Understanding Customer Delight

Abstract

Distinct from satisfaction, delight occurs when a customer receives a positive surprise beyond his or her expectations. Because of strong correlations with repurchase intention and positive word of mouth, customer delight is a quintessentially germane topic of inquiry. This study illustrates that determinants of customer delight in tourism venues can be identified through travel blog analysis. Using the hotel sector as the context, this research text-mines and content-analyzes 743 pertinent travel blogs that contain the phrase “pleasant surprise,” “delightful surprise,” excellent surprise,” or “positive surprise” and finds that the most frequent cause of guest delight in the hotel sector appears to be customer service, followed by cleanliness. In addition, this study also finds that triggers of delight are statistically different for domestic versus international travel and for travelers to more-developed versus less-developed countries. Based on the study’s findings, the article concludes with a presentation of managerial and research implications.