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I just heard an excellent motivational speaker, Antonio Neves, and one of his messages was called “The Last 30 Days.” He talked about visiting a marriage counselor with his wife, where they were asked to consider the question: Looking back over the last 30 days, if you asked your spouse to marry you again, would they say yes?
He then spun that question to business and specifically talked about employment. That version goes like this: Looking back over the last 30 days, would your boss rehire you?
When I do annual reviews of my team, one of the questions I ask myself is, “Based on the past year, would I be excited to hire this employee again?” It’s the same type of question. The point is that we validate our decisions based on our experiences in both our personal and professional lives.
So, let’s take it to the customer service and CX world. However, we aren’t going to look back for a year or even 30 days. We aren’t going to look back at all. We’re going to look at what’s happening right now, at this very moment. My version of this is what I refer to as the
Loyalty Question: What am I doing right now that will make this customer want to do business with us again the next time they need what we sell?
Every interaction with a customer becomes your CX judgment day, especially when there is a problem or complaint. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve done business and how perfect the experience has been. The moment there is a negative issue, it becomes judgment day. Someone could have done business with you for 10 years, but when a problem or friction arises, that moment is your opportunity to earn the right to continue to do business with that customer for another 10 years.
The point of all these ideas – 30 days, one year, or even today – is about managing the moment, whether it be multiple moments over an extended period or the moment you’re experiencing right now. We must be focused and attentive to what’s happening at that moment. Jan Carlson, who I’ve written about and talked about since the beginning of my career, came up with the ultimate concept for successfully managing these interactions. He calls it the Moment of Truth, and this is how he defines it: Anytime a customer comes into contact with any aspect of a business, however remote, they have an opportunity to form an impression.
Manage every moment! These are the interactions that make our customers say, “I’ll be back!”
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