Customers and customer care is, and for the past few years has been, a hot topic: with many opinions (in books, magazines, and all manner of electronic communication) on how to retain existing customers and have the edge to bring in new customers, ahead of the competition.

Starbucks, the successful global coffee vendor, prides itself in delivering pleasure and delight. The book The Starbucks Experience highlights the “5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary”.

The book summary describes, amongst others, one of the success elements of Starbucks:

Principle 3: Surprise and Delight
As early back as 1912, The Rueckheim brothers, who are behind the successful candy brand Cracker Jack, already knew that adding a surprise to each package would dramatically increase the appeal of their product.
In that vein, delight is the caramelized popcorn – the basic product customers get – while surprise is the prize they get! Customers want the predictable and the consistent, while hoping for an occasional positive twist or added value thrown in. Customer delight comes from surprise as well as predictability.

For us, in the consulting service, the pleasure should relate to delivering what was promised on time, in budget and in scope better than the competition could hope to, and, if it is a repeat customer to deliver even better than before.
The delight is what needs to come after the pleasure – that extra, unexpected, and usually unplanned value to the client. What this would be depends on the client: perhaps it is about saving time for the client by doing something that would take the client 30 minutes, and for me it would take 15 because I have the fast track to do the activity. Or making them smile or laugh when there is much pressure. Perhaps it is just acknowledging something about them or their business, a feel good element which is offered with sincerity. The delight is what makes your service or business unique and stand out.

Last week I did an informal survey on what people understood under this topic of pleasure and delight. Surprised I was to learn that the survey respondents ALL regarded what is standard practice as the surprise, and regarded what is surprise, as the delight.

Here is an example:

A - The standards for business service delivery:
Be on time and present professionally.

B - The Surprise:
Be on time and deliver a fun, high energy, informative, value packed message that the audience enjoys.

C - The Delight:
Close the presentation 10 minutes earlier and offer refreshments and time for informal discussion: this gives the short-of-time people in the room a breather to enjoy tea/coffee or to leave early and be less rushed for the next appointment, and creates one on one discussion opportunity for those who did not want to publicly speak and wanted more information.

In my survey, A was seen as the surprise, B as the Delight. The surprise provides an edge; the delight is the key to different customer or client care. The survey respondents completely missed the key to unique Customer Care.