Moments Of Truth

A Moment of Truth is a time when a person or thing is tested, a decision has to be made, or a crisis has to be faced. For me, it is when somebody's expectation meets reality.  Happiness is often described as “One's expectations minus one’s reality.” This makes a very good following point from last week's blog on the customer journey.  

A Moment of Truth is a term that was popularised in the 80s by Jan Carlzon and followed by a book of the same title. Carlzon defined the Moment of Truth as any time the customer comes into contact with any aspect of a company, however remote, he or she has an opportunity to form an impression. Carlzon said that Moments of Truth could be good or bad.

If you were to look at every point of contact the customer has with your business, how would you rate?  Would some be good and some bad and some somewhere in between? For many businesses, the customer experience at every touchpoint is something that has evolved and is left to be what it is. It morphs and grows and changes over time - which means that it is very prone to the people you employ, their personalities, their moods (which can fluctuate from person to person, division to division, branch to branch).  The negative impact of this on your brand cannot be overstated. The key with developing a brand is consistency.  This is where clearly defining the experience you want a customer to have at every point of contact with your business so powerful.

This is The Moment of Truth.

When you look at your customer journey map developed last week, it is useful to add on a section where you clearly define what is the experience you want the customer to have at each touchpoint.  It can be useful to look at the highs of the experience and what potential risks there might be that can give a client a low level experience.  Defining this gives clarity to the whole team about what is expected of them, what is expected of the marketing messages and what it is we are aiming to give to the customer: not just in terms of product or service, but also in terms of the mental and emotional experience that customer has when contacting our brand.

As an exercise, this does not take long and  is well worth doing. If we can help in anyway please do get in touch, and here’s to your success!