Delightion. What a fun word! According to blogger and digital marketer, Heidi Schmidt, this word was first used by the marketing automation professionals from Hubspot. They refer to it as a way to retain your customers—the act of delighting them.

In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we share the art of "delightion" according to Schmidt, and why it's important for your business.

Customer delight happens when you create the unexpected by going above and beyond what the customer expects you to deliver. In the luxury hotel business, where I came from, we called this "anticipating the guests' needs." As Schmidt points out, when expectations are met, you have customer satisfaction. When expectations are exceeded, you achieve customer delight.

Customer delight also strongly ties to your bottom line. By putting an emphasis on customer happiness, there's more of a chance that you will retain that current customer. There is also a good chance that the customer will invest more of their dollars into your business, whether that means extending a contract, increasing an order quantity or asking you to provide goods and services for a much broader need. Plus, there's the obvious—more happy customers mean more referrals and stronger leads for additional business.

Below are a few quick tips from Schmidt to help you create an environment of delightion.

  • Delight your customers through relevant channels. On which social media channels are your customers most active? Give your clients a shout out through your own social media channels when they do something awesome.

  • Make a personal connection. Find out your customers' birthdays or work anniversaries and send them cards or emails wishing them a great day. Ask what their favorite coffee is and then show up for your next meeting with that triple soy venti latte just for them.

  • Be a trusted advisor. Set up repeat emails. Build a shared relationship by getting content, and sharing and linking. Also, ask for reviews.

  • Produce content that delights. Think outside the box. Did a client ask you a question that others might be interested in too? Turn your answer into a blog post and send it to them with a note.

  • Empower your team. Make the ability to delight a customer part of your organizational culture. Recognize employees who do this well. Make it part of your core values. Help your team see the impact this makes to the bottom line.

Adding in customer delight is easy to implement, but be sure to take it to your team first. In order to create that culture that people are proud to be a part of, they need to feel as if they are a part of the process first.

Source: Heidi Schmidt is part of Quintain Marketing, a full service inbound marketing agency located in Annapolis, Maryland, that services clients throughout the United States. Quintain is a HubSpot Platinum Level Certified partner agency and all staff members are Inbound Marketing certified.