Customer Delight(hospitality industry)

The evolution of the customer delight construct

Prior research, current measurement, and directions for future research

Edwin N. Torres and Giulio Ronzoni Rosen College of Hospitality, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

Abstract Purpose – The present research aims to summarize the literature on customer delight, identify trends and debates, create an instrument to measure delight and propose directions for future research.

Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive review of the literature has been undertaken. Flowing from a variety of conceptual, qualitative and quantitative articles, operational measures have been identified, and an instrument to measure customer delight has been proposed. Findings – Past research on customer delight identified various emotions that trigger delight, as well as human needs, traits and behaviors associated with delightful experiences, and features of the service experience commonly related to delight. On the basis of these findings, the researchers have developed an instrument to measure customer delight. Practical implications – The proposed instrument enables managers to measure customer delight in various service settings. Measuring and attaining higher levels of customer delight can help generate greater loyalty as compared to customer satisfaction. Originality/value – The authors unify the conceptualization and measurement of customer delight and create a new instrument to measure the construct. Similarities and debates in the past research are identified, and directions for the future of customer delight are presented. Future studies can further test and validate the presented instrument in various service industries.

Keywords Consumer behaviour, Customer service, Service industries, Customer satisfaction, Services marketing, Customer delight

Paper type General review

Introduction The topic of customer delight has captured the attention of scholars and managers alike. In the past 20 years, customer delight has been the subject of books and scholarly articles. These publications have emerged from diverse disciplines, use various research methodologies and conceptualize customer delight in different ways. In light of this, the present research seeks to provide a comprehensive review of customer delight literature, identify patterns, create an instrument to measure delight and propose directions for future research.

As a precursor to customer delight, much research was undertaken in the area of customer satisfaction. Despite the decades-long study of the customer satisfaction construct, it has been suggested that measuring satisfaction is not sufficient to define and assess the customer experience. Oliver (1980, p. 27) defined customer satisfaction in the following manner: “the summary psychological state resulting when the emotion surrounding disconfirmed expectation is coupled with the consumer’s prior feeling about the consumption experience”. In a similar vein, Schiffman and Kanuk’s (2003)

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Received 12 September 2016 Revised 25 November 2016

12 January 2017 7March 2017

Accepted 11March 2017

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality

Management Vol. 30 No. 1, 2018

pp. 57-75 © EmeraldPublishingLimited

0959-6119 DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-09-2016-0528

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm

definition of customer satisfaction stressed the comparison of product and service performance in comparison to expectations. In contrast, customer delight became known by many as a construct grounded on customer affect and the satisfaction of human needs. For example, Torres and Kline (2013, p. 648) defined customer delight in the hotel context as follows.

Customer delight is the highest state of engagement experienced by the guest. It represents a higher state of emotional arousal and excitement towards a hotel than customer satisfaction. Delight is caused by satisfying the guest’s higher order needs, namely, the need for self-esteem.

If a construct existed and was being measured in several studies, why was there a necessity for the creation of this new customer delight paradigm? In the authors’ view, there are two main reasons that explain why customer delight emerged as a separate construct. First, after years of study, research results were contradictory concerning to the possible effects of customer satisfaction. In fact, several studies demonstrated that satisfied customers are not always loyal customers, with the study of Skogland and Siguaw (2004) as a prime example.

The second explanation has to do with the nature of the customer satisfaction concept itself. Satisfaction is based on the disconfirmation paradigm. Accordingly, customers make a comparison between what they expect and what they receive and emerge satisfied or dissatisfied. This cognitive evaluation is, in its essence, an attitude. As such, customer satisfaction studies often fail to account for the guest’s emotions generated in a service encounter. Yet, at other times, customer satisfaction theorists have attempted to merge attitudes and affect, thus confounding what satisfaction really is.

Early research included the examination of customer delight conducted by Oliver et al. (1997), which stressed human emotions. Another prominent example of an early research is that of Keiningham et al. (1999), which proposed that customer delight was attained by delivering service beyond the upper thresholds of a customer’s zone of tolerance. Schneider and Bowen (1999) discussed how customer delight could be generated through the satisfaction of human needs, thus following a motivational theory approach. Rust and Oliver (2000) explored both benefits and costs of customer delight. In the realm of hospitality management, early research included Torres and Kline’s (2006) theoretical model for customer delight within the lodging setting.

As the field of customer delight matured, more empirical research emerged. Researchers sought to understand the relationship between customer delight and satisfaction (Chitturi et al., 2008), and between delight and loyalty (Kim, 2011). Research within this time frame also included Crotts and Magnini’s (2011) investigation of TripAdvisor data to identify factors leading to customer delight. Later, Swanson and Davis (2012) scanned for the employee traits and behaviors leading to customer delight. Over the past four years, research on customer delight has been characterized by explorations of the various paths to delight, as well as various business and cultural settings and their impact on delighting customers. Recent research includes Butori and De Bruyn’s (2013) exploration of discretionary preferential treatment with regard to customer delight and Ma et al.’s (2013) use of the cognitive appraisal theory (CAT) as a basis to determine the antecedents of customer delight.

