Delight Customers or Satisfy-Them
When you meet a customer’s expectations, you satisfy them. That’s a good thing. But because it’s what the customer expected, it’s not likely to cause them to become brand advocates or loyal return customers. Customers don’t expect a lot from brands. Only 14% of consumers expect to be wowed by a company.
Date
April 5, 2017
Reading Time
1 Minutes
Category
E-Commerce
You Might Not Want to Delight Your Customers
Not all customers want to be delighted!
This thought hit me while I was putting together a new (and undoubtedly awesome) email course on how to optimize your Magneto site.
Picture your favorite places to get gas, buy prescriptions and lug groceries…the BEST stores of their kind you can remember. As you think of when you transact at these locations, I’d be willing to bet you’re not feeling delighted. Calling them your “favorites” might even seem like a stretch.
If you’re like most people, you go to these common stores not because you’re delighted with them but for another reason entirely: CONVENIENCE.
Convenience is one out of many alternative motivations to delight that drive purchasing. Purchasing motivations seem to correlate by industry:
What do all these have in common? In each case, when the motivator is delivered well, the purchaser experiences satisfaction.
Here are a few things I think are true about purchasing satisfaction:
1. Satisfaction looks wildly different to different audiences. It takes some genius to satisfy many types of people at the same time. This is one reason many businesses that do well in a single niche market fail to make an impression when expanding.
2. Satisfaction can grow or wane over time. In some cases, the value delivery just has to maintain a consistent level (think McDonalds). In other types of scenarios, the value delivery must continually increase (think movies). What would we think of a director with “consistent” movies?
3. Satisfaction doesn’t necessarily result from the first purchase (especially if this isn’t a “delightey” business we’re talking about). But satisfaction has to grow over time in order for the purchaser to feel positive and refer others.
What do you think? Does satisfaction really drive purchasing? What can you do to deliver consistently increasing value to your customers?
Author
Michael Bower
Gamma Waves
We leverage our expertise in Shopify Plus to craft high-performing stores and unlock growth potential for businesses of all sizes. Here, we share actionable insights and industry trends to empower and inspire you as you navigate the e-commerce landscape.
Share article
