The Key To Delighting Customers: #WhatIsWom

There’s a lot of talk about ‘customer delight’ but very few deliver on it.

It’s painted as a soft, intangible concept. But 1000heads showed me something very concrete this year that captures exactly what it means.

I had asked James Whatley about getting one of their ‘#WhatIsWom’ posters. Months later, it arrived. Not just the poster – a beautiful handwritten note alongside it.

Two lessons from this:

1. They delivered on the promise in the first place. I’m writing this post right now because James made good on something he said he’d do. You can’t underestimate the power of simply doing what you say you will.

2. They disrupted my expectations. I didn’t just get the poster as I was expecting. The handwritten note was a surprise. Now that note sits next to my poster as a reminder to go the extra mile.

The framework for this is what I call the expectation pyramid: from Customer Sacrifice (delivery falls short), through Customer Satisfaction (delivery meets expectation), to Customer Surprise (delivery exceeds expectation), and ultimately Customer Suspense (the customer can’t wait to see what comes next).

Do what you say you’ll do. Then go the extra mile. And to do those two consistently, you have to actually care about people.