Not All Moments of Truth are Equal

Living the Brand Promise
Have you ever waited in line for a service, or had to go through numerous telephone prompts just to get to someone who could answer your question? While you were waiting, did your perception of that company change? How open were you to listening to a marketing message? These situations are common, and define one of the many points of contact customers have with brands. These moments of truth are key in defining whether your brand loyalty chain is strong and the organization is truly living up to the brand’s promise of consistent performance.

In order to ensure strong brand loyalty in a market where consumers are skeptical and struggling to be in control, organizations must better anticipate and integrate the right consumer experience at each of the key touch-points that support the various moments of truth.

The phrase “Moments of Truth (MOT)” was coined by Jan Carlzon, president of Scandinavian Airlines as he described what occurs when customers come in contact with companies and experience various degrees of quality. Mr. Carlzon noted that a positive MOT with a customer builds brand loyalty and repeat purchase while a failed MOT creates dissatisfied customers who look elsewhere to get their needs met.

Underlining the importance of creating effective MOT is the heightened need to avoid damaging a brand’s reputation, and allowing disgruntled customers to become brand detractors, communicating their wrath on YouTube, Facebook and other highly visible social networks. MOT are the critical moments when your brand needs to deliver on its promise, consistently and based on a defined level of expectation from customers, irrespective of whether the given moment is being managed by another organization such as retailers, or through the infrastructure of the given company.

The need to develop a clearly-defined MOT is emerging as a key competitive advantage for marketers wanting to gain strong customer loyalty and a clear point of difference in the marketplace by converting customers to advocates for the brand. With the advent of the web and the shift of control from the marketer and retailer to the consumer, this need to clearly map out and manage the entire customer relationship at all touch-points has become paramount. An IBM Global Business Services white paper identified 3 simple guidelines that apply to each and every customer interaction:
1.    Delight customers when it makes sense (and cents)
2.    Fix where the company fails on its promise
3.    Right-size delivery when an interaction doesn’t matter

Historically, MOT opportunities were focused on organizations that have a physical presence in the marketplace, such as retailers, service organizations, and financial institutions. With the introduction of the web and alternative channels of distribution, the importance of understanding where your brand is delivering a MOT that meets these guidelines has evolved to include packaged goods organizations and companies who rely on distributors and retailers to sell their product.

Ensure a Strong Relationship
The challenge for marketers, retailers, and operators is to define which of these Moments of Truth carry more weight and impact in fostering the right relationship, and which are in a supporting role that may have little to no influence on the ultimate relationship. Most organizations that have explored MOT strategies focus on transactional based touch-points, where the different stages of customers interaction with the brand are clearly defined based on a set of metrics that are performance-based (i.e. – Did you serve the customer under 1 minute? Was the offer clearly communicated? Did the sales person respond to the customer’s need? etc.).

Although this approach is still relevant today, we would like to evolve the thinking in order to take into consideration a much wider and more balanced view of the ideal MOT by establishing an understanding of which of these moments have the most impact and value to the organization in fostering a strong sense of belonging and customer engagement. In addition, we have explored further understanding of how to best integrate elements of your marketing mix to best support the MOT. To accomplish how organizations can take into consideration which MOT is critical in engaging the customer and fostering a sense of brand loyalty, we have identified a new perspective that should be taken into consideration as you align the right level of importance of your belonging experience touch-points with those of your customer needs. We have redefined the MOT acronym to include this new perspective as part of a relationship new equation, namely:
Customer Loyalty =  Belonging Experience
Defined Moments of Truth

Consumers today are looking for far more personal contact from highly emotionalized, living brands that require marketers to develop new levels of intimacy. Part of this intimacy is allowing consumers to play a stronger role in the relationship and desired experience with the brand. We have framed this idea as the “Belonging Experience”, allowing consumers to truly get engaged in brands by allowing them to feel in control. A key factor in fostering this “Belonging Experience” is the ability to both cognitively and emotionally connect with consumers throughout the brand experience, at each critical moment when the relationship is being created and maintained.

Moments of Truth Alignment
The first step in understanding the right hierarchy of importance for each moment of truth is clearly understanding what type of experience your customers fall within, allowing the marketer to adjust the MOT experience at different levels of the interaction with the brand.
Through our consulting practice we have noticed that leading organizations are constantly striving to find the right balance between managing each consumer touch-point, the allocation of the right level of resources for every customer moment of truth and the level of marketing activity against each of the consumer segments.

To help explain the relationship between these factors, we have outlined below a MOT alignment pinwheel to assist in the process, and in the following pages, we provide greater detail the definition and relevance of each of these circles of influence and how to best develop the ideal MOT experience across the various consumer touch-points.