New advances on customer delight also include the discovery of various typologies, or paths, for achieving customer delight (Barnes et al., 2016a; Torres and Kline, 2013). In addition, the effects of customer demographics and national culture on the sensation of delight have received research attention (Goswami and Sarma, 2014; Torres et al., 2014a, 2014b). Finally, the impact of customer delight on employee delight is yet one more example of a recent advance in this field of study (Barnes et al., 2015). Despite the emergence of

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customer delight over the past 20 years, there are several different definitions and conceptualizations of this phenomenon. Furthermore, there are no generally accepted measures of customer delight. To move forward the agenda for customer delight for the coming decades, it is the authors’ contention that the fields need a clearer conceptualization, resolution of outstanding debates and establishment of consistent measures to quantify its occurrence. The present conceptual work seeks to advance such an agenda by summarizing the literature, identifying the patterns and debates, uncovering the operational measures from existing qualitative research, creating a comprehensive survey for customer delight measurement and suggesting directions for future research. Given the scholarly work and hopeful to produce knowledge that would expand upon the present understanding and propose new ideas, the researchers submit the following objectives:

� to summarize the literature on customer delight; � to identify patterns, trends and debates in the scholarly work related to delight; � to ascertain operational measures for customer delight from prior research; � to propose a survey instrument to measure customer delight; and � to present an agenda for future research.

Conceptual development To study the topic of customer delight, expose outstanding debates and create an instrument to measure customer delight, the authors engaged in a comprehensive literature review. The primary databases used for the search were Business Source Premier (EBSCO), ABI/Inform (ProQuest) and Google Scholar. The emphasis of this search was on scholarly peer-reviewed articles published from the origination of the customer delight concept in academia (1997) until the writing of this article (2016). The works selected are those that define customer delight, uncover key drivers of customer delight through qualitative research and explore how delight works or how it relates to other constructs. Articles that simply use delight as an outcome variable or that use the word “delight” outside of a business or marketing context were discarded. For example, a search through Business Source Premier (EBSCO) of the term “customer delight” yields 196 articles. The authors eliminated the articles that were not peer-reviewed and did not use customer delight in a business, services, marketing or consumer behavior setting. Furthermore, articles that simply used delight as an outcome variable were discarded. In addition, articles that were duplicitous in nature were not included. After removing all articles that were not relevant to the definition and measurement of customer delight, the authors obtained the 50 articles cited in the reference list.

Customer delight definitions and conceptual work Customer delight has been theorized in different ways throughout the years. Most definitions stress one of the three components: affective, attitudinal or motivational. Oliver et al. (1997) were among the first researchers to study customer delight. These scholars devised and tested a model whereby customer delight was a function of positive affect. Furthermore, the authors stressed the importance of a positive surprise in generating emotional arousal, pleasure and, ultimately, a delight sequence. Keiningham et al. (1999) suggested that consumers have a zone of tolerance. When a service provider delivers service that exceeds the upper tolerance, the customer is delighted. In contrast, delivering below the lower thresholds of the zone can generate outrage. Delight has also been defined by

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Patterson (1997, p. 224) as “going beyond satisfaction to delivering what can be best described as a pleasurable experience for the client”.

Taking a different perspective, Schneider and Bowen (1999) suggested that delighting customers was related to satisfying their human needs. Accordingly, three needs played a key role in customer delight: security, justice and self-esteem. Among these, the most critical, for customer delight to occur, was that of self-esteem. On the other hand, Rust and Oliver (2000) posited that delighting customers might not always be the best alternative for businesses. Although customer delight can bring about incremental benefits, it can also lead a business to incur incremental costs. They concluded that customer delight might be favorable for an organization whenever:

[. . .] satisfaction has a strong influence on behavior, future profits receive significant weight, the satisfaction of competitor customers has a strong impact on retention and other behaviors, and the firm is able to capitalize on dissatisfied customers of competitors (Rust and Oliver, 2000, p. 91).

Seeking to explore the psychological aspects of the concept, Kumar et al. (2001, p. 22) examined the emotions associated with customer delight. They concluded that delighting guests entails the emotions of joy, thrill and exhilaration. Furthermore, they proposed that two paths were possible to achieve customer delight. The first conceptualization emerges from feelings of joy, along with a positive surprise. The secondmeans of achieving customer delight “is when they are captivated (or aroused) by an event that evokes feelings of joy in the consumer”. Recent research by Torres (2014) sought to clarify some of the definitions, conceptualizations and measurements of customer satisfaction, service quality and customer delight. Torres (2014) explained that delight is more affective in nature, whereas satisfaction is more attitudinal. In an effort to explore customer delight for different generations, Beauchamp and Barnes (2015) conducted a study using critical incident technique (CIT) and concluded that the most critical precursor of delight for females across generations is the affective component. Furthermore, the authors stated that three employee influences (i.e. employee affect, employee effort and employee skill) were the most critical factors in generating delight.

Taking into consideration the customer delight literature at the time, Torres and Kline (2006) created a model for delighting guests within the lodging context. The model included three dimensions that could have an impact on customer delight: customer, employees and organizational/environmental influences. According to Torres and Kline (2006), delight emerged when a customer’s expectations were exceeded and the customer’s need for esteem was fulfilled. In addition, the authors pointed out that satisfied, motivated, committed and competent (i.e. professional) employees were more likely to elicit customer delight. Finally, this research concluded that a company culture that fosters customer delight, as well as unexpected actions on the part of employees, was likely to generate delighted customers. Customer delight, in turn, would likely generate customer loyalty and above-average profitability.

The first attempt to summarize the literature on customer delight came from the study conducted by Alexander (2010). The author gathered some of the major works on delight, established various themes and identified research gaps. Accordingly, Alexander (2010) posited that further advancement in the field of customer delight requires an analysis of its opposite: outrage, anger or disgust. Furthermore, the researcher highlighted several unresolved issues within customer delight literature: the importance (or lack thereof) of the surprise element, the measurement of customer delight as a construct and the outcomes of customer delight. Despite the pioneering efforts of Alexander (2010), his research fell short

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of a comprehensive review, as it overlooked approximately half of the scholarly articles written on the subject.

