Managing service moments of truth

Introduction
In a recent interaction with some MBA students, some key issues to explain the less than excellent service culture in Ghana came up. One problematic observation that came up was the fact that superior customer service is mostly advanced to people who are well-known in society or to individuals with family or relational connections to the service provider. This leaves people without any social ‘class’ not enjoying superior customer service.

Other issues that came up included poor performance of frontline personnel in their interactions with external customers; to quote “if your frontline officers are not held accountable for customer service, there is no reason for them to try harder to make sure customers are happy. They may always have the opportunity to place the blame elsewhere and know they can never get in trouble for letting a customer leave unhappy”.

Other responses I received in respect to a question I posed on what cultural barriers exist to the attainment of superior customer service in Ghana included: failures to resolve a complaint at first point of contact and restricting the channel that customers can utilise in order to make contact with service firms.

The explanation that was advanced to explain the issues of failures to resolve a complaint at first point of contact and restricting the channel that customers can utilise in order to make contact with service firms are captured next: Ghanaians are increasingly becoming a self-serve generation and will typically contact an organisation only when they have a problem. As such, contact centre call volumes are going down but call durations are increasing. With complaints becoming more complex, the ability to solve complaints or route them to the people who can help is a key issue for service companies to deal with.

The students therefore proposed that organisations must make it easy for customers to get their complaint resolved via the channel of their choice; whether by letter, email, telephone or social media platforms. Companies that force their customers to use cumbersome web forms or expensive phone lines to contact customer services are making two giant mistakes: first, they are actively discouraging customers from accessing the help they need to resolve any problems quickly; and second, they are missing out on the chance to gather precious customer insights that could help them to improve their own internal processes.

A common thread that runs through the observations of my students in the proposals they advance for an improved service culture in Ghana was the need to better manage moments of truth in public, private and not-for-profit organisations in Ghana. Moments of truth are of paramount importance for every service firm. They can make or break an organisation’s relationship with its customers. A moment of truth is a ten to fifteen second opportunity to make a first-time positive and lasting impression in every service encounter. It basically captures the instant when a customer and a service provider come into contact with one another in a manner that gives customers an opportunity to either form or change his existing opinion or an impression about the service firm.

First impressions are very difficult to change once they are formed, and become almost impossible to break. Take for an example a customer who visits a bank for the first time and is delighted. It is highly probable that the customer will carry a favourable service impression of that bank wherever he/she goes, and it be very difficult for any other person to convince him or her to change the perception about quality of service in that bank.

Similarly, a customer who carries away the impression that the service personnel of a bank are rude and irresponsible might refuse to let go of that perception. It should be noted that perception is sometime equated to truth in marketing, and service firms need to take advantage of the presence of first-time customers who visit and convert them into permanent customers by delighting them the first time.

McKinsey (the world-renowned strategy firm) has noted that given the clear link between moments of truth and share of wallet, every customer-facing business should identify the points of interaction relevant to its industry. In airlines, for example, there are about 30 of these potential service interactions -- from reservations and upgrade requests to check-in, boarding procedures, and baggage handling.

All offer the potential for moments when something goes so badly wrong that a customer defects. Only a few can provide positive moments -- opportunities to intensify the customer's loyalty to a carrier. McKinsey also notes that pure technological solutions can never stoke the emotional connection between employee and customer -- the kind of connection that characterises positive moments in complex frontline situations, and that when technology falls short frontline employees can succeed with the right skills and competencies, as well as an appropriate range of deep-seated emotional and psychological assumptions.

In the light of the importance of moments of truth in the achievement of customer service excellence, I propose that it is very important that forward-looking service entities take cognisance of five special moments of truth. The first moment of truth can be defined as the buy or no buy moment. A customer’s previous exposure to service will determine if he or she will patronise the service for a second time; thus when a customer is at the point of making a purchase, he or she will think about the last proposed purchase for the very last time and decide one way or the other. Customers have been in various situations where they back out from experiencing a service because they were not sure if the purchase would be worth their time and effort.

The moment of truth that’s considered special is what we call the value for money moment. This is the moment in the service encounter process when the customer makes an assessment about the value of the service. Service organisations must be aware that customers always want value for money. If the price for a service is low but the perceived value of the service offering is even lower, then the customer is left in a disadvantageous position.

If on the other hand the price is set at a premium but the perceived value is also superlative and exceeds customer’s expectations, the customer will be satisfied or even delighted. If the customer’s encounter at this point is negative, the likelihood of the customer purchasing is very minimal. Service firms must make sure to deliver on the promises they make to their customers because they raise the expectations of customers; if promises are not kept, customers become dissatisfied and eventually defect.

The next type of special moment of truth is the repurchase moment. This is when the customer who may be an individual customer or business-to-business customer makes the decision to purchase again. Many organisations might obtain a better deal when re-buying from a particular service entity. This moment quickly follows the value for money moment. The fourth moment of truth is the referral moment.

The referral moment is when the customer willingly gives you the name and contact details of someone new to approach for a sale. These details may be given directly to the service provider or the customer may tell another customer to try the same service provider. The referral moment implies that you have achieved high levels of satisfaction with your immediate customer. This is very similar to the notion in services called service discipleship, whereby you create disciples out of an excellent service and they become those who propagate the gospel according to that particular service.

The last type of special moment of truth is what is referred to as the bad news moment: this is when a customer senses that he or she is about to receive bad news. For example, a customer waiting at the airport to board a flight and receives news that the plane has been delayed; it’s called the bad news moment and its very important that service marketers manage this very well.

Service firms in Ghana who want to better-manage moments of truth could borrow from some of these McKinsey insights: first, create meaning and clarity of purpose for people in frontline work, thereby addressing their thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs, and emotional needs. Second, improve the capabilities of employees -- and influence their mind-sets -- so that they acquire the right emotional skills.

Third, service firms must put structures, reward systems, and processes in place to back up a company-wide emphasis on expertly managing moment-of-truth encounters; companies should modify their performance-management systems to strike a balance between financial results and the things that really matter at moments of truth.

Finally, progressive service institutions must enlist frontline leaders to serve as role-models and teach emotionally intelligent behaviour. McKinsey argues that some of the tough issues to be addressed by organisational role-models include teaching front line personnel to identify opportunities so as to improve the customer experience and the company's performance; coaching and having tough conversations with employees; and facilitating frontline, store-based training --particularly by creating an environment where employees can learn from "positive deviants". (This term, coined by Richard Tanner Pascale and Jerry Sternin, refers to employees who excel in an imperfect system.)

For the full expose, see Robert’s book on Service Marketing Excellence

By: Robert E. Hinson
The writer is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Ghana Business School and writes on behalf of the Centre for Sustainability and Enterprise Development (CSED) at the same School. Robert holds doctorate degrees in Marketing and International Business Economics and can be reached at [email protected]