You must have observed or experienced the feeling of "delight" when brand new parents watch their child take the first unsure steps in its infancy!! In one of you excursions to a scenic place where one goes to get away from the hum drum of everyday life, one also experiences "delight" while watching an ice capped peak of The Himalayas, or a river flowing deep down a gorge or even the sun rising from nowhere. There is a different kind of "delight" experienced when we meet a dear one after a long time. Is there any need to explain the "delight" that a virtuoso performance either on the sports field or in a theatre, evokes?? A dictionary would define the word as " a state of the mind and body when happiness seems to engulf, resulting in peace of mind and an acute sense of pleasure."

Let us first understand the difference between keeping a customer just "happy" and having him "delighted". Happiness in a customer about your product and services is a more passive feeling than delight. The difference is akin to getting good marks versus appearing in the "merit list". While a happy customer will give good references, if asked, a delighted one will canvass your product. While a happy customer gets everything that he bargained for including all that is written in fine print, a delighted one gets something extra which was neither written nor promised.

Meet and talk to customers often:

A marketer is shirking his responsibilities, if he does not establish a "continuous dialogue" with his customer, well after the sale is done and the money recovered. A good yardstick for measuring whether you are maintaining this conversation with your customers is to find out if they recall your friendly telephone call or visit within the last thirty days. If not, you need to strengthen your "customer care guidelines". This kind of a contact programme not only warns you well in advance, of any causes of the customers' unhappiness, but also gives you vital market feedback about what the competition is doing.

Make "preventive service" calls.

Like preventive maintenance prevents a future breakdown of a machine on the shop floor, a preventive customer service call helps improve the up time of any equipment with the customer. Remember, a customer will just be happy if a complaint registered by him is promptly attended to; he will be delighted to find your service engineer attending on his equipment without his having registered any complaint. Put yourself into your customers' shoes and imagine being treated so well!!

Welcome your customers' complaints:

This is easier said than done. It takes a lot of patience and maturity to listen to your customer telling you why your equipment is not working. Most manufacturers firmly believe that nothing can really go wrong with their equipment and hence are uncomfortable (bordering or irritation), when they listen to the litany of complaints that a customer reports. They start with the premise that it must be user-related problem and start cross-examining the customer in a bid to prove that somehow it must be his wrong usage that has resulted in the malfunctioning. The golden rule in these matters is to first LISTEN. As my professor used to always say, just rearrange the alphabets and you get SILENT; and you know how essential it is to remain silent in order to listen?? Can you ever "delight" a customer if you are not even able to listen to him properly?? Let me also tell you that only few customers get around to complaining, the rest just switch over to the competition.

Keep offering the customer newer benefit schemes. Never tire of calling him your most valued customer.

Those of you who receive those lavishly colored envelopes from READER'S DIGEST, should know the pleasure of being referred to as the (1) one amongst thousands; or (2) our computer has specially chosen you..; or (3) our most premium customer .. & so on. Send your best schemes to the existing customers- there cannot be a more loyal bunch of people out there. Praise them without fear of exaggeration.

Ask for your customer's advice.

A wag once said that "those who need advice rarely think need it and those who give advice rarely wait to be asked". It is however proven beyond doubt that when you ask your customer some advice about how to sell your products better, not only will he give you some excellent tips but you would also be increasing his self esteem, in the process. It really hits two birds with one stone. You get valuable customer feedback almost free and the customer wants to be associated with a seller who looks up to him. Increasing someone's self esteem is anyway a sure way of delighting him; and a customer is no exception.

Track down a rumour or a bad report to its source.

Like others, your customer may also have heard of a bad report (concocted or otherwise) about your product or services. Never ignore such a report; spend some time in finding the source of these bad tidings. In all possibility, it might be your competitor who have great potential to damage you reputation and anything not contested is likely to be believed (even if sub consciously) by the listener.

Never keep a customer waiting; don't ever shout at him even if it is his fault.

You can keep your dear wife waiting (the consequences are harsh but bearable) but never a customer. In service prone products, many-a-times, inspite of being at fault himself, (say he is not using the equipment as it is supposed to be), the customer may complain angrily, to brow beat you into believing that it is your equipment which is not working. Don’t shout back because it becomes an "I versus you" kind of battle and you are destined to lose. Accept the complaint, and inform the customer what is being done to remove it.

Don’t throw technical jargon at your customer.

One thing that customers are wary about is the habit of sellers to throw about the jargon which they do not understand. Since the customer does not want to admit (either in front of his juniors or his family members) his inability to understand and is too proud to ask, he usually takes the safest option viz. rejecting your proposal outright. Leave alone delighting, you are in the danger of losing him. Talk therefore to be fully understood.

Never lie to the customer!

No matter how difficult it is to tell him the truth, never lie to your customer. Your lies have an uncanny habit of bouncing back on you. It does not matter if he thinks ill of you right now but he will respect you in the long run for the correct things that you told him. So if the promised delivery is not coming through, tell him!

Be sure to remove any post-purchase dissonance that the customer may be facing.

To- day, when sometimes obsolescence looms large immediately after purchase (computers) or there are so many products offering similar features (television, refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens), the customer often suffers the pangs of what is called "post-purchase" dissonance. How will you ever delight a customer who is already thinking that he probably made a wrong purchase decision?? It is good policy to therefore appoint special "hand-holders" within marketing departments who will continue assuring the customers that they have got the best possible deal. Once the initial period of uncertainty is over, no more hand holding will be required; but not attempting to do this could be damaging.

So dear friends, these are the ten - commandments to delight your customer. Ignore these parameters at your own peril because in a "buyers' market", only delighted customers will keep them just happy. Hail the customer! His day has finally arrived!!

"Mr. Prakash Shesh, the author, has done his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad after his Masters in Physics from I.I.T. New Delhi. You may send your feedback to him by choosing an option at the top right corner of this page."