6 minute read
Customer experience: it's all about your brand's 'Moments of Truth'
Evolving traditional customer service strategies to better understand, and satisfy, the needs of today’s shopper
// By George Minakakis, Founder and CEO of Inception Retail Group, and Author of The New Bricks & Mortar Future Proofing Retail
In an era marked by technology’s quantum leaps, businesses are crafting new methods to cater to customers. The rise of artificial intelligence has opened unique customer-business touch-points, igniting global interest in AI assistants, advisors, and companions. Retailers are harnessing technology to capitalize on data and captivate customers by engineering memorable experiences.
Customer experience has evolved into a critical facet of modern business planning. Organizations strategize meticulously to deliver positive, lasting encounters to their customers. However, amid the intricate art to create the tapestry of customer experience, a crucial piece often goes missing - the ‘Moments of Truth’.
Traditional customer experience strategies are built upon a lucid vision and definitive objective. The vision typically delineates how the company seeks to be viewed by its customers, while the goal helps identify tangible targets to actualize the vision. While these elements are crucial and often well-established by businesses, strategies built solely upon them often result in customer experience pitfalls. The essence of customer experience lies not just in grand visions and ambitious goals, but in how these concepts are mirrored in each customer interaction with the brand. This is where ‘Moments of Truth’ are crucial. Everything is in the details.
The retail world I was in had high levels of customer personalized touch-points. There was no room for error. In that retail reality, the minutiae mattered, from clean window displays and glass doors to pristine change rooms and meticulously kept cash wrap areas, in addition to the level of service delivered from each retail associate. To many of my colleagues’ chagrin, I paid extreme attention to these details and was instrumental in delivering consistent business growth. Yet, these ‘Moments of Truth’ define a brands potential.
So, what are ‘Moments of Truth’?
Swedish businessman Jan Carlzon first introduced the concept of ‘Moments of Truth’. This idea, later popularized by Tom Peters, refers to those pivotal instances during which customers engage with a brand and form an impression. Ranging from a discussion with customer support to the product unboxing experience, these moments represent the sum total of a customer’s journey with a brand, encompassing all facets of service and training.
Consider this: most training regiments and their execution are meant to determine a brand’s ability to affect sales and customer loyalty. A decline in customer loyalty and or sales often signifies inadequate attention and lenient performance standards in a brand’s commitment in their delivery. Yes, performance standards are important and essential in meeting customer expectations. Just as they are in landing an aircraft safely or performing successful heart surgery. Relying solely on chance that things will go well without standards could lead to significant failures, as we have seen for decades in the retail industry. In other words, landing a plane flawlessly or delivering a perfect heart surgery shouldn’t be based on luck.
Overlooking ‘Moments of Truth’ in a customer experience strategy is akin to constructing a house without a blueprint. Clear vision and goals are crucial. But without a thorough plan to translate these into tangible service steps, vision and goals can be for naught.
In customer experience terms, a business might have a clear vision (say, being the industry’s most customer-centric brand) and a defined goal (like achieving a specific Net Promoter Score). But without managing ‘Moments of Truth’, these goals may be elusive.
Merely training staff to handle various customer interactions won’t suffice. The entire service delivery process should be designed and deliberately managed, focusing on ‘Moments of Truth’. This approach requires that the retailer possess a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey, as well as the ability to recognize all potential touch-points, and strategizing the best possible experience at each interaction. I’ve witnessed this in consumer-facing industries with high-level personal touch-points. The best-inclass are artists.
Brands like Apple, Amazon, and Sephora have mastered the customer experience that they offer by diligently managing these ‘Moments of Truth’. They don’t merely have a vision and a goal. They have a robust blueprint that steers each customer interaction, reflecting their vision and goal in every step.
It all begins with strategizing and executing what the ideal experience for your customer should be. This approach unifies all aspects of service and employee training, creating a harmonious, positive brand image in the customer’s mind. Indeed, these moments are pivotal in shaping a brand’s perception.
Each brand will be different
First you need to start with your brand story. What do you stand for? What elements of your brand make it unique and how is all of that transformed and translated into service steps and standards? Define them and lay the groundwork for tangible training and development.
The ‘Moments of Truth’ in your brand must be exclusive, customer experiences that are authentic. And then comes the two real hard parts. The customer experience must be consistent throughout the organization, and it needs accountability and follow up.
In conclusion, consider this challenging question that I asked in my last book: is the future of retail Art, Aspirational or AI?
Retailing’s future is no longer simply an equation, but rather an exhilarating canvas painted with the artistry of personalization, the audacity of aspiration, and the precision of AI absorbing and delivering data. Yes, our journey towards sculpting the quintessential customer experi ence hinges on these three pivotal pillars - Art, Aspiration, and AI. The challenge, and indeed the opportunity, lies in how skillfully we can use these tools to etch our ‘Moments of Truth’ on the ever-changing canvas of customer expectations. Keeping in mind that when Jan Carlzon and Tom Peters launched this thought-provoking incentive to grow our customer experiences with ‘Moments of Truth’, they didn’t have access to the technology we do today.
Therefore, we must be swift to adapt, innovate, and above all, we must create. We can no longer afford to rely on the past laurels of our brand experiences. We must continually reinvent our ‘Moments of Truth’, else we find ourselves in the shadows of irrelevance, chasing the luminaries.
