Do you Delight your customers?

In my intermittent but ongoing reading about Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty, I came across an interesting idea.

Delight.

Berman (2005) talks about the idea of Delight versus Satisfaction.  Delight is described as a sense of wonderment when a service or product significantly exceeds customer expectations – goes ‘beyond’ expectations rather than just ‘exceeding’ them (it highlights the weakness of ‘exceed’, where an inch is as good as a mile).

I think that’s a great way to measure the success of a product or service experience.

It has none of the problems inherent in measuring satisfaction – that a ‘satisfied’ customer is only content, that it is difficult to measure ‘very satisfied’ or when expectations are indeed exceeded sufficiently to have a tangible impact on loyalty.

It also just makes a lot of sense.  It subtly catches the concept of satisfaction and emotional fulfilment all in one idea.  Aren’t we all looking for companies that Delight us?

Aren’t we are all looking for that ‘chocolate cake feeling’.