Satisfaccion Del Cliente

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CUSTOMER DELIGHT: A REVIEW
M. Wayne Alexander, Minnesota State University Moorhead
ABSTRACT Marketers now realize that simply satisfying customers may not be enough to insure loyalty. Rather, they should strive for customer delight, defined as a combination of joy and surprise. Yet, only in the last decade have customer delight and especially its proposed opposite, outrage or disgust,been given much attention in the literature. The review below examines the literature on delight and disgust. As much as possible it avoids the extensive work on customer satisfaction. Though satisfaction and delight are conceptualized quite differently, some researchers operationalize them in much the same way. Indeed, some measure delight/disgust as extreme ends of a satisfaction/ dissatisfactioncontinuum even while agreeing that the concepts are different. This paper consists of a review and evaluation of research and opinion on or related to delight. INTRODUCTION Blackwell, Miniard, and Engel (2006) state that, “… businesses have begun to realize that simply satisfying customers may not be enough. Rather, they should strive for ‘customer delight,’ which comes when customers aresatisfied completely (p. 214).” Only recently has customer delight and its opposite, outrage or disgust, been given much attention in the literature. Note that though some see delight as an extension of satisfaction at the extreme positive end and outrage or disgust at the extreme negative end, others view delight and its opposite as a concept separate and apart from satisfaction. The review belowexamines both delight and disgust and avoids that satisfaction research which sheds little light on delight, it antecedents, and consequences. The review is organized into two sections: antecedents and results. Each review examines the theoretical underpinnings, the methodology, and the conclusions as they relate to delight/disgust. The criteria for choosing published material for review include themention of delight and/or its opposite somewhere in the article, usually in the theoretical underpinnings or conclusions/discussion. This review is not meant to be exhaustive nor an abstract, but a short summary of the research and opinion relative to delight along with my comments.

Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, Volume 14, Number 1, 2010

40 ANTECEDENTS OF DELIGHT/DISGUST Oliver,Rust, and Varki (1997) In a review of the services literature, Oliver, Rust, and Varki conclude that while a growing body of literature exists on consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, little academic work as been performed on customer delight (p. 313). Yet service practitioners believe that in order to retain customers they must go beyond satisfaction to delight. Indeed, they seedelight/disgust as different concepts than satisfaction/dissatisfaction. The practitioners, then, define delight as a strong, positive, emotional reaction to a product or service. And though delight is dependent on emotion in the consumer’s response to consumption, the type of emotion is not clear. . . The academic’s perspective provides little insight into the concept of delight. While some assume thatdelight is at an extreme end of a satisfaction/dissatisfaction continuum, and by extension disgust is at the other, the research has not established this proposition. In their review of the emotion literature, delight is defined as “. . . a combination of high pleasure (joy, elation) and high activation . . . or surprise (p. 317).” That is, delight occurs when the consumer experiences a positiveoutcome and the outcome is unanticipated. The authors develop a model of delight and satisfaction based on Oliver’s (1981) disconfirmation paradigm. In a set of six hypotheses the model links (a) surprise to arousal, (b) disconfirmation and arousal to positive affect, (c) surprising consumption, arousal, and positive affect to delight, (d) positive affect and disconfirmation to satisfaction, and (e)...