In the world of contracted service delivery it is not uncommon to come across the terms ‘best endeavours’ and ‘reasonable endeavours.’
These phrases are either incorporated into the documentation, or expressed by service delivery managers, when a situation arises that is beyond their explicit contractual obligations.
No matter how well-intentioned the phrase may be, it has no protection from legal interpretation.
A recent Appeal Court ruling has potentially serious ramifications, for both clients and service providers alike, because the Court considered that contract exclusion clauses citing ‘best endeavours’ might actually lead to contractual obligations.
Of course service delivery is about setting and managing expectations so we need to choose our language, written and oral very carefully; especially when there is a contract in place between stakeholders.
Perhaps we can draw some protective language from an unlikely source, the world of Politics?
If you listen very carefully to our Political leaders, you will realise that they use two different, but quite distinct, phrases to set expectations when a problem arises.
Absolute commitments to resolve a situation are made by saying: “we will do whatever it takes,” whereas the phrase “we will do whatever we can” sets the bar of expectations (and possibly the eventual outcome) much lower.
Sometimes trying to be too helpful might prove to be a costly mistake.
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