Six moments between the checkout and the next order. Each has a promise, a number that says whether it was kept, and a team that owns it.
Most brands measure the first moment and the fifth. The four in between are where promises break.
| Moment | The promise | The number | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The checkout | A delivery date, stated or implied | Share of orders delivered by the date shown | Ecommerce, with operations |
| 2. The warehouse | The right items, packed to survive, out on time | Ship-on-time rate; wrong-item and short-ship rate | Fulfillment or the 3PL |
| 3. The carrier | Transit in the days the date assumed | Transit time at the median and the 90th percentile, by lane | Operations |
| 4. The doorstep | Arrives intact, all of it, once | Damaged, lost and split-shipment rates | Operations and packaging |
| 5. The contact | An answer without chasing | Contacts per order, by reason | The team that caused the reason |
| 6. The recovery | Made right, fast, once | Repurchase after each failure type | Support, with a budget |
The moments feed each other. An overconfident date at moment 1 becomes a late delivery at moment 3, a contact at moment 5 and a credit at moment 6.
The contact queue is where the business’s broken promises arrive. It’s rarely where they’re made.
This is one chapter of The Kept Promise, which is free and readable in full on a single page with no form in front of it.