There is a huge difference between customer satisfaction and customer delight. In any industry, this is what separates the players from the leaders. Customer delight can be achieved by the smallest of things, provided the team has the right attitude. So how exactly is customer satisfaction different from customer delight, let me illustrate by way of two examples I experienced last month.

Customer Delight Vs Customer Satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction

I ordered a perfume from an eCommerce marketplace. When it arrived, it was not in a proper box. The bottle looked beat up and I had a serious doubt that it was a fake. I put in a return request at the site. They promptly registered it, the product was picked up in the next 2-3 days and the amount was credited to my wallet. I was a satisfied customer. This is an example of Customer Satisfaction.

Customer Delight

Did you read My Envy Box September Review? I wrote that the lipstick they sent me was damaged. The review was published on 16th September. The very next day on the 17th, I had a comment on the post by Team Envy stating that I should write an email to them about this. I was quite surprised by this. The reason is that while I had shared the post on social media, I did not rant about the damaged lipstick. I expressed my displeasure in just two lines that went like this

I am actually miffed that the lipstick was damaged. The bullet had scraped against something and was damaged 🙁

Following their advice, I immediately wrote to them. Not only was my mail acknowledged immediately, I even received a call from them for confirmation of my order number and residential number. They had the details handy and just asked me to verify them. I did it and was told they would send a replacement right away. Yesterday, on the 19th of September I had a replacement lipstick in my hand! They sent out a Catrice lipstick all right but the range and the shade are different. They did not even ask me to return the damaged bullet. The shade they sent me is Catrice Ultimate Colour in 320 Kiss Kiss Hibiscus and it is a gorgeous coral pink. I am soooo excited to try it out! That ladies and gentlemen, is what customer delight is all about!

Customer Delight – How To?

A bonus lipstick aside (sure shot way to delight a make up lover), what did Team Envy do here for customer delight? What can we learn from them and imbibe in our own customer service?

Listen Carefully

Whoever read my post could have brushed it off as one little line. I have not used any strong words in expressing my discontent. This bullet would not have prevented me from renewing my subscription with them. However, a collection of such smaller instances can cause customer dissatisfaction. By not brushing a small thing aside, they are telling me that they value me as a customer.

Be Proactive

They could have waited for me to complain to them. I did not and they reached out to me themselves. Left to my own devices, I might not have complained. The proactive gesture on their part was unexpected and the biggest cause of my delight. If they would have replaced it after I reached out to them, it would have been customer satisfaction and not customer delight. Proactive reaching out to your customers to seek their opinion and checking if they are happy with you is extremely important in the service industry.

Accept Responsibility

Team Envy could have very well said, it is the product that did not survive the shipping and melted. Not our problem. Instead, this is what they wrote in their email response to me

The Shine version of the lipstick does not seem to be an adventurous traveller at all unfortunately!  We take responsibility of getting products  undamaged to our customers and hence replace any genuinely product immediately.

– Team Envy (17th September 2015 via email)

They took ownership and initiated a corrective action. All this without asking me a lot of questions. They did not ask me for proof of damage (I have been asked this before while returning online shopping) or whether the previous lipstick was usable or not. I was not expected to do anything here. That was quite awesome.

Be Prompt

In the narration above, I have mentioned the dates deliberately. The entire thing took less than four days. They could have dilly dallied, spent time in thinking or told me they would send the replacement in the next month’s box. They didn’t. They took care of the situation immediately. Promptness is crucial to customer delight. Keeping things on hold, having the customer follow up causes discontent to brew.

Communicate

I was contacted via my blog. Once we took the conversation to email, there were a few quick exchanges followed by a phone call for confirmation. Post that, our conversation was summed up on an email and I was told when the product will be shipped and when can I expect it to arrive. Very clear succinct communication.

Finally, I would like to applaud the Team Envy for their attitude of customer delight. Thank you for caring!

[Tweet “In any industry, customer delight is what separates the players from the leaders”]

---

Day 19  – September Blogging Challenge

---