The pinwheel defines 3 driving factors that impact the relevance and importance of each given MOT. The outer circle identifies the various touch-points that consumers leverage to foster a relationship with a brand. They range from areas controlled by the consumer (social networks, product/service usage) to those managed by the marketer. The second circle of influence represents the Persona types that reflect the behavior and attitudes of consumers. These range from task-oriented behavior to those rooted in more aspirational needs. The final circle of influence represents the dimensions of experiences that customers desire as part of their relationship with the brand.  The alignment of each of these points within the circles of influence will assist in defining the right hierarchy of importance for each MOT in creating brand loyalty.

The Different Dimensions to a Belonging Moment of Truth
The most effective approach to understanding which of these key moments of truth create a belonging experience that fosters strong loyalty to the brand, we need to take into consideration that most consumers enter a relationship based on cognitive, rational, and emotional needs. These needs consist of trade-offs between functional requirements versus a need for belonging based on feeling valued and their level of confidence, knowledge, and security.

We have conducted numerous consumer attitude and behavioral studies to understand what drives customer loyalty. What we have learned by analyzing the data from a wide range of industries and markets is that how consumers judge the right MOT is directly reflective of the type of relationship they want from that given brand, at that given moment.

Our research also pointed to the fact that these behaviors represented the same customer at different types of need. By clearly understanding the balance between these needs and how they impact the relationship between brands and consumers, we are able to effectively align the right emphasis on the MOT with the right level of resources and processes.

Based on our experience working with thousands of brands in all sectors of the industry, we have identified the following 4 basic relationship models based on a customer’s need for a “Belonging Experience” that range from a functional to more emotive context.

For example, paying bills at the local bank would be defined as repetitive transactions that have a functional, process-driven need. Functional transactions with a high experiential dimension represent experiences that tend to be purchase-intensive, but where the actual overall shopping experience factors, such as ambiance, plays a critical role. Shopping for groceries or books would fall within this category, where part of the value equation for the consumer is the actual experience. Shopping experiences that tend to be process-oriented and incorporate a high level of emotion represent transactions where the given product or name of the retailer plus the level of personal service tend to play a critical role in fostering the relationship. Shopping for cloth, cosmetics, or automobiles falls within this category since the products being purchased are tangible assets.

Highly experiential shopping that has a high emotional dimension tends to represent transactions where knowledge and advice (intangible assets) tend to be the product. The acquisition and planning of investments, seeking medical advice and services, or retaining the advice of legal council would fall within this category. Each one of these quadrants has a significant impact how best to deliver the right MOT.

The Many Personas of a Consumer
The second dimension of the MOT pinwheel is the different personas that consumers can take on pending their given needs. The term “persona” comes from early 20th century Latin, literally meaning the masked character in a play, and defines the role that the character has adopted as part of the scene. In the context of MOT, the mask represents the customer’s behavior while the play represents the given situation as part of the shopping experience.
It has been noted that the same consumer can have different personas with the same brand at different times during the given relationship or day-part. A case in point is banking, where the consumer will act very differently when they want access to their money, versus negotiating a loan or requesting investment advice.

Although the brand has not changed, the persona has changed based on the consumer need, impacting how they define their moments of truth. Each of these personas has different behaviors that impact the given MOT as part of a given brand. In the following pages, we have outlined the 5 typical types of personas, and the impact that each has as part of the various MOT.

What is important to understand is the fact that personas are not typically defined by demographics or social standing, but more by the role they play in the desire to fulfill a need. Since digital technology has started to play a critical role in building relationships and shifting the control back to consumers, we have included how technology has impacted the various persona behaviors, and the various areas of opportunity for marketers.

The Task Persona
A typical challenge for brands arises when the customer’s behavior is on auto-pilot, namely going through the service motion without paying much attention to the surroundings. This type of relationship typically reflects a grudge purchase, such as paying for gasoline or bills, and tends to be focused on accomplishing a simple task.
The typical persona in this type of relationship is focused on the need to complete the task in the least amount of time and at the highest level of convenience. Examples of task-oriented persona purchases include paying bills at banks or utility companies, paying for gas, toll booth transactions, checking in at the airport, or cash withdrawal at ATMs.
This type of relationship is driven by MOT that ensure the process remains simple, fast, and focused with the least amount of barriers. In this group, MOT are not required to have staffed service since the need for speed and simplicity trumps the desire for intimacy. Currently organizations that have staffed services are replacing these by technology process (airline check-ins or grocery store automated checkouts) since the time and expediency overrides the need for personal service.

