![]() It is the skill, the motivation and the tools employed by the firm’s representative and the expectations and behavior of the client which together will create the service delivery process. What happens then can no longer be directly influenced by the company. At that moment they are very much their own. To take a metaphor from bullfighting, we could say that the perceived quality is realized at the moment of truth, when the service provider and the service customer confront one another in the arena. “Most services are the result of social acts which take place in direct contact between the customer and representatives of the service company. With this backdrop, Normann introduces the concept of MOTs. If the customer is not involved, no value is ever created. This is co-creation – the customer and the organization working together to create desired value. Normann is clearly stating that a customer is integral to the value creation process. ![]() Thus the service company not only has to get in contact with the consumers and to interact with them socially it is also necessary to ‘manage’ them as part of the production force.” A haircut, the cashing of a cheque, education – none of these can conceivably be produced without the participation of the consumer. “…the customer is often more than just a customer – he is also a participant in the production of the service. I find it fascinating and affirming that his first reference to MOTs is directly preceded by a discussion about co-creation. Normann’s book Service Management: Strategy and Leadership in Service Business, Third edition (2002) gives us the greatest insight to his thought process regarding MOTs. They also earned the rank of “top Airline” the same year, and held that distinction for many years. By removing MOTs which provided little or no value to their customers, and enabling employees to deliver the best experience possible in those that remained, SAS became profitable again by more than three times the first year target. Jan Carlzon, SAS’s CEO during that time, recounts the turnaround in his book titled Moments of Truth (1987), attesting to the powerful perspective the MOT provides and Normann’s more significant contribution to the effort. Using the MOT concept, Normann was highly instrumental in the turnaround of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) in the early 1980s. Richard Normann (1943-2003) is credited with the first use of the idiom “moment of truth” in a business context. I would go as far as to suggest a slightly different definition – one I think was intended by the first person to use the idiom in these contexts. At a minimum, the customer-experience community needs to agree on a more unified definition. I contend there is too much ambiguity for the term to be useful in the context of a professional discussion. Yet another criteria is a touchpoint that shows the greatest likelihood the customer will “fall off”, or is most likely to end the business relationship. ![]() Some identify various touchpoints where significant value is or is not realized. Some say the MOT is at the beginning when the customer decides to accept (or reject) the firm’s offer, while others point to the end of the transaction when they determine whether the whole experience was good or bad. However, the criteria for what’s “significant” depends on who you talk to. It is generally agreed that customer interactions are called “touchpoints,” and MOTs are the more significant touchpoints. As I have visited with many in the community, I’ve discovered there are various definitions for MOTs in relation to the customer journey. The term “moment of truth” (MOT) is not new to me and I was happy to learn it was an integral part of the customer-experience community vocabulary.
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