Creating a delightful customer experience

A basic foundation for a delightful CX

In this article I want to explain the broad foundations that I think are needed to create a delightful experience, this is no means an in-depth analysis, more of a 101 guide or a mindset you can adopt. In summary, this argues that in order to create an experience that delights, you first need to satisfy the customers needs, only then can you build up delight by making the experience as simple and frictionless as possible, and further delight through surprise and going beyond expectations.

Here’s a simple visual of this hierarchy…

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Meeting needs

So lets take the first and most important foundation first.

You can't delight your customers without first meeting their needs

This is none negotiable, no matter how simple and easy to use your product is, if it doesn’t satisfy the need, your product is worthless. This can be presented as simply as…

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Let’s take a simple example, if an online shoe store doesn’t have the shoes I want to buy in stock, it doesn’t matter how simple the site is to use, I’m always going to be disappointed.

"The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside it's walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer"

Peter Drucker

However, the experience doesn’t have to be simple and easy to return a delightful result. Take Ryanair as an example. they’re not internationally known for their customer first experience but if I can get a flight for £42 instead of £142 from a premium airline, I’m saving £100, my need definitely satisfied and I’ll be delighted, most likely telling my friends about the bargain I got.

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Incidentally Ryanair have recognised that they were loosing market share because of their piss poor customer service and is making moves to be more civilised to it’s customers. EasyJet made a move to simplify & improve it’s CX some time ago and is reaping the benefits as this differentiated them in the low cost market and added value to their product. One of the biggest changes for Ryanair’s online experience is that it used to hide costs within the checkout funnel and surprise customers with additional costs at the end, therefore customers who were initially attracted to the low price were ultimately disappointed by the higher end price, thus the need wasn’t quite satisfied.

Getting your product or service right is essential, make sure you answer all potential questions and give your customers the confidence to make a decision. Take the time to think about the need you’re trying to solve and adjust your product to fit. Start by asking…

  • Do customers recognise that they have this need or the problem we’re trying to solve?
  • If there was a solution, would they buy it?
  • Would they buy it from us?
  • Can we supply or build a solution for their need or problem?

The most important step is to go out into the wild, talk to your customers and see if your product meets their needs. Remember people don’t want a quarter inch drill, they want a quarter inch hole.

Simple and Easy

This leads us onto our next obvious foundation, one that we all aspire to achieve. As we saw above, making something simple and easy can’t make a delightful experience on it’s own but it can support and enhance it.

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Making things easier will increase your conversion rate and can also have a positive impact on your brand.

Speed and performance of your site can also be a contributing factor.

Also consider perception in effort and speed, the two examples below do a similar thing in terms of functionality but Skyscanner’s tool hides advanced controls until you need them.

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Here’s a few example principles to consider…

  • Keep forms and processes as short as possible, don’t force customers to enter information that you don’t need or don’t use.
  • Try to keep pages focussed on one task / the problem to be solved (see my notes on the extended attention ratio).
  • Be obvious, highlight key actions and tone down none important objects or even better remove them.
  • Be forgiving if people make mistakes and guide them to correct them (or correct them on their behalf)
  • Keep language straightforward and direct (but with warmth and humanity)
  • Make your site super quick…

Surprise and Delight

The next level up from meeting needs in a simple and easy way is to surprise and delight your customers by going that extra mile or doing something unexpected. Remember that this is not about meeting expectations (that’s just basic customer satisfaction), this is about exceeding expectations. There are so many directions to go with this but it could be as simple as

This post is still in draft from here on…

Retail offering free delivery, X% off your next purchase, xxxxxxxxxxxx

Digital first Snap chat

Doing something that is standard in a different way

Surprising and delighting your customers is not about meeting expectations (that's just basic customer satisfaction), this is about exceeding expectations

Surprising and delighting your customers is an opportunity to create a brand ambassador, to up-sell, to create a lasting impression, to stand out from your competitors and to add extra value to your product or service.

Surprise and delight is not mutually exclusive, for example if the primary customer need is not met but something else surprises them.

Expectations are exceeded

Focus on your most valuable customers

Focus on the most painful points in a journey

Customer journey map

Market to them at the right time

Understand the full journey from the trigger, research and after purchase

Talk to your customers

Talk to your front line people.