The key MOT for this type of customer starts with the line-up and ends with the transaction. Of all of the MOT scenarios, this type of behavior is the most concentrated in the key areas that establish the level of loyalty and brand preference. The key MOT touch-points focus on online systems that are easy to understand and use, and customer service that requires the least amount of time. Humanized services are not as critical if the task can be automated or done through the use of technology.
Only when these areas do not work will this type of persona require the assistance of personalized service. Banks have realized this need by having the ATM at the entrance of branches, quickly accessible to customers. Service stations ensure that their retail footprint is small, and situate their pay-points adjacent the door with multiple pay-points available. The introduction of pay-at-the-pump RFID technology is another great example of meeting this persona’s need for speed.
With this persona, customer line-ups, technology and digital interfaces that are not intuitive and require multiple pages to accomplish simple tasks, store layouts that are not easy to navigate, staff that cannot direct them to the right location, or too much information at the point of purchase are all negative MOT that will lead to a bad experience.

These consumers are in split-second transaction mode, and anything that slows the process or creates confusion is a serious challenge. The use of communication for this persona must be focused on the given task and any additional information that does not enable the effective completion of this task will be perceived as extraneous, and part of a negative experience.
Financial institutions have considered the use of their ATM screens as a vehicle to create more awareness regarding new services and products. However, a recent study completed for Wells Fargo for their new ATM interface design identified that the single most used feature of an ATM is the cash withdrawal. More customized ATM tools weren’t noticed or used by consumers unless they were intuitive and automated. Creating sell messages at the ATM, if being considered, should focus on providing suggestions on how to make these type of transactions more efficient (have you tried our automated bill-payment service?).

The Value Persona
A key component to how customers perceive a brand is the value derived from its use. This ranges from more functional needs such as convenience, ease of use, and reliability through to more emotional needs, such as how the brand makes them feel.
The value persona consumer is seeking organizations to validate their decision to select their brands, and is typically motivated by the functional side of the decision spectrum, knowing that their decision to purchase a product was primarily based on focusing on the rational and functional benefits of the product, while the emotive and status sides of the equation play a far lesser role.  This behavior tends to manifest itself with consumers who are very confident about their decisions, and see themselves as savvy shoppers who know how to get the best out of any situation.  Brands marketing to the behavioral needs of this segment need to clearly identify the value equation that includes functional, cognitive, and emotional benefits in order for consumers to feel in control of making the right decision.

A great example is discount and warehouse retailers, and private label marketers who cater to savvy shoppers that are motivated by the hunt for bargains to drive their sense of self-worth.
Within this group of behavior, the MOT are focused on messages and shopping processes that reinforce the value equation, from larger shopping carts, to wider aisles and visible displays.
MOT interactions with staff are focused on a need base, and become critical only when a given product is not visible or in reach. This segment has come to accept that the trade-off for value is inconvenience and a lower level of expert service.
Marketers who cater to this type of persona need to focus on more functional and process-driven MOT which start with the ease of access to the store or parking (since these experiences tend to be found in larger store formats), and access to shopping carts that are clean and rust-free, to such elements as the width of the aisles, the effective use of signing that clearly communicates the value proposition, the ease of navigating the store, and finally, the ease of check-outs.
In this experience, the key MOT are driven by experiential factors that rely far less on the human interaction – which is not to say that these are not important, but play a far less critical role in the experience for the average shopper. The need for conflict resolution, such as returns, handling defective products, or receiving advice on how to find and use products would form the only critical MOT factor that includes the need for human interaction.
Home Depot stores are a great example, with their interactive displays, clearly-defined departments, great signing, and automated check-outs.
Although the chain reinforces its customer service and staff expertise with its slogan “You can do it, we can help”, the reality is far different to consumers. The ability for customers to find their given product plays a much more important role in the MOT for this type of behavior, and access to an employee is driven by the need to find the right product. In reality, having access to an associate is less critical for this type of behavior than shopping in a disorganized store with poorly signed aisles.

The Knowledge Persona
Consumers who are faced with a wide range of choices are looking to an organization to provide the right information so that they can gain a better understanding of the right choice. The touch-points that support a customer’s search for information will have a much greater impact on how they perceive the brand. The knowledge persona is emerging as one of the most sought after and valued target segment for marketers.
From the brand credibility information controlled by consumers through social networking sites to the various brand touch-points controlled by the marketer, such as the website, in-store communication, and product information, the need to clearly help consumers access the information they require as part of a manageable process is critical.
The key factor for organizations which appeal to knowledge seeking consumers is the ability to provide access, quickly, efficiently, and honestly to this group, while creating a platform through expertise, expanding the knowledge offering well beyond the brand’s requirement. This group of consumers is seeking knowledge based on trust and credibility, and ensuring that your organization provides a transparent approach to providing access to knowledge will ensure that you maintain the preferred brand status.

