CUSTOMERS.COM® RESEARCH FROM THE PATRICIA SEYBOLD GROUP
Helping Customers Find and Purchase Your Products/Services
Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in Select & Buy Customer Scenario® Patterns
By Ronni T. Marshak, July 17, 2008
NETTING IT OUT
Although each customer situation is different, there are patterns
to customer scenarios that focus on the same type of outcome—for example,
selecting and buying a new product or service. In most “select & buy” scenarios,
the customer typically has four key things that she wants:
•
It’s easy to get what I want
•
I have enough information to make me feel good about my selection
•
It’s easy to order
•
I can get it when I need it
We call these the customer’s “Moments of Truth”—aka “showstoppers”—if
you don’t address these issues crisply, you risk losing your customer
forever.
Once you recognize the common moments of truth, you can identify the types
of customer metrics and operational metrics that measure how successful you
are at meeting your customers’ ultimate goals for doing business with
you. Then you can focus your co-design activities on how to differentiate
the experience, products, and services you offer to help customers reach
those goals.
Identifying the metrics allows you to recognize:
•
How the customer will be “grading” you
•
How you grade yourself in helping the customer be successful
•
How you can identify and measure business opportunities that can result from
providing a great customer experience
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A TYPICAL “SELECT & BUY” CUSTOMER SCENARIO
Similar for Products and Services, B2B and B2C
Whether you are choosing products and services for yourself or for your business,
you want the process to be easy—easy to make the right choice, easy
to justify that choice, and easy to actually order that choice. You want
the process to go so smoothly that there are no bad memories when you ultimately
use your products or services.
Moments of Truth in Select & Buy
Before we can use any product or service, we have to decide what to buy and
actually order it. Therefore, the select & buy scenario is probably the
most common scenario for all customers. Although there are always variations
on a theme (based on specific customer type, specific service or product
line, industry, and context), there are four key moments of truth that are
part of every select & buy scenario, as shown in Illustration 1:
•
I want it to be easy to get what I want.
•
I have enough information to make me feel good about my selection.
•
I want it to be easy to order.
•
I want to get it when I need it.
Moments of Truth in Select & Buy Scenarios
© 2008 Patricia Seybold Group
Illustration 1. In select & buy scenarios, whether for products or services, or B2B or B2C, there are four key moments of truth.
CONDITIONS OF SATISFACTION FOR MOMENTS OF TRUTH. Although these moments
of truth are virtually universal in this type of scenario, sometimes
they are expressed in a slightly different way depending on the Conditions
of Satisfaction for the customer. Conditions of satisfaction are things
that have to happen in my specific context and scenario to make me
happy; sometimes they are expressed as emotions (how I feel about what’s
happening). In a select and buy scenario, there are a couple of conditions
of satisfaction, which, although they aren’t universal, often
emerge (see Illustration 3):
•
Moment of Truth: I want it to be easy to get what I want.
Condition of Satisfaction: I can get the configuration that I want.
•
Moment of Truth: I have enough information to make me feel good about my selection.
Condition of Satisfaction: I can easily get approval to make the purchase.
How Customers Measure Their Moments of Truth
Once these moments of truth (and conditions of satisfaction) are identified,
the next step is to define the metrics that will indicate whether or not
a moment of truth is successfully met. Again, although metrics are very specific
to the particular goals and context of the scenario, there are patterns of
metrics that correspond to each identifiable moment of truth. Table A shows
representative metrics for the select & buy moments of truth (see also
Illustration 4).
Metrics are often defined in terms of time (how long something takes), money
(how much it costs vis-à-vis budget), distance (how far away), and
effort (how many phone calls, how many people needed to be involved, how
many mouse clicks to desired result). Other measurements might be more difficult
to define, when the moment of truth is more of an intangible goal. For example,
one of our classic examples is a car buying scenario where a moment of truth
for the customer was “I know my car is cool.” The metric surfaced
for this moment of truth was: “My husband asks to borrow the car at
least once a week.”
This report continues...
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