Moments of Truth
Moments of Truth was adopted (2005) by P&G CEO A.G. Lafley as a strategy related to marketing, but, earlier, was associated with Jan Carlson in his time as CEO of SAS airline in the 1980s. In today's parlance, a Moment of Truth often has a "make or break" feel to its use, e.g. a critical game or season where the team has to win/improve or expect to see a coach fired or big personnel changes in the offseason.
The customer journey has been studied meticulously of late. But what about the Moments of Truth (MOT) on that journey? Nash defines Moments of Truth as any interaction or contact that occurs between a customer or guest and a brand, be it a product or a service. Any opportunity, from which the customer or guest opinion on the brand is influenced. Moments of Truth change the status quo between customer and brand, always affecting it, even ever slightly, and resulting in either a stronger or weaker (more positive or more negative) relationship between the two.
It's critical to understand which Moments of Truth are the most important for each guest. But just as vital, we also must understand who is accountable for each Moment of Truth.
Nash says it's like a production, “All of them, at some instance, have the stage lights on them and are the most critical actor in the production.” The "all of them" he's referring to are the venue owner and management, the suite host, the team, the F&B partner, and those responsible for parking, security, maintenance and cleaning, and ticketing taking. All are in the same production, but are they reading from the same script? Can you answer that questionfor your venue?
CUSTOMER SERVICE VS. HOSPITALITY
Nash dissected two common buzzwords frequently used interchangeably: Customer service is what you do for a person, while hospitality is how you make someone feel. Someone's been reading Ms. Angelou. In the context of luxury suites and premium seating in your venue, is such distinction between customer service and hospitality made and assigned?
While staff are present throughout an event to handle logistics, are they empowered or are just task-oriented? And if all bear some autonomous responsibility for guest experience, three questions should be answered, and implications laid out:
- Who do your hospitality hosts work for?
- Is the philosophy the same for internal staff, as it is for F&B, security, parking, maintenance, and ticket-taking staff?
- How much does each staffer interact with the guests in your premium spaces?
Photos of Lexus Club at Target Center by Alex Grigsby