Financial institutions, drugstores, and now medical centers are emerging as areas were the MOT supporting the access to knowledge has become critical.  If the task experience tended to require very concentrated MOT, the knowledge experience has the broadest number of MOT that have a significant impact on how consumers perceive the brand. The underlying factor is the need to gain knowledge and relevant information that will assist this type of customer in making the right decision.
The knowledge experience starts well before the purchase process since the actual value for the brand is not its functional benefits, but those that reinforce a sense of knowledge, whether it consists of how the consumer can get more out of a given product or how they can be empowered to make better decisions on investments.

The decision process and the supporting ability to gain understanding and information become the critical factors in defining the right MOT. In this type of experience, the website plays an important role, and is the first critical MOT (Figures 2, 3 and 4). The website’s ease of use, type of information, ability to search, and relevant and up-to-date content set the first moment where the customer is determining if your brand is worth further commitment.

A key area of opportunity for a wide range of organizations and a key MOT opportunity is the queue process. In most instances, the consumer’s main focus is to ensure that they are in line so that they can complete their desired transaction. Most organizations understand that wait times seem shorter if distractions such as TV programs and magazines are available. However, in our opinion, this is a significant lost opportunity for this group since they are predisposed to gain knowledge and understanding, which is truly lost waiting in line.
A great case in point is the use of computer terminals in bookstores to allow customer the opportunity to search for a given topic and identify its availability within the store. Not only does this technology provide easy access to a given topic or author, but allows the user the opportunity to explore books and authors who share similar styles. Consumers are willing to change their typical behavior – that of scanning for books at the shelf level – for the use of technology since they understand that the desired outcome will be more efficient while allowing for a greater level of knowledge transfer.
Bank One tested television merchandising programs in 11 of its 30 Milwaukee locations, with the ability to customize its retail messages according to specific branch needs. The programs retain a 70% viewing rate among customers, while enhancing the bank’s paper-based merchandising program since video has the ability of telling more of the story and people are more willing to watch.

Harris Bank, a division of Bank of Montreal, implemented a similar program in 2003 and has documented that customer recall of product messages proves 7% higher in branches that employ digital signs than in those that do not. In addition, bank representatives note that people refer to digital display messages when inquiring about product offerings.

The Social Persona
In today’s time-deprived, and socially structured environment, consumers are seeking to connect with others in order to feel valued. Brands that provide a social structure for people to connect need to clearly understand how they interact with their brands and why. Great examples of social doorway brands include Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts, or smaller brands such as Second Cup and Caribou Coffee.
These brands create an environment conducive for people to meet and mingle; an opportunity to socialize outside the office or home environment. In the case of Panera Bread, this chain is also known as a business meeting place, with comfortable booths and free WIFI access.

Several years ago, our firm was retained to reinvent a major casual dining chain that had lost its way and competed strictly on cost. Research highlighted that the true benefit of eating at their chain was what we coined “family therapy”, since eating out was the only time families actually got together to share events of the week or the month. This raises the question: what is the most critical moment of truth for this chain? Is it the menu, the server, or the booth and atmosphere of the restaurant?
Based on the study: “The dining experience: do restaurants satisfy customer needs?” by Tommy D. Andersson and Lena Mossberg from the School of Economics, Gothenburg, Sweden, the average results in terms of percentages as well as monetary values of total willingness to pay for a full fledged ideal dining experience are illustrated in Table 1.

There are interesting differences between a luncheon and a dinner regarding the value that customers place on stimulation. Most striking is the increase in willingness to pay for stimulation of social and intellectual needs (i.e. restaurant interior, service, other guests, and good company) during a dinner compared with a luncheon. This difference comes out even more clearly when we compare the 2 types of restaurants in absolute money terms.

Whereas the willingness to pay for physiological comfort (i.e. to relieve hunger) remains virtually the same, the willingness to pay for intellectual and social stimulation increases dramatically; there is a twofold increase in willingness to pay for fine cuisine, a sixfold increase in willingness to pay for restaurant interior, an eightfold increase for good company and a twelvefold increase in value placed on the importance of other guests (all differences are significant at 1% level of significance).