Customer delight typologies and qualitative work Many researchers have taken on the task of identifying the key drivers and routes to attaining customer delight. An early example of such research was that of Kwong and Yau (2002), which conducted focus group research and concluded that customer delight was attained by fulfilling certain human needs, including justice, esteem and security (which were previously suggested by Schneider and Bowen [1999]), as well as the need for variety and trust (these two were unique to Kwong and Yau’s research). Verma (2003) analyzed the Indian service sector and confirmed the notion that satisfaction or total satisfaction was no longer sufficient to capture consumers’ loyalty, and that delight was the new dimension that marketers should aim for. Results from Verma’s (2003) study revealed that the factors accountable for customers’ outrage were concerned with core service failures (e.g. not performing or delivering the promised service; rude, disrespectful or offensive behavior; and indifferent or uncaring attitude). On the other hand, the factors responsible for customers’ delight were related to good interpersonal performance and qualities such as respect, friendliness and consideration, as well as employees’ involvement in problem-solving, personalization, respect and courtesy.

In 2005, Arnold et al. conducted research interviews with retail customers with the purpose of understanding delightful experiences. In accordance with the results of the study, the authors categorized delightful experiences into two areas: interpersonal and non- interpersonal. Interpersonal delightful experiences included interpersonal effort, problem resolution, time commitment, interpersonal engagement and interpersonal distance. In addition, the authors identified two categories of non-interpersonal shopping experiences leading to customer delight: unanticipated acquisition and unanticipated value. Arnold et al. (2005) suggested that the outcomes of such delightful retail experiences included improved perceptions of shopping convenience and positive word-of-mouth (WOM) regarding the retailer.

As customer delight gained increased popularity among scholars, Crotts et al. (2008) developed several questions to ascertain customer delight at a food and wine festival. Their research indicated that some of the key drivers of delight within that setting were the quality of food samples and the diversity of wines and food tastings. It is also noteworthy that, despite some guests making negative remarks about the crowds and lack of seating at the festival, many still reported being delighted. Later, Crotts and Magnini (2011) analyzed the posts from TripAdvisor with the purpose of discovering the elements that drove customer delight in a hotel setting. The authors stressed the importance of pleasant surprises in generating delight. This idea stands in contrast with the research of Kumar et al. (2001), which proposed that not all paths toward customer delight included surprise as a key factor. In addition, to illustrate the value of the surprise element, Crotts and Magnini (2011) revealed that guests who reported being very satisfied were 24 per cent more likely to recommend than satisfied guests, whereas guests who reported a delightful element were 16 per cent more likely to recommend than very satisfied guests. In an extension of their research, Magnini et al. (2011) performed content analysis on the same TripAdvisor posts to obtain key words, concepts, and phrases associated with customer delight. It was revealed that customer service and cleanliness were the two most important elements to attaining customer delight in a hotel setting. Furthermore, as an incidental finding to this study, the researchers discovered that the drivers of customer delight were different for guests of different nationalities.

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Using letters of positive customer feedback in hotels, Torres and Kline (2013) conceptualized a typology for customer delight. They concluded that customers can be delighted by the friendliness of service providers (charismatic delight), great professionalism (professional delight), elegantly solving a problem, especially when it was not the service provider’s doing (problem resolution delight), fulfilling the guest’s need for esteem (fulfillment delight) and receiving service superior to that of competitors (comparative delight). Although some universal factors exist concerning the elicitation of customer delight, Torres et al. (2014a suggested that customers of different cultural backgrounds will likely exhibit different preferences. Their research, which conducted over 200 interviews with guests of four different nationalities visiting a hotel, revealed that American guests tend to emphasize flexibility in service, fulfilling their esteem needs, professionalism and complimentary amenities and upgrades. In contrast, guests from northern Europe emphasized problem resolution and quality of the room. Guests from Latin America, while still embracing friendliness and professionalism as important aspects of delight, also highlighted the importance of the culinary experience, as well as the timeliness of service. Finally, Canadian guests emphasized cleanliness, friendliness and positive surprise with greater frequency as compared to the remaining cultural groups. In a similar vein, Torres et al. (2014b) examined the differences in the customer delight effect between men and women.

In examining the human resource factors that lead to better customer service, Barnes et al. (2013, p. 102) posited that each organization seeking to succeed in its line of business should “hire the right employees who can be trusted to act independently and ethically without direct management involvement”. Giving employees the ability and means to delight customers not only creates happy customers but also reinforces the employees’ sense of accomplishment and overall satisfaction with their performance. In a subsequent study, Barnes et al. (2015) demonstrated that delighted customers led to positive employee affect through the process of emotional contagion. Pallas et al. (2014, p. 110) demonstrated interest in the relative importance of hedonic versus utilitarian benefits and concluded that “the importance of customer satisfaction differs based on the degree of hedonic and utilitarian benefits embedded in the firm’s offerings”.

The role of delight and quantitative work As customer delight becomes better defined and its drivers better understood, researchers have begun quantitative research in this area. The main challenge with this stream of research is the lack of a consistent measure to identify customer delight. One of the earliest forms of empirical research comes from the study conducted by Finn (2005), who replicated Oliver et al.’s (1997) original study on customer delight. Accordingly, Finn (2005) posited that there was indeed enough support for an affective (as opposed to attitudinal) definition of customer delight. Chitturi et al. (2008) sought to uncover the relationship between customer satisfaction and delight. Their research demonstrated a relationship among utilitarian benefits, satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that customer delight and satisfaction are positively correlated. Nevertheless, they are significantly different in terms of their antecedents, emotions and the consequences for customer loyalty. The authors concluded that delight increases loyalty, as measured by WOMand intent to repatronage, above and beyond customer satisfaction.

