Delight-As-Magic: Refining the Conceptual Domain of Customer Delight

Abstract

This paper explores consumers’ experience of delight and investigates the role of surprise in this process. These questions are examined through an interpretation of five consumers’ own accounts of delight in the context of travel experiences, informed by literature from the fields of psychology, aesthetics, and consumer research. The exercise contributes to our understanding of customer delight by identifying two distinct modes of delight: delightas-pleasant-surprise and delight-as-magic. Delight-as-magic refers to the efferent emotional arousal individuals derive from consumption experiences they imbue with a subjective, symbolic meaning associated with themes of interpersonal warmth, aesthetic experiences, or leisure experiences.