What numerous projects in this sector have demonstrated is that social persona brand experiences are not about the transaction or purchase process, but more focused on the environment and experience. Although service levels and quality of food are critical, for most brands, they are the cost of entry.
Key MOT are during the queuing process (is it organized and efficient?), at the order desk (is the server friendly and helpful?), the menu board (are the offers clear and easy to understand?), and the order accuracy (did I get what I ordered?). The seating area is a critical MOT and will significantly impact the overall guest experience and how they define the brand.
Our firm recently completed a major rebranding program for a global coffee chain. The learning from the research clearly identified the comfortable soft seating and overall ambiance of the café as being the key unmet consumer need that clearly differentiated this chain from its larger rival.
Social persona behaviors are predicated on the need to create an environment conducive for people to meet and socialize, providing the right balance of privacy, intimacy, and visibility. Effectively communicating to this group of consumers tends to reflect the environment and desired experience, and as such, smaller, more personal promotional material tends to be noticed and read versus large signs.  These consumers are looking for information that will enrich their lives, and story-telling plays a critical role in achieving this need. Communication needs to provide support to maintaining and building the social dialogue within the experience.
Since these types of experiences tend to be linked to food and beverage, washroom walls tend to be very effective vehicles in communicating information or promotional messages. Servers and customer greeters tend to play a critical role in the MOT for this persona as a means to gain further information and promotional offers. Other key communication elements consist of social cause or product story posters and cards as part of the product merchandising adjacent the cash.

The Aspirational Persona
This behavior is based on how the brand experience mirrors the self-esteem image of the consumer, and how the various MOT foster a sense of recognition. This behavior drives the need to be treated as someone special, cared for, and important.
Car dealerships and clothing stores are great examples of environments were the MOT is driven by how the customer is treated as the center of attention throughout the duration of the relationship, from the time they purchase the product to subsequent meetings for service.
The aspirational persona is one of the hardest to market to since all aspects of the MOT are critical, from how the customer is greeted at the door, to the relationship before and after the visit. All are of equal importance and relevant to how customers want to be treated. According to IBM customer experience research, emotive factors are often equal to, or more important than tactile attributes, from a customer’s perspective.

Although reasons for purchase are almost always a combination of factors, in many cases customers attribute emotive reasons, such as dignified treatment, to be as important as fundamental tactile attributes such as price and quality (see Figure 4).

Aspirational brand experiences tend to represent products and services that support the consumer’s need for self-actualization, and the MOT are an integral part of the brand’s cache. However, there are, within this context, higher impact MOT, and there is a need to develop a hierarchy of needs in order to effectively operationalize and provide consistency.
For this persona, the key MOT are focused around the humanization and customization of the service, namely the ability of the marketer to make each of their customers feel as though they are unique, with individual needs and desires.
Leading organizations that we have worked with have leveraged the automated queue system to allow the customer to register their interest to receive service as part of a kiosk that is supported by a company greeter. Knowing that they have been identified as part of a queue sequence allows this group the opportunity to seek additional information or specific product information.
While we often think of the typical queue as a line of people standing in front for staffed service, there are other types of queues that have an impact on MOT.

For example, a queue might be a cluster of people sitting at computer terminals scattered around the globe waiting for dial-up access to their Internet provider, or people responding to automated voice recognition prompts in order to talk to a live customer service representative on the phone. Each of these consumer virtual touch-points has a significant impact on how customers will perceive that given organization, at that given MOT.
Strategies that segment the customers based on the given persona will ensure that in each case, the experience is positive. In the case of knowledge-seeking consumers, the ability to have their questions answered efficiently is critical.

Certain systems allow for the customer to identify their given issue, and a list of prompted responses provides quick responses to the most asked questions while reducing the perceived wait times. Digital signage and interactive tools play a critical role amongst this group in gaining access to the desired information. Again, the use of computer terminals in bookstores is a great example of this.

A key to ensure winning MOT is the ability of the organization to provide effective tools to assess the needs and solutions for its customers, in a way that allows them greater control and involvement.

In this type of persona, the level of privacy and intimacy are critical, while the role of the sales associates needs to evolve to a higher degree of advice and expertise. The ability of the organization to create an experience that is focused on the emotive benefits of the services or products will achieve a greater sense of customer loyalty, and higher sales transaction.
The role of technology is to provide a platform for an enhanced level of personalization and customization for this type of persona. Understanding past needs and being able to project future desires and wants are all part of creating MOT experiences which build on the aspirational needs of this group. The key MOT consist mainly of how the persona perceives the level of intimacy, and as such, the office environment, the knowledge-based material, and the interaction between the sales consultant and the client are critical.

Aligning the Dots

Understanding the importance of aligning the right persona with the right type of relationship model will ensure that organizations identify which MOT is critical. We have provided in the following pages a matrix that clearly identifies typical MOT hierarchy of importance scenarios, in addition to suggested processes, merchandising, and facility factors to take into consideration.
Please note that these models need to be adjusted to better reflect the individual requirements of an organization’s competitive advantage strategy.