How to delight customers

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Why is it important for marketers to 'delight' their customers? Use examples from your experience as a consumer to support your answer.

The emergence of customer-focused marketing and the digitalrevolutionhave given customers a dominant position in contemporary market (Kumar et al, 2006). Many companies consequently aim to provide superior customer experiences and to delight their customers (Arnold et al, 2005).This essay identifies two significant changes which haveresulted in customer delight becoming indispensable in the marketing era. It then discusses the impacts of the need to delight customers by defining the term, and describing the benefits of delighting customers and the consequences of failing to satisfy them.

The concept of delighting customers has becomea crucial issue in contemporary marketing due to two significant changes, which have transformed the capabilities of both companies and consumers. The first of these changes has been the transformation of the marketing paradigm from a mass-production orientation to a customer-focused one. As a result, the marketplace becomes more competitive, with customers enjoying a wider rangeof choices to fulfiltheir requirements (Kumar et al, 2006). The second change involvesthe rapid development of technology. The spread of the Internet has enabled companies toprovide consumers with information and to conduct transactions with them online. It has also empowered consumers to evaluate comparable offers by employing powerful search engines and to switch to competitors easily (ibid, p.10 - 11). These two changes have increased customers' bargaining power and reshaped their purchasing behaviours. It is therefore especially essential for marketers to satisfy their customers in order to retain them and therebyoutperform their competitors.

Customer delight has hada considerable impact on business. It is the outcome of delivering significantly extra or unanticipated value which exceeds customer's expectations. Merely satisfied customers can defect to similar competitors easily if only minimally acceptable satisfaction is provided (Kotler and Keller, 2006). In other words, delighted customers are more likely to remain loyal longer, and frequently returningas repeat business. Such customers may also refer the business favourably to others, providing it with the enormous benefits of positive word-of-mouth advertising (Mascarenhas et al, 2004). An example from my own experiences is that I recently ate a Chinese restaurant in Southampton where provided the best tasted Dim-Sum I have never had in my life. I then began to go there frequently and even took some friends there to dine together. This illustrates how delighting customers benefits companies by providing sustainable income and free advertising. In contrast, it is possible for customers who have had an unpleasant experience with a business tocomplaint about it to their friends or to post their dissatisfaction to online communities. Such negative publicity can damagea company's reputation considerably by discouraging other potential customers to purchase from the company, thereby having a negative impact on sales. Thus, marketers clearly need to identify the determinants of customer-perceived value, and use it to maximize the value their offers deliver in order to gain the benefits of customer delight.

To conclude, marketers need to satisfy their customers by providing superior values in today'scompetitive market, thus delighting them. This should lead to repeated business and referrals of new customers.

Reference:

Arnold, M. J., Reynolds, K. E., Ponder, N. and Lueg, J. E. (2005) Customer delight in a retail context: investigating delightful and terrible shopping experiences. Journal of Business Research [online] 58(8), 1132 - 1145. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V7S-4C4X3M4-1&_user=126770&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1030120740&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000010399&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=126770&md5=d01eef702291aa101997df7aef08bd74[Accessed 29 September 2009].

Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2006) Marketing management. 12th ed.New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Kumar, V. and Reinartz, W. J. (2006) Customer Relationship Management: A Database Approach. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Mascarenhas, O. A., Kellstadt, C.H., Kesavan, R., Bernacchi, M. (2004) Customer value-chain involvement for co-creating customer delight. Journal of Consumer Marketing [online] 21(7), 486 - 496. Available from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet;jsessionid=DB3EA08876079070C51BB9093C58444B?contentType=Article&Filename=Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Articles/0770210704.html [Accessed 29 September 2009].