Customer Delight – more than Customer Satisfaction!

I like to shop especially in the malls for cloths & specially my favorite book shopping…but some times I feel get out soon, take what you want and get out. A recent shopping experience had left more bitter experience and made me to get out fast but on the other end I had the luckiness of experiencing the best shopping.

These two examples of the shopping experience showcased customer service at its worst and its best, and it’s most simple. Once again I was remembered that great service isn’t about grand acts, its common courtesy, artfully delivered.

I had an opportunity to visit Bangalore to attend Barcamp – 4^th edition series especially for techie geeks. After lot of learning, meeting new enthu… people at the Barcamp and making new friends; me & my friend decide go for movie in Forum mall – a best hang-out place in Bangalore. We had enough time to roam around in the shopping complex. My friend decided to buy Jacket and we thought lets visit – Adidas show room. It was crowded, so we almost left. But one of the sales people made an eye contact. It wasn’t that kind of eye contact that said “Oh, another customer”. Instead that said, “I” will be right with you.” It was good eye contact.

So we browsed around for few minutes and my friend finally saw a good Jacket & for our relief he liked immediately. Sure enough the sales person came up and said, “Sorry about the wait, let’s get you some other jackets”. We showed him the Jacket we wanted to buy and he asked us to my friend to try little bigger size as it would suit him. We know what my friend liked but his whole demeanor showed that he wanted to make sure we got the right jacket.

He bought the new one and said “This is looks better, why can’t you have this.” As usual he asked our opinion and we also nodded our head.

Being the skeptic that we are, we looked at the price of his suggested jacket to see how he was up selling us. Same price. Hmm. With nothing to loose my friend tried the Jacket again to make sure it was right fit and it was extremely comfortable. I must admit: it was looking very good on my dearest friend.

As we paid for the jacket, the sales person continued to wow me now. He Said, “Can I show you also some other jackets or some thing you like. Though I was not interested in buying any new things but I was quite impressed with the gesture of the Sales person – He was smart and kind enough to have one more customer.

When I get a good service like this, I want to keep it going. This may not be the new standards what we encounter in other countries but this is just the right stepping for “Customer Delight – more than Customer Satisfaction!”

Here is another version, where I shared the bad experience.

As I stay in Chennai, I like to shop especially in Spencer Plaza (a great hangout place for all type of people) because of its n number of shops and not to forget the seasonal discounts. Me & my friend decided to buy some good pair of t-shirts for me, we ventured in to pantaloons show room. It was crowded, but still we decided to mingle and get some good stuff. We saw very few sales people there but one was even ready to come and help us. It wasn’t that kind of expression that said “Oh, another customer”. It was the forged eye contact.

We browsed here and there for few minutes and my friend finally selected some good t-shirts for me. As usual, you see in the big retailers. Finally we zeroed down one sales person and asked him to show some more good stuff. Sure enough the sales person went but he never came up but when we went to search for him he was busy with other customers. Finally, when he came back to us he didn’t even have the curtsey to say, “Sorry about the wait – how strange.”

Finally, he took us to new section and said “You can choose the T-Shirts what you were looking for here. Being skeptic, we looked at the T-Shirts and again we were taken in the wrong section to get the right stuff!

We didn’t have any choice, as we were hurry to leave another place we choose the T- Shirts unwillingly!

I both the places I shared the experiences and came to know what doest customer delight means!

To know your customer you should be professional enough, this is what we teach our customer support team when they are newly inducted in to the team. We talk about them about being Professionalism.

In a simple way to say - Professional behaviors are simple. What's not simple is the consistent application of them. Being a true professional takes thought and effort. But, once you are truly professional you can go just about anywhere.

The skills are universal, and they are rare. True professionals stand out from the crowd and grow rewarding and satisfying careers. And the customers of the world know when one is at work.