Moments of Truth

Moments of Truth can make or break your company, are you and your team 'bright' or 'dull'?

Jan Carlzon wrote a book in the eighties called Moments of Truth and in it he tells the extraordinary story of turning the lacklustre, state-run, Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) into a profitable business. The central element to Carlzon's turnaround was the 'Moment of Truth', which he defined as any interaction between the company and it's customer. Examples for your company could include sales visits, phone calls, letters, emails and even the look of the company building!- In fact anything that gives the customer an opportunity to form (or change) their perception about your company. He categorised them into 'bright' and 'dull' Moments of Truth - The larger the number of 'bright' moments your customer experienced, the greater likely hood your customer would return.

Research suggests that in a face to face contact it takes approximately 4 minutes for a customer to form their perception during a Moment of Truth, no matter how long the interaction lasts. The customer has a wealth of information to take in - appearance, handshake, demeanour and verbal communication. So, those first 4 minutes are crucial, as any interviewer will tell you.

By contrast, on the telephone it takes between 4 to 14 seconds for the customer to make up their mind about you and your company and they are mainly assessing your voice tone. Not surprisingly, contact centres spend a lot of time ensuring their agents sound interested when they take/make that call (don't they?)

So, what bright Monments of Truth are you creating today? And what about your team.....