Moment of Truth

The term 'Moment of Truth' was coined by Jan Carlzon, who managed the Scandinavian SAS Airlines. He used the term to mean those moments in which important brand impressions are formed and where there is significant opportunity for good or bad impressions to be made.

Moments of Truth often happen when they are not thought to occur, in odd interfaces with staff and moments with products. First impressions are often critical moments. When customers have certain expectations and they are disappointed, then they can form very negative impressions or feel a sense of betrayal that sends them into destructive desires for retribution.

There are two fundamental ideas behind the use of Moments of Truth in management practices.

• The elimination of all UNNECESSARY Moments of Truth – everywhere.
• The repeatable delivery of Moments of Magic for each Moment of Truth that cannot otherwise be eliminated.

 What are Moments of Truth in Process?

From the process perspective, Moments of Truth exist anywhere the customer touches the process or the process touches the customer. Any contact with the customer – any contact – is a Moment of Truth.

Identifying, eliminating and improving Moments of Truth can be a daunting task for many organizations. It requires an organization to move away from the ingrained internal perspective to the external perspective – the Outside-In perspective of the customer.

Identifying Moments of Truth will – without a doubt – lead to the discovery that many of our processes are fundamentally flawed. The elimination of unnecessary Moments of Truth will impose change on the organization, although the good news is that the resistance to this change will not come from the front lines. They are already living with the flaws in our processes so removing those flaws will typically be well received and often has knock-on effects of improved morale, loyalty and job satisfaction.

For many managers the story is much different.  The change that identifying Moments of Truth (then challenging them) brings to them will often require a fundamental shift in how they perceive the purpose of the organization, their job function, and their entire way of directing, overseeing and supporting their staff.  While for some managers and executive managers this is a much needed breath of fresh air, for many it is simply one more thing to be discounted, ignored, and tacitly resisted.

If once the Moment of Truth is lost badly, it will be very difficult to make people recover back from this.

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