How to Profitably Delight your Customers

Book excerpt: The majority of industries today are in a buyer's market. Huge increases in capacity worldwide have outstripped market demand. The only sure way to survival and profitability in this environment is serving customers well. Simply satisfying customers is not enough, it is necessary to exceed their expectations or, in the author's terms, delight them. Delighting customers erects a barrier to competitors, so it is difficult for other to steal them and also provides invaluable word-of-mouth promotion. This book focuses on what corporate managers especially in product design and sales and marketing departments, need to do to help a company profitably delight its customers. Hal Mather is president of Hal Mather, Inc in Amelia Island, FL., an international management consulting and education company. Since 1973, he has been helping all types of industrial concerns to improve their business planning and control. He is also author of 'Competitive Manufacturing - Second edition'.