Note: only came across your site today and have spent the last hour nodding my head in agreement…
I proofread and edit professionally and squirm at what CEOs and the like believe to be ‘correct’, ‘catchy’, or ‘witty’ word/phrases.

Looking forward to reading more of your posts.

I’ll be sure to use my proper title next time I book at the Four Seasons then. Not quite as impressive as “Professor”, but using “Dr Lynch” has been known to get me an upgrade on a plane before.

Check out this story on the Harvard Business Blog about what looks to me to be a spectacular “Customer Delight” fail.

Chap in question is actually a Prof – does a fair amount of travelling on business though, so I imagine his business is worth alot to the company in question

Either way, Four Seasons have clearly got their customer service training and processes bang on. My main bugbear is when “Customer Delight” is forced on employees who possibly have already been doing a perfectly great job and aren’t told what this extra “Delight” factor means in practice.

My friend of a friend’s response to the idea rather suggests he and his colleagues weren’t convinced by it at all.

An example for you…

A colleague of mine always stays at Four Seasons hotels where ever he goes. He has done for 15 years. On his first ever stay the concierge happened to ask him if everything was ok with his room. He said it was, but, just to nit-pick, he said that the minibar had 3 different beers in it; a Bud, a Becks and a Stella. He told the concierge that he preferred Stella, so could he just get 3 of those?

Everytime he has ever stayed at a Four Seasons hotel since, anywhere in the world, the first thing he does when he gets in the room is to check the minibar. And so far, everytime for the last 15 years, he has had 3 Stella’s in the fridge.

And that delights him.

I realise this reads like an advert for Four Seasons, I’m sure other hotels are available!

And Stephen, what can I say? Except that you’re right – these dirty old men need to learn that the customer should always come first.

Why don’t we skip to the end admit what the logical conclusion of this approach would be…call it a climax if you will of all these customer euphimisms. Customer “service”, “delight” and “ecstacy” it’s all leading one way.

“Customer orgasm” is where this ends.

Rather (linguistically) messily, one presumes.

And for call centres that do this well, i suppose that they can charge £3.99 a minute at peak rate for such great customer servicing.

Further proof that marketers are dirty old men. And the fact that they don’t seem to be able to generate a “customer orgasm” let alone “customer delight” in the customer very often yet seem exceedingly pleased with themselves all the time is just further damning proof.