Measuring delightful customer experiences: The validation and testing of a customer delight scale along with its antecedents and effects

Abstract

The construct of customer delight has captured the attention of scholars and managers alike. Nevertheless, its definition and measurement vary across scholarly literature and several quantitative scales were developed before extensive qualitative research on customer delight, which provided further clarification on the nature of this construct, was even conducted. Consequently, the present research draws upon the conceptual and qualitative work in the field to validate a survey instrument in order to measure customer delight. The authors collected data in four major service industries—hotel, restaurant, retail, and theme park. Following the five-stage scale development and validation approach, the researchers then refined a customer delight scale. The scale was found to have appropriate levels of validity and reliability. Finally, the authors proposed and tested the antecedents and consequences of customer delight using structural equation modelling. The proposed scale allows managers to measure the incidence of customer delight in their organizations.