by Leslie Ungar

Created on: June 25, 2009

Do You Create Customer Delight?

Donald Trump, move over. There is another high voltage marketer in the Big Apple. Dateline has featured him, and the New York Times has written about him. His name is Michael Shvo. His salespeople are on duty 24/5. They show real estate property 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Would be clients may work day shifts, or fly in from Europe during midnight to 6 am. The conversion rate, the chance of turning a customer into a buyer, is higher in the middle of the night Shvo claims. The more unlikely the hour, the more likely they are to purchase.

You didn't see it coming, and now it's too late? The customer delight phase of customer service passed you by. Well, not quite. You still have time to delight clients and prospects. It's not enough to satisfy them anymore. Satisfaction won't stimulate word of mouth or retain a client, customer, prospect, patient, or guest. Satisfaction will neutralize the consequences. They won't say negative things about you, but they won't say positive things either. Your status will hover, unless you delight.

So how do you delight? One way to delight is to create a memorable experience. If you exceed everyone's expectations, you create an incredible advantage in the market place. This is true whether the market place is the client market, your internal employee market, or your prospective market.

The process of customer delight can start before the prospect is a customer.
Robert A. Lutz is the General Motors Vice Chairman by day. The saying goes the difference between a boy and a man is the size of his toys. This man's toys are two fighter jets. In addition to his G.M. regulation white business cards, he has printed his own. They picture the former fighter pilot in front of his French-German fighter jet. No mention of his day job. Do you think that when he hands that card to someone he creates delight?

At Starbucks and Quicken Loans the challenge to delight starts in the recruiting phase. At Quicken Loans, they organize a road rally in which teams of recruiters blitz carefully selected shopping malls. They hunt for employees who stand out by virtue of their energy, enthusiasm, and rapport with customers, according to The New York Times. Starbuck's has evolved a candidate bill of rights, handwritten notes over response letters, and Starbuck's cards as goodwill gestures whether or not an applicant gets a job offer. The quest to delight is not reserved for their external market.

The question becomes,

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