as any other’s.

To conclude the Elance story, not only did I award them the job, but I gave them about five more gigs. They were just as efficient with those as with the first one. When everyone else was quoting me a time frame, they just went ahead and did the work.

This is one example of over delivering. When they handed me the finished product instead of simply providing a ball park time frame and/or an hourly rate, I got more than I expected. I was expecting it to take about five days, three at the least, before I would receive the spreadsheet I wanted. I rewarded the individual who gave me more than I bargained for. Keep this in mind when running a business.

Always over deliver. Whether comes in the form of high quality customer service or a free keychain, giving your customer more than they expected will turn them into repeat customers. And more times than not, it will also get them talking to their friends and family about their positive experience. This amounts to more business.

If your business treats customers like people instead of dollar signs and you are willing to go the extra mile then that is just one more thing that separates you from your competition. It doesn’t take long to get people talking about your business in a good way, especially online. And trust me, online reviews can make or break a business, but that is a topic for another post.