Brian Tracy talks about the different levels of customer satisfaction or loyalty in his article:

Step 1:

At the very minimum you have to satisfy customer expectations. That means responsiveness, quality of service, and making sure their basic expectations are met through your professionalism and experience.

Step 2: Exceeding customer expectations:

Surprising your customer with additional value either through technical expertise or management of a project, as an example, will not only build loyalty but will increase profitability. Customers will pay more for value and service. Period.

Step 3: Thrilling the customer:

Or delighting the customer. What about getting a customer to laugh or bringing a smile to their face? It's not always about closing the next sale. Human connection is part of life and so is helping and being a positive experience they can deal with during the daily grind.

Step 4: Amaze them:

Whether it's bringing the best engineering talent or taking care of a potential customer service challenge before it even happens. When you get to this level you will keep your customers for many years.

Tony Bilby