1. Seven key insights were shared from experts on creating great customer experiences. Delight requires going beyond products to earn customer loyalty through the customer experience. 2. Delight is a pragmatic everyday activity built on learning from failures and mistakes to improve. It is focused on fixing problems to show care for customers. 3. To create delightful experiences, companies must clarify the value and benefits they provide to customers in order to align their identity and differentiate themselves.

1. Seven Truths for Designing
Great Customer Experiences
HOW CO M PA NIE S B ECO M E LOVE D
by Dave Wieneke | October 29th, 2012
Call it Delight, Caring, Innovation or Service, some companies Once product development became rapid and distribution
set themselves apart by earning the durable preference of their was global, power shifted to customers. Being armed with the
customers. Over the last month we’ve brought experts together ability to gather information independently (and use digital
to share their insights and inspiration on creating connections media to spread their views) allows them to dictate the terms of
with customers in for a series of experience-centric events. engagement with brands. In a fluid marketplace, the favor is what
separates winners and losers.
Delight 2012 took place in Portland, Oregon followed by our
Design for Delight Future M session in Boston. Together the 2. Delight isn’t an ideal – it’s a pragmatic
events gathered 300+ attendees to hear from 20 speakers from
everyday activity, and built on failure.
brands like Gemvara, Life is Good, Zipcar, Warby Parker, Boloco
and Mt. Hood Meadows.
For companies that delight, error isn’t the enemy, irrelevance is.
John Pepper, CEO of Boloco, summed it up: “When you provide
Here are some of the themes that emerged as hundreds of
the variety of products we do to 80,000 guests a day, mistakes
participants gathered with our teams in Portland and Boston.
will happen. So, we’ve decided to become great at recovering
Whether you joined in-person or not, we’d like to invite you to
from mistakes, and turning them in to wins”.
join this conversation now, and to add your own thoughts.
Brian Kalma of Gemvara wrapped a success metric around the
1. Delight isn’t a tagline – it’s the bottom line same idea. “If we help someone fix a problem, they’re four times
more likely to repurchase from us than if we had just delivered
Why is gaining and maintaining customer loyalty and preference what they wanted with no further follow-up.”
a big deal? It’s the last persistent advantage in an otherwise
quick-to-commoditize world. Perfection is built on fixing things in a way that shows care. It’s a
moment of truth that can elevate brands.
That’s how Ron Rogowski of Forrester Research described
the shift of companies from differentiating on their products At the end of the day, a customer complaint shows that
(when products and features were scarce), to distribution (when someone cares about what a business has promised. They’re
transportation and media access were constrained). engaged, and there’s an opportunity to win. Jill Nelson from
Ruby Receptionists addressed the threat in the alternative: those

2. unimpressed and unengaged. “Fine is a four letter word” – it’s just In Portland I shared the story of Dove’s “Ad Makeover” on
too low a standard. Facebook. They allowed women to spend Dove’s advertising
budget to block out other firm’s ads that denigrate women’s
Dave Tragethon from Mt. Hood Meadows and Leslie Mottla self-image. Their clients wrote the ads, targets offensive ads
from Zipcar both stressed the marketing need to set customer to replace, and Dove did this on Facebook for other women,
expectations to frame success. If there’s little snow, if the parking reporting back to each fan what the result of her suggestion was.
lots will be packed, if using a shared car means taking care of it
for others, etc. – setting expectations up front lets people know Increasingly content is eclipsed by experiences. A great tool,
what they’ve signed-up for. We often lack certainty in business, perhaps a mobile application, often can make more impact in
but that shouldn’t impede forthrightness. someone’s life than written “content”. And when writing must be
done, having it done by customers can often result in points of
3. Get clear about the value of your brand to view that are more credible and useful that what brands would
write themselves.
customers.
In one of the FutureM sessions before our meeting in Boston,
Stacy Howe from New Balance suggested that before you 6. Technology is nothing without humanity.
can do great marketing, you need to decide who you’ll be to
customers. Perhaps the biggest object lesson of these discussions is that
sincerity breeds delight. Sure, technology, content, and design
The simple formula, “Differentiation + Design = Delight” sets may be how that sincerity gets manifested. But the experiences
out a journey of aligning identity, creating experiences that that companies create for clients convey more that any words
express a brands minimum viable personality, and it creates the we can craft.
opportunity to operationally deliver delight.
Dave Tragethon drove this home with his mantra “technology is
In Delight 2012, we dug in to about a dozen brief framing nothing without humanity”, but so did our Portland host Steve
statements, that well-known firms use to explain what benefit Gadlin. His appearance on Shark Tank pitching “I Want to Draw
or value they share with their clients. These become a point of a Cat for You” is another case where, like in the Wizard of Oz,
connection that explains why firms belong in their customers’ the man behind the curtain is more real and powerful than the
lives. construction in front of it.
We started to break these down in to five general styles: It’s comparatively easy to buy technology, but improvement from
Happiness, Connection, Discovery, Pride, and Social Good. Each it is rare unless culture changes along with it. And when culture
of which starts to rough out the terrain of delight. and technology are both in motion, it opens the door to new
business models and the disproportionate gains they bring.
4. Rethink the role of customers for your
company 7. The age of miracles is not past.
Earning the loyalty of customers is as old as service. But as
John Pepper described their VIBE (very important burrito eater)
Alisha Runckel tweeted in on the idea of using an axe as a tool
program, which recognized that they have around 2,500 high
of unabashed change, “What day isn’t take your axe to work
frequency customers who if treated well can spread the word
day?” she asked. But when your standard is delight, there’s an
about Boloco better than any advertising.
imperative to innovate and “wield the axe”, so to speak, for
unabashed change.
Dave Tragethon from Mt. Hood Meadows described the same
dynamic with one of their season pass offerings. By creating an
As Brian Kalma noted in both our Boston and Portland events, “if
affordable and highly social season pass, they’re sold in bundles
you use a standard approach, you’ll get standard results.” Life’s
of four. Selling these at a great discount created thousands of
too short for standard results.
new skiers with a season-long commitment to their destination,
which they could connect with through specialized offers and
services.
David Oksman, the Head of Marketing for Life is good, talked We want to hear from you. What does
about how they find disruptively good ideas by seeking customer Delight mean to you? Please leave a
input. Listening to customer feedback about music in the stores
opened up a new opportunity for engagement. They now spend
comment or tweet your thoughts on
300,000 minutes a month listening online. customer experience to us at
@ISITE_Design or #Delight2012.
5. Rethink content: Less story telling – More
story living
When John Pepper and Dave Tragethon gave status to
thousands of their best customers, those customers reciprocated
by elevating their businesses. They received more active
feedback, increased word of mouth, more frequent visits – and
facilitated a peer relationship between its best clients and their
brand.