Within the fine dining restaurant sector, Bowden and Dagger (2011) studied the impact of customer delight as compared to customer satisfaction. Their findings indicated that satisfaction was enough to generate customer loyalty. Consequently, delight, though helpful in improving the customer experience, did not result in repeat business at a rate higher than

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satisfaction. In contrast, Kim (2011) suggested that delight has a stronger effect on affective loyalty. In yet another study related to customer delight, Wang (2011) assessed the impact of supporting services (in addition to the core service) in generating customer delight. The author discovered that support services can, in fact, generate the emotion of delight among customers. Research by Bowden-Everson et al. (2013) took into consideration several variables in the high-end restaurant sector, that is, satisfaction, trust, calculative commitment, affective commitment, involvement and loyalty. Findings from their quantitative study revealed, once again, incremental benefits and positive outcomes associated with delight, when compared to satisfaction. This idea is aligned with the research by Finn (2011) and Oliver et al. (1997), thus suggesting that customer satisfaction is a lower service performance metric compared to customer delight. Therefore, once customer satisfaction is achieved and attained, time, monetary and service efforts should be focused on (and attention should be shifted to) increasing customer delight.

Expressing concern for the managerial implications of customer delight, Yang (2011) recognized the absence of a “pragmatic methodology” which could be used in the service setting. To solve this deficiency, he created a “customer-delight barometer”, which aided in the categorization of attributes contributing to customer satisfaction and delight. Results highlighted 28 important quality attributes and further demonstrated via questionnaires that these attributes can be categorized into the following areas: outstanding, in need of improvement, in need of urgent improvement, better, maintain, to be improved, extra surplus and carefree. According to the category under which these attributes fall, firms can focus on the most important delighting factors to make precise choices regarding quality development and pursue customer delight.

Swanson and Davis (2012) conducted research to comprehend the importance of delight in the performing arts setting and concluded that the interpersonal employee factors of empathy and assurance were of great consequence in the formation of customer delight. In turn, delight and its opposite emotion (outrage) were demonstrated to be significantly related to several post-consumption behaviors, including positive and negative WOM, intentions to repurchase and the intent to become a patron of the arts.

Evidence of delight being a superior variable (as compared to customer satisfaction) to produce higher positive outcomes and incremental benefits emerged from the study by Bartl et al. (2013). Their research, which took place in an information technology setting, revealed that delighting customers has a more powerful effect on purchase intentions as compared to customer satisfaction. In an effort to test the efficacy of a surprise strategy in inducing customer expectations, Kim and Mattila (2013) tested two separate service sectors: restaurants (with their hedonic consumption context) and auto service shops (with a utilitarian consumption context). The authors established that explanations given to customers help enhance customer delight, not only in the case of a surprise event, but all the time, as they are useful in controlling customers’ expectations.

Butori and De Bruyn (2013) examined the generally accepted idea that customers like to feel special. In light of this, the authors postulated that customers want to receive discretionary preferential treatments (DPT). Accordingly, they proposed four different dimensions, including justification, imposition, visibility and surprise. Furthermore, Butori and De Bruyn (2013) identified two main types of customers: distinction seekers and negotiators. Therefore, to delight customers, different DPTs should be provided to these distinct customer groups.

When exploring the phenomenon of customer loyalty, Fraering and Minor (2013, p. 339) proposed the existence of four loyalty phases: customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, cognition to action loyalty and beyond loyalty. Their ideas ultimately led them to create the

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Beyond Loyalty Model. The authors concluded that “a passionate, love-like relationship is possible between a consumer and his or her favorite brand, and it can be relied upon to ‘be there’ for the consumer”.

Seeking to assess the early work on customer delight conducted by Oliver et al. (1997), Ma et al. (2013, p. 373) developed an integrative framework to test the behavioral foundation of delight and to postulate the antecedents and effects of delight using the CAT. After conducting an empirical study with theme park guests, the authors concluded that:

[. . .] the results support the use of CAT as a basis for studies of emotion derived from tourism experiences and also indicate that there are a number of paths leading to delight.

The researchers also took a stance in the debate concerning the importance of surprise in the delight process. Their view was that surprise can be a path for delight. However, it is possible to delight customers without a surprise, especially when the experience is made personally relevant to them. Finally, the authors stressed the importance of goal-congruence, surprise andwell-being in generating customer delight.

For their part, Goswami and Sarma (2014) stressed the importance of customer delight. However, these authors cautioned that as guests are delighted, they might come to expect the same treatment for all subsequent stays. Thus, their expectations might continue to rise. Results from a survey of a sample of repeat guests in four- and five-star hotels in India revealed that differences exist between local guests and those who reside in foreign countries, as the latter exhibited the higher level of expectations. Furthermore, Goswami and Sarma (2014) suggested that younger hotel guests and those in lower-income brackets tend to have higher expectations.

In their research, Sivakumar et al. (2014) sought to explore the processes that lead to customer delight or service failure. More specifically, the researchers assessed the effects of frequency, timing, proximity and sequence of service failures and delightful events, as they had an impact on customers’ perceptions of service quality. Seeking to expand upon the understanding of customer delight and service recovery in the restaurant industry, Guchait et al. (2014) conducted experimental research that manipulated three types or levels of apology: frontline employee, manager and company, and subsequently tested for their influence on delight and self-esteem. Findings revealed that the optimal service recovery strategy existed when all three levels were combined.

