Summary: I respond to Dina Mehta's thoughts about delight in the context of relationships with customers. In sum I say that delight can come to both "customer" (person category 1) and "provider" (person category 2) in a moment of transcendence of such categories. It occurs in a moment of "I-Thou" on the part of the sender and the delighted [surprised, awakened, pleased all at once] response of the receiver. If this high order delight is deeply important--I think it is-- then I think I will have to reduce strategic business "moves" to second or third priority and raise the "I Thou" to first. More below.

---

Dina Opens:

Here's an excerpt where i draw the difference between customer satisfaction and delight.

[Such actions... those aimed at surprising and possibly delighting customers] have become hygiene factors, offered to all in that group, they aren't impromptu, they've lost their element of surprise, and aren't unexpected anymore. Cynical customers see through these and don't want to pay to sustain them. And sometimes, they'd rather not see the plastic smile.

... Still it is that 'X' factor that makes for delight, and binds the client to the provider.
...

Delight to me is joy, it is heartfelt, it is love, it is a high. Its that little extra that makes you smile with the knowledge that you have made the right choice, a little reminder every so often that makes for stickiness. Something that conveys to you that you are special to us - and not just another client that will get the annual New Year card or be on our mailing list. Something that in a very personalized way, differentiates you from other clients or in the least, leaves you with that perception. "

First, I agree that customer delight is keyed above by an X factor in the provider. I would say that it COULD be a special, nonmanipulative seeing, a seeing in context and a seeing of the whole person. I will finish with this as my premise--leaving aside the many and sundry other ways that at least a temporary delight may be produced. Martin Buber has called this sort of seeing "Thou"ing the Other. With this in mind I am inspired by Dina's thoughts to wonder*. To wonder in two ways.

1. If I were the prospective delight giver, I wonder about the nature of my business and my relation to it. Can I place myself in some business so that manipulation and gamesmanship get a lesser hand on the wheel of my consciousness? If I school myself to contentment and service, rather than chasing of riches and etc., every transaction might be framed differently -- as an encounter with a fellow human being, as an experience in "Seeing" [without winning or losing in mind-]. Perhaps I would tend NOT to put myself in work environments and power situations which seem to be dominated by power games. And, perhaps, even when I am placed there by fate anyway, I manage to 'See' even then.
2. I think of a self-sufficiency life-style with my "business" being an advocacy--a delight, itself, shared in many ways with those that I work with an who have chosen to work with me.

*I am speculating, dreaming, associating here. Thus the use of "wonder" instead of, say, "conclude". -----------
[via "a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0121664/2005/03/04.html#a589">Conversations With Dina