The customer experience: striving to delight customers

The emerging idea of customer delight, closely tied to aspects of customer experience and satisfaction, has everyone talking. As the power dynamic between businesses and customers gets flipped, it has never been more important to improve the experience of your customers by putting yourself in their shoes. However, when we look at the facts, this imperative has not been as widely recognised as one would think, even though the measures to be taken to optimise customer experience do not require exorbitant financial or strategic investments. That’s why we want to take a closer look at what it means for companies to delight their customers.

WHAT IS CUSTOMER DELIGHT?

More than high-quality products, consumers want great customer service. So, a first step toward customer delight is to offer unparalleled customer service in order to score points for customer experience. Another aspect to include in order to be as comprehensive as possible is implementing marketing techniques that aim to continually surprise customers. In other words, show up where they’re not expecting you.

Before we go any further, we should distinguish between customer satisfaction and customer delight. Customer satisfaction refers to an achievable, quantifiable objective, whereas customer delight involves exceeding your customers’ expectations. Customer delight is that little something extra that will make your customer experience unforgettable and will make you stand out from the competition. 

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HOW DOES CUSTOMER DELIGHT AFFECT CUSTOMER RELATIONS?

Some argue that this trend has become ubiquitous and should be contained to certain business sectors, but don’t be deceived! Whatever type of business you’re in, your customers will always appreciate it when you consider them, understand them, and treat them as special. However, when you look closely at the individuals in your customer base, you will realise that they are diverse. What may satisfy and even delight one customer might not have the same effect on another. Clearly, this poses a problem when it comes to delighting as many customers as possible. It’s also the purpose of customer experience management.

Another major challenge is how consumers perceive your brand. This perception is shaped by customer experience. As such, you can no longer beat your competitors based on product quality; the way to win is through the customer experience. Hence the importance of optimising that experience. In other words, customer satisfaction has become the norm, so customers expect businesses to always satisfy them. However, in addition to this expectation—which customers consider to be reasonable—customers also want to be delighted, and this is more important to them than being offered high-quality products.

On top of this situation, we have seen recently that the lines between different, unrelated business sectors have become increasingly blurred from a customer perspective. Here’s a simple example: a customer goes to their mechanic and is treated very well. The customer has such a great experience that they leave feeling delighted. That all sounds nice, but the only problem is that the same customer is now going to expect the same, or even better, treatment from larger companies, whether they be fast food restaurants or online merchants, even though the products and services offered have absolutely nothing in common!

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A DELIGHTED CUSTOMER IS AN APPRECIATIVE ONE 

If you’re still not convinced, remember that your customers are your top reviewers and they are the most likely people to recommend your business! The better you treat them, the more they’ll want to share how delighted they were, and these opinions can sometimes even go viral. So, all you need is a small-scale measure to get virtually free and incredibly effective publicity.

A survey in the Corporate Equality Index demonstrates how important customer experience—and even more so, customer delight—is to consumers: 86% of consumers are willing to pay more if they feel that a company is treating them well. This shows that consumers are not looking for the best product or even a lower price; rather, they’re looking for an experience that’s up to par with their expectations. Another number illustrates this reality: more than half of consumers say that they would be willing to change brands if they believed that they would get a better customer experience from another company. 

Lastly, if you’re still in doubt, bear in mind that winning over a new customer costs six to seven times more than gaining loyalty from an existing customer. Also, a delighted customer will be three to ten times more likely to come back than a moderately satisfied customer.