Around the time this current paper was written, several works on customer delight were published. Kim et al. (2015) proposed an opposing viewpoint, stating that delight is not the solution to achieve the highest outcomes and the best results. Instead, they proposed that customer satisfaction has a more powerful effect on customers’ perceptions and actions. Nevertheless, Kim et al. (2015, p. 188) concluded that “delight has significant relationships with cognitive, affective, and conative loyalties”. In the hotel context, Lee and Shea (2015) investigated the key paths to delightful moments experienced by customers. Established on a foundation of equity theory, their research intended to discover what constitutes guests’ delightful experiences in the lodging context. The authors explored guests’ recollections of delightful moments using CIT. Lee and Shea (2015) concluded that loyalty was one of the most salient consequences of delightful experiences [This notion was also explored by Finn (2011) andWang (2011)].

In their investigation of supermarket shoppers, Barnes et al. (2016a) studied various paths toward customer delight. Their research revealed that both surprise and joy were significantly related to customer delight. However, to delight frequent shoppers, the authors proposed that eliciting joy was a more strategic goal than surprise for the retailer to pursue. It is noteworthy that customer delight was measured by the aforementioned authors by

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using the words delighted, elated and gleeful (Barnes et al., 2016a). Turning their attention to the restaurant context, Barnes et al. (2016b) examined the impact of unsolicited recommendations on customer delight. The authors discovered that unsolicited recommendations led to customer delight even when customer expectations about the food were high. As demonstrated in this section, empirical work on the area of customer delight has taken place and is ongoing. The authors of this research do not take a position concerning the adequacy or lack thereof of the quantitative measures used in the past. However, the researchers do contend that many of these were not grounded on qualitative research and lack a consistent methodology for measuring customer delight. Interest in customer delight began in the late 1990s and continues even today. Table I summarizes the key works on customer delight.

Outstanding debates Although many authors propose similar ideas concerning customer delight, debates still exist in this area. One important area of disagreement is the conceptualization of customer delight. Keiningham et al. (1999) suggested that delight was an attitude resulting from service that surpasses the upper threshold of a customer’s “zone of tolerance”. In contrast, Kumar et al. (2001) suggested that delight is an emotion composed of joy, thrill and exhilaration. In support of this notion, Finn (2011) found greater support for the affective (as opposed to attitudinal) conceptualization of delight. Proposing yet a third viewpoint, Schneider and Bowen (1999) explained that delight occurs when the needs of security, justice and self-esteem are fulfilled. Therefore, the question, as it relates to customer delight definitions and subsequent measurement, is “attitude, emotion or need?”

The second key debate concerns the importance of the surprise element. Crotts and Magnini (2011) suggested that surprise is necessary for delight to occur. However, Ma et al. (2013) posited that surprise is not always needed to stimulate customer delight. At present, debate continues among customer delight scholars concerning the role of surprise. A third customer delight debate has surfaced regarding the consequences of customer delight. Chitturi et al. (2008) suggested that delight and satisfaction are positively correlated. Nevertheless, both concepts were deemed different in terms of antecedent, emotions and consequences. Furthermore, Chitturi et al. (2008) posited that a delightful experience generates positive WOM and intentions to repatronage. In a similar vein, Crotts and Magnini (2011) argued that delight leads to customer loyalty. Kim (2011) explained that delight has a greater influence on loyalty, as compared to satisfaction. In contrast, Bowden and Dagger (2011) stated that satisfaction is enough to generate loyalty, thus delight, though helpful, is not strictly needed to generate loyal customers. Wang (2011) proposed that customer delight leads to customer loyalty. The same viewpoint was shared by Fraering and Minor (2013). In the theater context, Swanson and Davis (2012) discovered that customer delight leads to positiveWOM, repurchase and donation intentions.

Despite many of these positive findings, Goswami and Sarma (2014) suggested that customer delight leads to greater expectations, which in time can erode the effects of the previously delightful experience. Debate continues on the impact of customer delight on various business outcomes. Furthermore, the differential impact of delight against customer satisfaction needs further examination.

Measuring customer delight Operational measures for customer delight After examining the existing research on customer delight, the authors of this study developed a series of operational measures. These measures encompass a range of different

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Author Paper type Contribution

Oliver et al. (1997)

Quantitative, services marketing

Established and tested a model of customer delight. Delight was a strong function of positive affect. Authors posited that surprise leads to arousal, which leads to pleasure, which leads to a delight sequence

Keiningham et al. (1999)

Conceptual, general marketing

Customers have a zone of tolerance. Delivering beyond the upper threshold produces customer delight

Schneider and Bowen (1999)

Conceptual, general marketing

Delight is attained when the needs of security, justice and self- esteem are fulfilled

Rust and Oliver (2000)

Conceptual, general marketing

Proposed mathematical model for customer delight. Acknowledged incremental benefits and incremental costs associated with delight

Kumar et al. (2001)

Quantitative, general marketing

Delight is composed of joy, thrill and exhilaration

Keiningham and Vavra (2001)

Book/conceptual, general marketing

Wrote the book The Customer Delight Principle, which defines and develops the concept of delight from both an academic and practitioner viewpoint

Kwong and Yau (2002)

Qualitative, general marketing

Customer delight is attained by fulfilling five human needs: justice, esteem, security, trust and variety

Verma (2003) Qualitative, general marketing

Identified motivator and hygiene factors responsible for customers’ outrage and delight. The ten different dimensions used were tangibles, responsiveness, reliability, competence, credibility, courtesy, security, communication, access and understanding the customer

Arnold et al. (2005)

Qualitative, services marketing

Proposed that delight in retail setting has several dimensions, including interpersonal effort, interpersonal engagement, problem resolution, interpersonal distance, commitment, unanticipated value and unanticipated acquisition

