Pushing the Delight Button

Emotion theories have shown that delight and satisfaction are not the same feelings. (Oliver 1997)

The emotion of delight has been demonstrated to produce higher levels of arousal than satisfaction, which can be leveraged to increase customer engagement and buying.

Every week, lululemon stores and showrooms push their product racks aside and unroll yoga mats, turning their spaces into instant yoga studios.  The classes are complimentary and lead by instructors from the local area.  Perhaps it is a simple technique to get foot traffic into the store, but at the same time it increases delight and cheerfulness around the brand as many women show up in their lululemon attire.

So what are you doing to drive delight and excitement through innovation? Delighting customers improves word of mouth and repurchase intent more than merely satisfying them. New products need this type of emotional energy around them as they enter the marketplace.

Spend some time thinking about what makes your customers happy and delight them by offering something that links to it. In lululemon’s example, they are not offering anything more than any other retailer could do, except other retailers don’t.

image credit: Janeshealth & itsallyogababy

Don’t miss an article (3,750+) – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Innovation Excellence group!

Donna Sturgess is the President and Co-founder of Buyology Inc and former Global Head of Innovation for GlaxoSmithKline. Her latest book is Eyeballs Out: How To Step Into Another World, Discover New Ideas, and Make Your Business Thrive