Customer Delight: The New Standard in Customer Service

What is customer delight, and why is it important?

Customer delight is more than just satisfying a customer with your products or services; it’s exceeding the client’s expectations. A client wants to be considered throughout the entire customer journey, not just to the end of the sale. One way to demonstrate this is by finding clever and unprompted ways to exceed customer expectations.

“Customers who are happy and satisfied with your products or services will likely become loyal customers, but customers who are delighted will sing your praises,” said Rohan Nayak, CEO and co-founder of audio series platform Pocket FM. “They post about it, which results in natural expansion as people recommend the company on their own.”

When used effectively, customer delight can help boost brand loyalty among your customer base, leading to ample growth opportunities, reduced customer churn, and more opportunities for upselling and customer referrals. According to Nayak, delighted customers become more emotionally connected to your business, and this emotional connection results in a greater tolerance for mistakes and a willingness to experiment with new products or services from your company. 

Who is responsible for delighting customers?

All employees and managers play a part in delighting customers, although some departments are naturally positioned to have a greater impact. In particular, those trained to interact directly with customers at the forefront of your business — such as customer service, sales and marketing — should ensure that each person on your customer journey, from prospective leads to actual buyers, is delighted. 

Because these team members engage with customers regularly, they’re most in tune with customer preferences and requirements and can offer valuable perspectives on the unique ways customers want to be treated. [Read related article: Southwest Airlines: A Case Study in Great Customer Service]

What does it mean to delight your customers?

There’s not just one way to delight customers; knowing your customers and their individual wants and needs will help you offer an above-and-beyond experience. In doing so, your business can establish long-term customer relationships and turn consumers into loyal brand advocates.

Businesses can delight customers through various methods, such as establishing a like-minded community through social media or in-store events; delivering instantaneous, individualized help via support features, or offering valuable solutions to customers’ problems based on their feedback. For example, Pocket FM delights customers by going above and beyond with its offerings, providing personalized recommendations, and helping listeners engage with stories that resonate with them.

Regardless of how you choose to delight customers, ensure that your tactics are relevant to your audience and will benefit them. When you successfully exceed your customers’ expectations, you can reap the benefits of customer loyalty, which will lead to increased sales and growth opportunities. [Read related article: Why Efficient Customer Service Is Better Than Friendly Customer Service]

7 key principles to customer delight

Transforming your customers’ satisfaction into delight can unlock considerable benefits for your business. Focus on these key principles to help make that shift. 

1. Understand the difference between customer satisfaction and customer delight.

You satisfy your customers when you give them something they expect. You delight them when you give them something even better than they expected.

The classic example is the auto repair service that washes your car when they’re done fixing it: When you pick up your car, you find that it not only runs better but also looks great. Most people don’t leave the auto repair shop with a smile on their face, but you can change that. 

“Satisfaction is a rational evaluation (‘They did what they promised’), while delight creates an emotional connection (‘Wow, I can’t believe they did that!’),” explained Dev Nag, CEO of customer support AI startup QueryPal. 

For another example, consider a customer who calls to complain about a product defect. You satisfy the customer when you immediately offer to have the customer return the defective product and replace it at no charge, with no return shipping costs. You delight the customer when you add a $25 gift certificate toward the purchase of another one of your products.

“Customer delight goes beyond the levels of expectation where the organization has to do more than expected to make the customer happy,” Nayak said. “Satisfaction is the level of happiness that a customer has. … Delight is a customer’s happiness level with a product or service that goes beyond satisfaction.”

2. Develop a knowledgeable customer service staff.

When customers call customer service, they expect to reach someone who is informed and able to resolve their issues. They can tell when a service representative is scrolling through a screen to find the answer to their question. [Explore the costs of training your customer service team.]