Finn (2005) Services marketing Delight emerges from a positive surprise Torres and Kline (2006)

Conceptual, hospitality marketing

Created model for customer delight in the hotel industry

Evans and Burns (2007)

Quantitative, engineering

Analyzed corporate websites’ ability to satisfy or delight online customers and established, through two empirical studies, that delight has a stronger impact on purchase intentions than satisfaction

Ekini et al. (2008)

Quantitative, general and hospitality marketing

Customer delight is highly personalized based on individual needs and personality

Crotts et al. (2008)

Qualitative, hospitality marketing

Examined key drivers of customer delight at a food and wine festival. Variety of food and wine, as well as quality of the food samples, drove impressions of delight in this setting

Chitturi et al. (2008)

General marketing The authors demonstrated a correspondence among utilitarian benefits, satisfaction and loyalty. Though delight and satisfaction are positively correlated, they are significantly different in terms of their antecedents, emotions and the consequences for customer loyalty. Delighting customers improves customer loyalty, as measured by word-of-mouth and repurchase intentions, more than merely satisfying them

Crotts and Magnini (2011)

Qualitative, hospitality marketing

Analyzed posts from TripAdvisor. Guests that reported being very satisfied were 24%more likely to recommend; guests that reported a delightful element were 16%more likely to recommend than very satisfied. Guests that reported being delighted and surprised were nearly perfectly correlated with loyalty

(continued )

Table I. Summary of customer delight literature (in chronological order)

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Author Paper type Contribution

Finn (2011) Quantitative, services marketing

Replicated Oliver’s study. Supported an affective (as opposed to attitudinal) definition of customer delight

Magnini et al. (2011)

Qualitative, hospitality marketing

Analyzed TripAdvisor posts and determined key drivers of delight in hotels, including customer service and cleanliness

Bowden and Dagger (2011)

Quantitative, hospitality marketing

In the context of fine dining restaurants, customer delight will not add more loyal customers, as compared to customer satisfaction

Kim (2011) Quantitative, hospitality marketing

Customer delight has a stronger impact on affective loyalty, as opposed to customer satisfaction

Wang (2011) Quantitative, services marketing

Quality of supporting services (related to a core service) drives customer delight, and this results in repurchase intentions

Yang (2011) Quantitative, general marketing

Recognized the lack of a “pragmatic methodology” and created a “customer-delight barometer”with 28 important quality attributes that firms can utilize to improve their service quality and aim at delighting their customers

Alexander (2010)

Qualitative, general marketing

Examined the literature on delight and disgust by reviewing and evaluating research and opinion on or related to delight. Theoretical underpinnings, the methodology and the conclusions of different literature were analyzed. Final comments on present situation and future suggestions were offered

Swanson and Davis (2012)

Quantitative, performing arts marketing

Employees play a key role in managing the co-consumption process. The interpersonal employee factors of empathy and assurance can greatly contribute to the creation of delight. Customer delight and outrage are significantly related to a variety of important post-consumption behaviors, such as positive and negative word-of-mouth, as well as repurchase and donation intentions

Barnes et al. (2013)

Qualitative, general marketing

Frontline employees seem to perceive, define and evaluate customer delight differently from customers, as well as from academic researchers’ definitions. Also, when customers’ expectations are exceeded, employees experience positive emotional reactions

Bartl et al. (2013)

Quantitative, services marketing

Through two empirical studies, the authors analyzed corporate websites and online customer delight, concluding that delight has a stronger impact on purchase intentions, compared to satisfaction

Bowden- Everson et al. (2013)

Quantitative, hospitality marketing

A structural equation modeling approach and a sample of almost 500 consumers in the high-end restaurant sector revealed that satisfaction, trust, calculative commitment, affective commitment and involvement have some effect on customer loyalty, repeat purchase, and positive word-of-mouth. However, the three main variables which are worth customers’ attention, time and money are satisfaction, trust and delight, even though satisfaction alone is not enough to create sustained and enduring loyalty

Butori and De Bruyn (2013)

Quantitative, general marketing

To delight customers, different discretionary preferential treatments should be provided to them, depending on their individual differences, preferences, nature, personality and demographic standards. They identified two main categories: distinction seekers and negotiators

(continued ) Table I.

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Author Paper type Contribution

Fraering and Minor (2013)

Quantitative, services marketing

The “Beyond Loyalty Model” showed that satisfaction and loyalty comprise one construct that includes satisfaction, cognitive, affective and conative loyalty, and that fortitude is positively related to the satisfaction-loyalty construct. A passionate, love- like relationship is possible between a consumer and his or her favorite brand, and it can be relied upon to “be there” for the consumer

Kim and Mattila (2013)

Quantitative, services marketing

Established that explanations given to customers help to enhance customer delight. A difference exists between the hedonic and utilitarian consumption contexts, as in the former, enhanced delight is more solid, whereas in the latter, (utilitarian context) is less important

Ma et al. (2013) Hospitality marketing

Stressed the importance of goal-congruence, surprise and well- being in generating customer delight. Applied customer delight to theme park industry

Torres and Kline (2013)

Qualitative, hospitality marketing

Established a typology for customer delight. Different firms can attain delight in various ways, including exceptional friendliness, professionalism, problem resolution and satisfaction of esteem needs

Torres et al. (2014a)

Qualitative, hospitality marketing

Examined the drivers of customer delight for guests of four different cultural backgrounds

Torres et al. (2014b)

Qualitative, hospitality marketing

Examined the differences in customer delight between men and women

Goswami and Sarma (2014)

