From satisfaction to delight: a model for the hotel industry

Abstract

PurposeThis article seeks to develop a managerial model that will aid in the effective management of customer relations. This study explains in detail the concepts of satisfaction and delight; their antecedents and potential outcomes.Design/methodology/approachAn extensive review of existing customer delight literature reveals the key concepts necessary for customer delight to occur.FindingsCustomer delight is a better measure of customer relationship management than customer satisfaction. Delight is likely to generate positive business results such as word‐of‐mouth communications, loyalty and increased profitability. Using existing literature a model is developed.Practical implicationsThe proposed model can be used by managers to achieve customer delight in their organizations. It can also be used to gain a better understanding of the process of managing customer relations.Originality/valueIn the last few years the concept of customer delight has been taking precedence over the concept of satisfaction. Despite such emphasis, there are few published articles relating to this topic in the hotel industry. The study uses customer delight literature from various industries and attempts to apply such knowledge to the hospitality industry.

Customer delight: perception of hotel spa consumers

“…Customer delight has been demonstrated to be robustly correlated with outcomes such as positive word of mouth (Torres & Kline, 2006) and repurchase intent (Finn, 2005). According to Loureiro and Kastenholz (2011), the results of their study emphasise the importance of satisfaction and delight in determining customers' loyalty.…”

“…In related empirical studies of Rust and Oliver (2000) and Torres and Kline (2006), customer delight is part of customer expectations, assuming in this sense that satisfaction is an antecedent of delight. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:…”

Evaluation of Environmental Quality Components on Satisfaction, Delight and Behavior Intentions of Customers (Case Study: Gorgan Restaurants)

“…In fact, what costumer gets from services is satisfaction, while what he gets more beyond expectation is delight (Torres & Kline, 2006).…”

“…Customer satisfaction is the ratio to which the customer is positive towards the service provider (Deng et al, 2010).But services provided needs less satisfaction than customer satisfaction. As a matter of fact, customer expectations from delivering services leads to customer satisfaction, while the customer's delight in delivering services is beyond the customer's expectations (Torres and Kline, 2006).Costumer behavior intentions is a deep obligation toward buying a product or getting a service in the future that makes costumers to buy from similar brand and have a potential to change their behavior (Oliver, 1999). Increasing customer behavior intentions has always been a concern for managers (Westbrook, 1987) because buying products in the future is a result of behavior intentions.In particular, behavior intentions are defined as the tendency to buy from a store repeatedly (Keating et al, 2003;Flavin et al, 2006).…”

The Mediation of Tourists Satisfaction on the Relationship between Tourism Service Quality and Tourists Loyalty: Five Stars Hotel in Jordanian Environment

“…On the other hand, price, speed and quality of service, parking and poor employee knowledge resulted in negative feedbacks (Lewis & McCann 2004). In Hong-Kong, Choi and Chu (2000) and Torres and Kline (2006) researched on a comparison of the satisfaction levels between Asian and Western travelers. Using a regression analysis of Asian and Western travelers' overall satisfaction, they discovered that in terms of customer satisfaction, Asian travelers placed the most importance on value as compared to Western travelers who considered room quality as the most important criteria for their satisfaction.…”