Customer delighters

Customer delight is a key requirement for consumer products. For example, the hand-feel of a fabric is an important measure of its quality. There exist many challenges to determine these quality factors in a more scientific way. However, even if only a semi-quantitative measurement can be devised, this can yield insights on how the underlying material or structural attributes control the quality factor. These insights can in turn be used to formulate innovative products. 

For a provocative discussion of customer delight, see Oliver, Rust, and Varki (1997) and Rust and Oliver (2000). 

Oliver RL, Rust RT, Varki S. 1997. Customer delight Foundations, findings, and managerial insight. J Retail 73 311. 

Leadership and management commitment Total customer delight Long term efforts... 

Discover what will delight your customer and provide it. (Regardless of satisfying customer needs your competitor may have provided products with features that give greater satisfaction )... 

Rust RT, Oliver RL. 2000. Should we delight the customer J Acad Market Sci 28 86. 

Defining customer expectations as either performance or perception allows us to avoid confusion around the voice of the customer and the many labels often applied to it—customer needs, wants, requirements, standards, critical-to-quality (CTQ), critical-to-satisfaction (CTS), delighters, and so on. 

Customers have been eonditioned to expeet eonsistency thanks to businesses like Starbucks, McDonald s, and countless others that strive to deliver the same product regardless of location. Control Plans enable any organization to replicate the customer experience by clearly doeumenting how to keep the process in control, what to do if it goes out of control and who is responsible for putting it back in control—all of which results in a reproducible process that delights customers and maximizes prohts. 

The how is often the hidden delighter in the customer experience. Customers will be infinitely more forgiving when something goes wrong if the response is appropriate and is delivered in a predictable manner. 

This chapter outlines a complete design and process platform characterization methodology and the system for deployment. The underlying principle of this methodology is to provide a vehicle that struts with identification of customer requirements and ends only when the product has been delivered to a customer who is thoroughly delighted. 

Quality is relentlessly pursued through products and services that delight the customer. 

Customer relationship management (CRM) software now exists to capture data to improve overall supply chain perfonnance (also see Chapter 9). The objective of CRM is to develop a customer-centred organization that ensures every opportunity is taken to delight the customers, foster customer loyalty, and build long-term relationships that are mutually beneficial. The ultimate gain is to ensure that each customer s current and future wants and needs are satisfied. 

But you may be thinking, I want to delight my clients-owners-customers-stakeholders by exceeding their expectations, that is, by giving them more than they expected. That s fine, subject to these three conditions ... 

Education technology is important to understand the science of the system and tools. Here, scientific means that one is rigorous about how s/he gathers and uses data. It is better to have a good multiple measurement system that retains and delights costumers than a highly scientific survey that drives customers away. 

ISO standard [17] aroused unexpected enthusiasm. Ed (a project manager) figures out appropriate slogans (dealing with usability) and t-shirts (with the slogans) for the company. He was delighted of the possibility to slash the demands of customers... 

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