Quantitative, general marketing

Found a linear relationship between guests who do not expect regular value addition and pleasant surprises versus guests who expect regular value addition and pleasant surprises as well. If guests are always delighted, they tend to expect delight all the time

Sivakumar et al. (2014)

Qualitative, general marketing

This article contributes to the literature by examining how the patterns of distribution (i.e. frequency, timing, proximity and sequence) of service failures and delights affect customers’ perceptions of service quality. Insight into the role of time in the customer evaluation of multiple occurrences of failures and delights is provided, and situations in which failures and delights occur in the same service process are examined

Pallas et al. (2014)

Qualitative, services marketing

With the goal of providing directions to firms for increasing their ROI, the authors analyzed two distinct types of benefits from products and services: utilitarian and hedonic. Findings, similar to those of Kim and Mattila (2013), revealed that firms proposing hedonic products or services can aim at delighting guests and can expect ROI for this action, whereas firms offering utilitarian categories would not benefit from investing in higher levels of customer delight, as delighting customers will only have a small effect

(continued ) Table I.

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ways in which researchers have conceptualized customer delight from 1997 until today. The authors’ purpose was to be as comprehensive as possible in identifying the measures. Consequently, no major areas or definitions of customer delight were omitted. In future studies, researchers can engage in further scale validation via quantitative research. The measures and their origins are summarized in Table II.

An instrument to measure customer delight Following the operational measures developed in Table II, the authors developed a questionnaire to measure customer delight (Table III). The questionnaire is broken down into two sections: the direct measures of customer delight (Section I) and the antecedents of customer delight (Section II). The first question asks about the various emotions experienced during a service encounter. The selection of specific emotions to describe delight follows the work of Kumar et al. (2001), which identified three emotions leading to customer delight, Finn (2005), who found greater evidence for an affective (as opposed to attitudinal) definition of delight and Barnes et al. (2016a), who used three emotion descriptors to measure customer delight.

The second question enquires into the needs fulfilled by the customer delight construct. The concept of satisfying higher-level needs originated from the study by Schneider and Bowen (1999), was supported by Kwong and Yau (2002) and emerged as a prominent theme in Torres and Kline’s (2013) content analysis of customer feedback letters. The third

Author Paper type Contribution

Lee and Shea (2015)

Quantitative, hospitality marketing

Based on equity theory, this study used critical incident technique to explore and group the factors that influence guests’ delightful experiences. Two sets of factors (i.e. tangibles or property related and intangibles or service related) emerged. Researchers identified loyalty as being one of the most obvious outcomes of delight. Another outcome related to customer delight was the potential increase of service worker’s performance and job satisfaction

Kim et al. (2015)

Quantitative, hospitality marketing

By providing an empirical testing of relationships for the temporal sequence of a multiphase loyalty framework, this study showed that customer satisfaction is more strongly related to loyalty than delight. The study proposes a new approach to the loyalty formation process: the two loyalty dimensions, cognitive and affective loyalty, are not sequentially related, but cognitive and affective loyalty influence each other, and both are directly related to conative loyalty

Barnes et al. (2015)

Quantitative, services marketing

Customer delights lead to positive affect among employees through the process of emotional contagion

Beauchamp and Barnes (2015)

Qualitative, services marketing

There is no universal relationship between age and customer delight. Differences exist between female baby boomers and millennials, but not for males. The most important factor in creating customer delight for both female baby boomers and female millennials is the emotion-based component of employee affect

Barnes et al. (2016a)

Quantitative, services marketing

Both joy and surprise lead to customer delight. However, joy is a better path to attain delight among frequent customers

Barnes et al. (2016b)

Quantitative, hospitality marketing

Unsolicited food recommendations by restaurant service staff led to customer delight, despite high expectations Table I.

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question is a general statement asking customers to rate their experience on a continuum from outraged to delighted. In this regard, Schneider and Bowen (1999) stressed the importance of identifying the extremes of delight and outrage, as opposed to simply measuring the satisfaction.

In conceptual development section, various service features and experience drivers of delight were identified by different authors, such as the stimulation of pleasure (Oliver et al., 1997), customer empowerment (Butori and De Bruyn, 2013), staff flexibility (Torres et al., 2014a, 2014b) and perceptions on return on time invested or alternatively the customer’s perception that the service was worth their time and effort (Arnold et al., 2005). Although still debated, the authors added a question for positive surprise (which is supported by Crotts and Magnini [2011]) and another question for complimentary items and upgrades (emerging from the research conducted by Torres et al., 2014a, 2014b). The last question addresses important drivers of customer delight, including friendliness, professionalism, superior service (Torres and Kline, 2013) and employee affect (Beauchamp and Barnes, 2015).

Given the lack of consistency in measuring customer delight, the present survey can arguably advance research on the field, as it takes into account the various qualitative works (i.e. content analysis of archival data, focus group and interviews) that have been

Table II. Operational measures for customer delight

Measure Supporting research

Direct measures of delight Emotions: joy, thrill, exhilaration, elation, gleefulness and delight

Kumar et al. (2001) for the three emotions; Finn (2011) for empirical support of the affective (as opposed to attitudinal) definition of delight; Barnes et al. (2016a) for the use of elation, gleefulness and delight in a survey instrument to measure delight

Needs: justice, security and self-esteem

Schneider and Bowen (1999) established the three motivations, and Kwong and Yau (2002) and Torres and Kline (2013) found support for the self-esteem motivation

Positive emotional arousal and pleasure

Oliver et al. (1997)

