In 1986 Jan Carlzon, the former president of Scandinavian Airlines wrote a book, Moments of Truth<\/i><\/b>.\u00a0 In his book, Carlzon defines the moment of truth in business as this:<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime a customer comes into contact with any aspect of a business, however remote, is an opportunity to form an impression.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
From this simple concept, Jan Carlzon took an airline that was failing and turned it around to be one of the most respected airlines in the industry.<\/p>\n
Some examples of moments of truth in Jan Carlzon\u2019s airline business are:<\/p>\n
when you call to make a reservation to take a flight,<\/p>\n
when you arrive at the airport and check your bags curbside,<\/p>\n
when you go inside and pick up your ticket at the ticket counter,<\/p>\n
when you are greeted at the gate,<\/p>\n
when you are taken care of by the flight attendants on board the aircraft,<\/p>\n
and when you are greeted at your destination.<\/p>\n
All of these are main moments of truth, and notice that they are all controlled by people.\u00a0 There are many moments of truth that are not controlled by people, such as advertisements (radio, television, billboards, newspapers, etc.).\u00a0 The emphasis of this article is on the moments of truth that we, as people, have control over.\u00a0 These are the points of contact that our customers and clients have directly with us and our organization.<\/p>\n
Mentioned above are a number of the main moments of truth, not just at Jan Carlzon\u2019s airline, but in virtually all commercial airlines.\u00a0 These are the main<\/i> ones.\u00a0 And while these may be the most important, there are lots of small ones as well.\u00a0 For example, you might be walking toward your gate at the airport and walk by a couple Scandinavian employees.\u00a0 They look up and smile at you.\u00a0 Now that may be a small moment of truth, but it is an important one.\u00a0 It adds to the total experience of the customer.<\/p>\n
Disney has taken the small moments of truth to an even higher level.\u00a0 They understand the importance that these small moments of truth have on their customers.\u00a0 They train their cast members (Disney\u2019s term for employees) to acknowledge the guest (Disney\u2019s term for a customer) with a smile or facial expression if within ten feet.\u00a0 If the cast member gets within five feet of the guest, they are to acknowledge them verbally.\u00a0 All of the little moments of truth, combined with the major ones, with the addition of the product or service your organization is selling, add up to the overall level of a customer\u2019s satisfaction.<\/p>\n
Jan Carlzon said there are good moments of truth and bad moments of truth.\u00a0 I believe there is a third type – average moments of truth.\u00a0 Average is middle-of-the-road – simply acceptable, but not great.\u00a0 I have a term for the good and bad ones.\u00a0 The bad ones are referred to as m<\/i>oments of misery<\/i>, and the good ones are referred to as moments<\/i> of magic<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Our goal should be to create all great moments of magic, even if they start out to be moments of misery.\u00a0 Sometimes a customer may have a legitimate complaint.\u00a0 We not only need to fix problems and complaints, we also need to give customers a reason to want to come back and continue to do business with us again and again.\u00a0 Even if we fix a problem, it doesn\u2019t mean the customer is coming back.\u00a0 For example, if you own a restaurant and one of your guest\u2019s meals is over cooked, don\u2019t simply fix it or take it off of the bill.\u00a0 Consider giving the guest a business card with a note that gives him or her a round of drinks or a free appetizer the next time<\/i> they come back.<\/p>\n
At times these moments of misery may not even be our fault.\u00a0 The customer may just be having a terrible day.\u00a0 For example, a customer may be checking into a hotel.\u00a0 This person may have had three flights delayed and he or she is in a very bad mood.\u00a0 It is not the hotel\u2019s fault the customer is unhappy due to the airline\u2019s delayed flights.\u00a0 But, it is the person who is checking in this irate customer who has the opportunity to start to turn the customer\u2019s mood around.\u00a0 It is an opportunity to take someone else\u2019s moment of misery and turn it into the hotel\u2019s moment of magic.<\/p>\n
So, manage your moments of truth.\u00a0 Seize every one of them, even if they are moments of misery, as opportunities to show how good you and your organization are.\u00a0 This will go a long way in building long-term customer loyalty and total customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n
(Copyright \u00a9<\/em>MMXIII, Shep Hyken)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1986 Jan Carlzon, the former president of Scandinavian Airlines wrote a book, Moments of Truth.\u00a0 In his book, Carlzon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1542,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1246,1244,1245],"class_list":["post-11718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-customer-satisfaction","tag-moments-of-magic","tag-moments-of-truth"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11718"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11769,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11718\/revisions\/11769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}