Reassessing the Foundations of Customer Delight

Abstract

The 1990s saw a questioning of the value of merely satisfying customers and instead focused attention on the importance of customer delight. In a key contribution, Oliver, Rust, and Varki (1997) developed a structural model of the antecedents and consequences of customer delight, acting in parallel with satisfaction, that was generally supported for two entertainment services. However, the effect of delight on intention was significant for symphony ticket purchasers but not for theme park patrons. This article first replicates their path analysis for more mundane visits to consumer Web sites. Then it takes advantage of a larger sample and additional measures to address construct measurement issues and to determine whether customer delight is something more than a nonlinear effect of satisfaction on intention.