Antecedents of delight Interpersonal effort Arnold et al. (2005) and Beauchamp and Barnes (2015) Problem resolution Arnold et al. (2005), Torres and Kline (2013) and Guchait et al. (2014) Positive surprise Crotts and Magnini (2011) and Bartl et al. (2013) Interpersonal engagement Arnold et al. (2005) Time commitment Arnold et al. (2005) Superior customer service Magnini et al. (2010; 2011) and Torres and Kline (2013) Discretionary preferential treatment

Butori and De Bruyn (2013)

Friendliness/charisma Torres and Kline (2013) Professionalism Torres and Kline (2013) and Beauchamp and Barnes (2015) Empowerment Butori and De Bruyn (2013) Flexibility Torres et al. (2014a, b) Complimentary amenities and upgrades

Torres et al. (2014a, b)

Employee affect Beauchamp and Barnes (2015)

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generated in various service settings. Prior studies have measured customer delight by using one to three measures without much justification for their creation in the first place. Furthermore, to the authors’ knowledge, there is no agreed-upon instrument that has been based on research and been properly validated. In this regard, the authors seek to contribute to the field by proposing (based on existing research) operational measures, and questions to ascertain the occurrence of customer delight. Future quantitative research can validate the instrument and test its usage in various services industries.

Table III. Survey measures to

study customer delight

Question Scale Origin/Justification

Section I – Direct measures of customer delight Did you experience the following emotions during your service experience? Joy Thrill Exhilaration Elation Gleefulness Delight

Strongly disagree-strongly agree 1-7

Kumar et al. (2001) for the three emotions and Finn (2005) for empirical support of the affective (as opposed to attitudinal) definition of delight. Barnes et al. (2016a) for the use of elation, gleefulness and delight in a survey instrument to measure delight

To what extent do you agree with the following statements concerning your visit? I felt special I felt welcome I felt like a unique customer I felt acknowledged

Strongly disagree-strongly agree 1-7

Schneider and Bowen (1999), Kwong and Yau (2002) and Torres and Kline (2013)

During my service experience I felt: Delighted, satisfied, dissatisfied, outraged

Schneider and Bowen (1999) stressed the importance of measuring the extremes of delight and outrage

Section II – Antecedents of customer delight To what extent do you agree with the following statements? I had a pleasurable experience I felt empowered as a customer The staff was flexible The service was worth my time

Strongly disagree-strongly agree 1-7

Oliver et al. (1997) for pleasurable experience, Butori and De Bruyn (2013) for empowerment, Torres et al. (2014a, b) for flexibility and Arnold et al. (2005) for time commitment

To what extent do you agree with the following statements? I received a positive surprise I received a complimentary item, amenity or upgrade Strongly disagree-strongly agree

1-7 Crotts and Magnini (2011) and Bartl et al. (2013) for positive surprise; Torres et al. (2014a, b) for complimentary items

To what extent do you agree with the following statements? The staff was friendly The staff displayed positive emotions The staff was professional I received superior service compared to their competitors

Strongly disagree-strongly agree 1-7

Torres and Kline (2013) for friendliness, professionalism and superior service, Beauchamp and Barnes (2015) for employee affect

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Directions for future research The present research summarized the literature, exposed outstanding debates, identified popular operational measures of delight and created an instrument to measure delight. In addition, this study contributes to the scholarly inquiry of customer delight by providing directions for future studies. First, the authors propose that future inquiry can test and validate the research instrument proposed. The instrument provided by the authors is a generic instrument meant for use throughout the various services industries. However, more specific questionnaires could be developed to measure customer delight in settings as diverse as hotels, banks, hospitals, restaurants, cruise ships and retail stores. More research could further illuminate specific customer delight drivers in each of the aforementioned industries. Moreover, one of the outstanding debates on customer delight is the role of surprise in the delight process. Future research could settle this debate by exploring the importance (or lack thereof) of the surprise element.

Customer delight has been studied mainly in the context of service provider-to-customer (C2C) interactions. However, the impact of C2C interactions (C2C) on customer delight can be further explored. As can be seen throughout the course of this paper, several researchers have explored customer delight. However, many of them have investigated this topic within the context of upscale or luxury services. Future research can differentiate what a delightful experience is for a budget or economy service against one considered upscale or luxury. As an emerging topic, employee delight holds much promise, as employee satisfaction surveys abound, and the association between job satisfaction and employee loyalty has faced significant scrutiny.

The consequences of customer delight also warrant further study. Its relationship to loyalty, repurchase intention and positive WOM should be further tested. In addition, future research can examine the relationship of satisfaction surveys to loyalty and other customer outcomes, as compared to the relationship of high scores on the research instrument presented for delight against loyalty and other customer outcomes. Significant differences can then be established between satisfaction and delight measures.

Another important subject for future research is the relationship of delight to goals and expectations. That is, is it easier or harder to delight one customer or another? What role do previous experiences, media and other elements have on expectations, and what impact (or lack thereof) can these have on the potential to delight customers?

Nearly 20 years after the first customer delight studies emerged, the topic is still in constant development. Prior studies have contributed significantly to the establishment of definitions, antecedents and consequences of customer delight. However, compared to other fields, customer delight is still a relatively new phenomenon. Therefore, the authors of this study look optimistically to the future of customer delight research and look forward to contributions that expand, challenge, prove, disprove, modify and, ultimately, bring forth a greater and deeper understanding of customers and the processes that lead to and flow from their delight.

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Further reading Keiningham, T.L. and Vavra, T.G. (2001), The Customer Delight Principle: Exceeding Customers’

Expectations for Bottom-Line Success, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

Corresponding author Edwin N. Torres can be contacted at: [email protected]

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: [email protected]

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