The “Moments of Truth”
A Moment of Truth is any point in time when the customer comes into contact with Alowishus and forms an impression of its service. A series of moments of truths adds up to an overall impression of its service. Alowishus is judged by the people doing business with it. A point of contact may only take 10 seconds but thousands of moments of truth happen every day. Jan Carlzon is his book “Moments of Truth” discusses this concept – consistency in how our business deals with its moments of truth gives customers security and peace of mind – they can feel assured that they will get the same exceptional service every time they deal with us.
If you could identify each moment of truth and improve on each one, imagine the overall improvement to your service.
In your work day – take time to consider:
- Where the moments of truth occur;
- What form they take;
- How well they are being handled;
- How they can be improved upon
Think about a typical interaction with a customer during your day. You could map out the Moments of Truth for this customer.
Exercise – Mapping out the “Moments of Truth”
Draw a circle and working in a clockwise fashion – map out these moments of truth for the customer, then put a score next to the item. Try to honestly rate how well you handle them. Use the following rating scale:
- The customer is annoyed or inconvenienced every time at this Moment of Truth
- The customer is annoyed or inconvenience most times at this Moment of Truth
- The customer is annoyed or inconvenienced occasionally at this Moment of Truth
- The customer is satisfied at this Moment of Truth
- The customer is delighted at this Moment of Truth
I need to ………………
Your ratings will have highlighted one moment of truth that you feel is the highest priority for improvement. Write this down with a brief description of what it is – then consider – How could this moment of truth be improved? Then list the improvements that are needed. This then becomes an important part of your Customer Service Improvement Action Plan.
Exceeding Expectations
During your most recent day at work, did your customers:
Get the service they expected?
Get less service than they expected?
Get more or better service than they expected?
When customers receive more than what they expect they will tell their friends how surprised and delighted they are, thus becoming ADVOCATES
The word expectation is very important in the context of customer service. An interesting exercise is to draw three rings – (large circles) – in the first one titled BASIC PRODUCT put in the typical basic products you provide. In the second one, titled WHAT’S EXPECTED write what you feel may be the expected customer service on that basic product or service in your market, .and then in the third circle titled WHAT’S POSSIBLE, this is where you come up with a few creative, realistic ways in which you can exceed your customers’ expectations..