Customer service staff must be sufficiently competent to provide some “wow factor” by pleasantly surprising the customer with the following factors:

• Speed of response
• Ease of reaching a representative (not having the customer waiting on hold; not having them navigate complicated voice prompts to talk to a representative)
• Immediate identification of the problem and a responsive solution
• Display of technical and professional knowledge that indicates the representative clearly knows what to do and how to do it
• The ability to get something done without needing to consult a manager or colleague

“Build a knowledge base of your best customer interactions, and leverage technology to instantly retrieve and personalize those winning responses for each new customer,” Nag suggested. “Look for ways to turn every customer interaction into an opportunity to exceed expectations through speed, thoroughness and personal attention — even if that attention is intelligently automated.”

Teri Williams, president and chief operating officer of OneUnited Bank, suggested having a designated member of your customer service team whose primary responsibility is customer delight. “Consider hiring or giving someone the responsibility to monitor [the] ‘user experience’ to make sure the experience you believe is being delivered to your customers is actually being delivered,” Williams said.

3. Surprise your customers, and do the unexpected.

If you haven’t paid your bill on time, it’s no surprise when you get a reminder that you’re overdue. But wouldn’t you be pleasantly surprised if you received a letter or email out of the blue to thank you for your regular prompt payment, along with a coupon for 10 percent off your next order?

Turn the mundane into a unique experience through surprise-and-delight marketing, which involves finding ways to exceed customers’ expectations without asking for anything in return. This method of marketing can be instrumental in elevating your brand’s perception among customers. In a Sendoso survey, 24 percent of respondents said offering unexpected gifts to customers is the best way to develop a connection with them.

4. Focus on emotional value.

Creating an experience that evokes positive emotions is a huge part of delighting your customers. “Although lower prices or additional products and services can ‘wow’ customers, long-lasting customer delight comes from how [you and] your employees make customers feel,”  Williams said.

Nayak’s team uses storytelling and unique customer service to evoke positive emotions — an approach that you can tailor to your business. The team’s episodic storytelling makes listeners crave more while creating a bond that makes them return often, Nayak explained.

5. Respond in a timely manner.

A big part of customer delight is making sure you respond to your customers quickly. This lets them know that you care and that you prioritize their questions or concerns. “Track your customer ratings, [and] analyze your customer reviews on review sites such as Google, Yelp, Trust Pilot, BBB, etc. and comments on social media to determine if there are ‘wow’ reviews and, conversely, issues that need to be addressed,” Williams recommended.

Even if you cannot resolve a customer’s issue right away, let them know you are working on it. This will show them that you are listening to them and care about their satisfaction. “In today’s world, and [with] skyrocketing expectations, achieving true delight at scale requires leveraging AI and automation to provide instant, personalized responses 24/7 that feel as thoughtful and thorough as your best support agents on their best day,” Nag said. “This allows you to surpass expectations consistently without the traditional trade-off between quality and cost.”

A great tool for maintaining customer relationships is customer relationship management (CRM) software. The best CRM solutions help you record and log all emails and other forms of communication, as well as set up reminders to check in with customers who are having specific issues. You can also sync a shared inbox, which is used for conversational marketing, with your customer service cases and your CRM system to stay up to date with all communications.

6. Solve your customers’ problems, both in the present and the future.

Offer solutions to your potential and current customers’ problems, or help them achieve a goal. Make sure your solutions are personalized to their individual needs and preferences.

Although quick and effective customer solutions are great in the short term, it is important to go beyond immediate solutions. Provide customers with information and ways to help them manage their challenges, and if possible, teach them to do so on their own. This can help you solve your customers’ future problems, too.

7. Gather feedback on your business’s customer delight.

A great way to assess customer delight is to track engagement and satisfaction metrics. You can use feedback tools such as interviews, surveys and focus groups to measure your success. 

“We measure listeners’ engagement, which includes time spent on the platform and completion rates of audio series to understand the level of delight,” Nayak noted. Similarly, Nag advised tracking metrics such as first response time, resolution time and customer satisfaction scores to identify areas for improvement.

No matter which tools you use, make sure to ask customers for their feedback on your product or service quality, communication, friendliness and customer support. This feedback will help you continually improve your business and increase your customer delight.

“Remember that the ultimate measure of delight is when customers proactively champion your brand to others,” Nag said.

Miranda Fraraccio contributed to this article.