I have been thinking about moments of truth in service industries. In particular, I have been thinking about getting the job done – in the sense of maintaining the effort to completion.

In service industries, a moment of truth occurs whenever there is an interaction between your customer and your company. Sometimes these are called touchpoints. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to please, excite, or delight your customer. Or confuse and disappoint. 

My family moved back to Auckland in 2017, packing up a household in Melbourne, and having our lives shipped in 100 boxes and a 20′ container. I had spent some time considering my removalist options, in the end selecting the same company we had used for our move from Singapore to Melbourne some two years earlier. Not on price, but on remembered satisfaction with their service.

If you have used a relocation service, I am sure you have your own stories of breakages, precious items lost, or hidden extra costs. I have no such stories. The packing was efficient and smooth. Nothing was lost or broken. The time the container was on the water took longer than we had hoped, but I have nothing but praise for the staff, both front of house, and back of house, in getting things packed, shipped, processed at both ends, and then delivered. We had a dedicated concierge to help us through the process. A well oiled, coordinated machine.

The issue was once those 100 boxes were emptied. And the small mountain of packing paper. The removalist committed to take the boxes and packing paper away after we had unpacked. “We’ll collect them when we next have someone in the neighbourhood” was what we were told by the guys who unloaded the container. We were totally unpacked inside a week, and let the moving company know. We carefully broke down the boxes, keeping a few intact to hold the packing paper. We stored the boxes and paper in the garage to keep them dry, building them in a shape replicating the outline of the car so that everything would fit.

And there the boxes sat. And sat. The moving company no longer appeared to care about us. The concierge was no longer helpful. As far as they were concerned, the job was done. And, realistically, people don’t move so often that the passion with which we were greeted up front needs to be maintained forever.

Jan Carlzon, in his 1985 book Moments of Truth, taught the importance of ensuring each and every one of those touchpoints with the company needed to be as customer-focused as possible. This is what delivers remembered satisfaction. The first and the last interactions are the most powerful, and stick the longest, and are most easily remembered when you think of that company at some point in the future. This is straightforward stuff. So why do so many service companies get it so wrong? Why is ignoring the tail end of the customer process such a common fault?

When considering touchpoints, you need to think from the customer perspective. Mapping your processes until you think they are complete is often less than half the job. Follow your processes through until the customer thinks the job is done, and then look what you can do even further after that. 

My removalist clearly thought their job finished when the container was emptied and the boxes and furniture moved into the house. As the customer though, I didn’t think the job was done. For me, the job was done when those empty boxes were taken away, a month and a few emails later. And I never heard from them again.

They missed the opportunity to cement in what would become great remembered satisfaction. Instead, my story is one of (slight) disappointment.

Moments of truth need to be complete, end to end. And they need to be consistent. For a high-touch business to suddenly change their engagement to being impersonal lacks authenticity. If you have a concierge service, that service needs to be in place until the customer says the job is done. If your service is personal, it should remain personal.  

Customer satisfaction levels can be an important metric someone wanting to buy your business will want to examine. Low scores can markedly decrease the value of your business when you sell.

How complete are your service touchpoints?