How Delighting Customers Triggers Explosive Revenue Growth.

Oct 9

6 min read

Good service keeps your customers. Delight is what makes them come back and bring their friends.

I was on an Alaska Airlines flight not long ago, the same airline we sold our company to back in 2008, and before we landed, the flight attendant came down the aisle and handed me a handwritten card, just a little thank-you note, nothing fancy, and you know, I kept it. It wasn't what the card said that got me; it was that somebody took a minute to write it at all when they didn't have to, and I certainly wasn't expecting it.

I was completely delighted.

And it got me thinking about how rare that feeling is, and how many businesses stop at good service and never find out what delight could do for their revenue.

I travel a great deal, and every once in a while I'll check into a hotel and get a call from the front desk shortly after, just to see if everything is okay. One hotel took it further and assigned two people as my contacts, each covering a different shift, and gave me a number to text with anything I needed. When the shift changed, the incoming person would text me to let me know he was there to help until a certain time. During my stay, I reported a couple of room issues for maintenance that way and arranged my departure transportation, all with simple texts. I never once had to call the front desk.

Delivering good service isn't that hard, and it isn't enough anymore. Delight is what turns good service into a memorable experience, and a memorable experience is what keeps people coming back over and over again.

Good service keeps you in the game. Delight is what gets you talked about.

When was the last time a business surprised you so much that you told someone else about it?

When we were running Hawaiian Vacations, a scheduled charter airline flying people between Anchorage and Honolulu on wide-body jets, we knew that any negative word of mouth could kill our business, so we couldn't treat a passenger like a one-time transaction. We didn't just sell tickets; we sold experiences in paradise, and we built real relationships. We showed people we truly cared, and we created experiences that made them feel seen, valued, and delighted, because we wanted to see them again and again and again. I wrote more about how we did that in Enhancing Customer Relationships for Repeat Business.

That business grew to carry 30,000 to 35,000 passengers a year, and repeat business was the magic behind it. When people feel delighted, they share that story, and that's how you earn referrals.

When your customers feel cared for, they don't just come back. They bring their friends.

How many of your new customers last year came from someone who already loved working with you?

Your customers don't just buy a product or a service; they buy confidence in you, and they buy consistency, and I've found that trust comes down to four things.

1. Be consistent: do what you say you'll do when you say you'll do it, and if you can't, tell them as early as possible, then follow up to make sure they got what they wanted.

2. Be responsive, so you answer quickly, show them you understand their concern, and close the loop on every interaction.

3. Be responsible, because when something goes wrong, and it often does, you own it, you fix it fast, and you apologize without excuses.

4. And act like you care, which looks like asking questions, remembering details, and following up after the sale, so they remember you long after the transaction ends. I go

deeper on each of these in How to Build Trust Within Your Team and With Your Customers.

People forgive mistakes that you own far more easily than they forgive silence or defensiveness.

Which of those four would your customers say you're weakest at?

I know what you might be thinking, Ral, this all sounds wonderful, but I don't have time to write handwritten notes to everyone. The good news is you don't have to, because this is where systems come in. Set up an automated follow-up sequence after every sale, track birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones in a CRM or even a simple spreadsheet, and create templates for thank-you messages and random check-ins so your team can personalize them easily.

A system can even track how long someone has been your customer and send a thank-you for five years of loyalty, maybe with a free gift or service to go with it, the same way airline and hotel loyalty programs reward their best customers. We saw firsthand what that kind of leverage can do, which I wrote about in How automation saved time and money and allowed our revenue to grow beyond our dreams.

Delight shouldn't depend on your memory. It should depend on your systems.

What is one delightful touch you could build into your process this month so it happens every single time?

Delight shows up in your numbers if you know where to look. Start with your customer retention rate: how long are you keeping your customers? The more you delight them, the longer you keep them, and we all know keeping a customer costs much less than acquiring a new one. Look at your refunds and returns too, since many of them tell you where there's work to do on your product or service.

Then track revenue per customer, how often they purchase, and each customer's lifetime value, and use surveys, review forms, or post-project check-ins to learn what's working and what's not. That information is gold, because it helps you anticipate needs before customers even ask, and it can point you to a new product or service that meets another need, which is how lifetime value grows. And when the feedback comes in, act on it, because that's how you go about turning feedback into loyalty.

Sustainable growth doesn't come from constantly chasing new leads. It comes from nurturing the ones you already have.

Do you know your customer retention rate right now, without having to go look it up?

Delight and loyalty can't be a departmental task; they have to be part of your entire company culture, from the person answering the phones to the one handling billing, and everyone needs to understand it's a vital part of their job. So celebrate the wins that come from great service, recognize the employees who go above and beyond, share stories in team meetings about how someone made a customer's day, and make a big deal about it. That's culture by design, not by accident, and it's a big part of why we owned our market.

Customer Service is one of the six legs of the stool I teach, and it only holds weight when Systems, Measurement, Leverage, Team, and Culture are working with it.

We exist because of our customers, and we grow because we delight them.

Who on your team made a customer's day last week, and did anyone else hear about it?

This Week’s Exercise

Pick one small, unexpected touch (a handwritten note, a check-in text, a loyalty anniversary thank-you) and decide which customers get it this week.
Pull three numbers for the last 12 months: your customer retention rate, your refund or return rate, and your average revenue per customer. Write them down.
Choose one follow-up you currently do from memory and turn it into an automated step or a template your team can personalize.
At your next team meeting, share one story about someone who delighted a customer, and make a big deal about it.

Podcast Spotlight

I had a wonderful conversation with Jaime Ellithorpe, founder of 540 Strategies, on the Aligned & Amplified Podcast.

We went back to the years when our business owned us (yes, dinners at the office) and talked about the five years it took to build systems, culture, and a team strong enough that we could hire a COO and a CFO and step away. We also covered calculated risk, why mindset is often the real reason owners can't let go, and the humbling lesson I learned when "build it, and they will come" didn't work in my newest business.

If you started your business for freedom and feel like you bought yourself a job, this one's for you.

🎧 Watch the full episode on YouTube: EP 22: Stop Letting Your Business Run Your Life by Ral West | Aligned & Amplified

Final Thoughts

That little card from the flight attendant couldn't have cost Alaska Airlines much of anything, and I'm still talking about it. That's the whole lesson, really: build trust, delight people in small ways, use systems so it happens consistently, and make it part of your culture, because when your customers feel cared for, they come back and they bring their friends.

So this week, find the customer who has been with you the longest and surprise them with a personal thank-you before Friday.

Until next time, keep living the dream.

Ral West

Livin’ the Dream