TwitterWe should start with the definitions of satisfaction, delight and loyalty. According to the dictionary, satisfaction is defined as, the contentment one feels when one has fulfilled a desire, need, or expectation. Delight is, to take great pleasure or joy. Loyalty is having the feelings of allegiance. These three simple words have a slightly different meaning, but all have a significant impact on the attitudes and behaviors of customers.
Barry Berman and Ken Blanchard have been studying the differences of satisfaction and delight. They concluded if you can move customers from being simply satisfied to delighted, the business benefits are enormous. Companies, who have delighted customers, have created customer loyalty. Walker Information “has conducted studies that have shown convincing correlations between customer loyalty and profit margins, growth rates, and other measures of market value .
Blanchard’s view (2007 – Leading at a Higher Level) is that companies need to go beyond simple satisfaction to retain customers and attract new ones. To do that, he developed a methodology that focuses on creating raving fans, which focuses in the area “decide, discover and deliver plus one percent. His concluded that was to create raving fans a company has to deliver on the customers expectations and exceed it. He used the example where a customer forgot a presentation at the hotel. An employee then flew to Hawaii to hand deliverer it the customer. The customer was overwhelmed by the experience and the personal touch. It would be easy to see why this customer is now a raving fan and well beyond any level of mere satisfaction.
Berman (2005- How to Delight your Customers) was focused on taking satisfied customers to a state of delight. He concluded that satisfaction is based on fulfilling the expected while delight occurs from the unexpected. His belief was to link an emotional experience with the customer to create an emotionally positive and memorable experience. Berman’s study found a critical difference between satisfied vs. delighted. A customer that was delighted was eighty-six percent more likely to buy again as compared to twenty-nine percent that were only satisfied. Delighting customers is a win for the customers, provides a competitive advantage and results in increased sales and profit for the company.
Creating a customer for life requires companies to take their customers to the next level. You need to take the relationship with customers from casual to a more intimate relationship of loyalty. You do that by creating raving fans and delighting them well beyond their expectations. In a study by Heskett (1994 - Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work) estimated that a five percent increase in loyalty can produce an increase in profits from twenty-five percent to eighty-five percent.
There is a significant difference between satisfied and delighted customers. Delighted customers will be more loyal and a business can create create customers for life. The key for businesses is determine the right customer experience for the right return.
Posted under Customers, Shareholder Value, Value Proposition
This post was written by Fred J. Cuen on February 3, 2009
This is a wonderful article! Anyone can really satisfy a customer. But the companies that go out of their way to truly delight the customers are the ones that will set themselves apart from the ordinary. Customers will go out of their way and often pay more to be delighted. If more companies ingrained the “delight” goal into their cultures, there would be many more stories that would come to mind about how our expectations were exceeded, rather than being able to quickly rattle off the occasions where we were disappointed.
Kristina, I could not agree more with your points. Delight is going beyond the customers expectations. One point of caution is that when we delight customers, we must also take into consideration the financial impact. Your point on why more companies do not ingrain this into their culture is interesting. I have never talked to any company executive who didn’t think creating satisfied, loyal or delighted customers was not important. As you point out, it is not what we say or think, it’s what we do. This has to be a part of the management system just like the P&L. An old saying people respect what we inspect. Fred
Well put. As we tell our clients every day – a satisfied customer is one small step away from being a former customer. Satisfaction is the minimal requirements to play – to truly develop a loyal or at least a return customer, one must go beyond satisfaction to delight.
Sonia, your point is well taken and is great advice to your clients. If we want a quick fix, sell them something and move on. If you want to build a base of business for the long haul you need to cultivate the account and grow with them. The hard work was done on the first sales. By building trust and confidence into the relationship you have the opportunity to engage the client over the lifetime of the account. That means bigger rewards over a longer period of time. Fred
for me there is no differences between sastisfaction and delight because it has same value in field of business, to delight is to satisfy, then to satisfy is to delight, but if you cannot understand this word’s try to answer this question can you delight your costumer without delighting? or can you delight with out satisfying your costumer?
Ruel,
I think you pose an interesting connection between delight and satisfaction. I’m curious if others feel the same way. I would love to hear from other readers.
M
Ruel, I agree with you regarding the need for both. I would offer that it is a progression. Where satisfied in the entry level with your competition and delighted takes it to the next level. There are a number of studies that show satisfied customers are prone to defect to the competition. Getting them to delighted is part of retaining them (retention strategy). As you know, customers are more profitable the longer you keep them. Fred