Customers are the biggest assets of an organization. Thus, customer satisfaction becomes the ultimate goal which is actually the sign of business victory.

What does customer delight mean?

Customer delight is not just an appreciation like “Thank you, Have a nice day !!”, it’s actually creating a “wow” feel to the customer. It’s actually a part of the culture and make-up of the business especially in the field of help desk support.

Customer delight is quite different from the satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is only a stepping stone to customer delight. We have to provide a service that exceeds the customer expectations, that surprises the customer in a positive way.

We should deliver the service not just to satisfy the customer, but to do what they haven’t even imagined which will cause them to say WOW! Satisfaction is based on fulfilling the expected while delight occurs from the unexpected.

How to achieve customer delight?

There are some methodologies to get the customer delight in a better way. It’s not that easy to delight a customer unless we deliver quality services to them. Quality in the sense, we determine and adopt a set of standards or measurements for our service. If we meet these standards, our customers should be satisfied. However, meeting the “quality“ standards does not necessarily lead to customer satisfaction even if we produce a “quality” product, or deliver a “quality service”. It is completely based on the the customer’s perception of the service that will be measured against their expectations. We have to take actions that are consistent with those expectations combine to produce a declaration of satisfaction. Therefore it is essential to manage these aspects in a pro-active manner to excel at Customer Satisfaction.

*First and foremost is that the basic functions should be perfect. That means, the customer responsiveness, internal teamwork, which includes the problem resolution.

* We must know what our customers expect from us. We must work with our customers to precisely learn their expectations which indirectly mean the customer focus.

* The support should be fully empowered to get the customer delight. For that, the employees should possess the following:

=> Woo – the ability to win others over.

=> Empathy – the ability to understand the mood of others.

=> Discipline – the ability to work systematically and consistently.

=> Command – the ability to control a situation through communication.

=> Responsibility – the ability to own a problem until it is solved.

=> Friendliness- the ability to communicate in a friendly manner that should make a extra care feeling to the customer.

* Customer communication is a major factor that affects customer satisfaction. The communication should reflect our intelligence, education, and professionalism.

* We should constantly look for better ways to delight our customers rather than sticking on the existing solutions and we should know what the customer actually wants.

* There should be an ongoing process to monitor how delighted the customers are.

* The plans and processes that are executed should be current and regularly updated.

* Treat every customer the way they want to be treated.

The following diagram shows a basic idea on how to achieve customer satisfaction.

Following are the key points to achieve customer delight.

->We should impart high level service to the customer.

-> We should surprise the customer by the speed of response, knowledge, willingness and the way the problem is resolved.

-> The service should be spontaneous or unexpected.

-> We should make the customer feel valued.

-> Help the customers to help themselves i.e educate them.

-> Listen to the customers, i.e ask the customers for feedback and show that we value their opinion.

-> Well communication with the customers which should reflect our intelligence, education and professionalism.

-> Don’t delay on service. The faster the response to queries and complaints, the happier / more forgiving the customer.

-> Be compatible with every situations.

As Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”

Thus the ‘Delighted’ customers feel it, they remember it, they talk about it and they come back for more of it!

About the Author :

Arathi E S works as a Junior Software Engineer in Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in June 2011. She loves dancing, playing musical instruments and listening Music during her free time.

Blog edited by :

Rakhi R works as a Software Engineer in Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in December 2011. She loves reading Books in her free time.