Guest post by John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability

To succeed over the long term organizations must seek not to satisfy customers but to delight customers.

Employees need to understand how customers actually use their product or service. And then they need to use this knowledge to continually improve the value delivered to customers.

No customer asked for electric lights… No customer asked for photography… No customer asked for an automobile… No customer asked for an integrated circuit.

W. Edward Deming, page 7 of The New Economics

Companies that understand what their customers needs and desires are and deliver solutions that customers didn’t even know they wanted will delight customers. And in that process make those delighted customers more loyal over the long term and gain new customers. Doing so also contributes to the Deming Chain Reaction (adding more and more jobs over time).



Creating a Deep Commitment to Delighting Customers – W. Edwards Deming on Innovation – Product and Service Innovation is Driven by Customer Focused Organizations – Customer Focus with a Deming Perspective