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How One Moment of Truth Builds Customer Loyalty through the Behaviors of Your Employees

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Do you know what a moment of truth really is? Do you truly understand how to build customer loyalty? Read a story that clearly reveals how you can build loyal customers through very, almost insignificant actions.

How One Moment of Truth Builds Customer Loyalty through the Behaviors of Your Employees

Jan Carlzon, one time president of Scandinavian Airlines, defined moments of truth as any interaction between your customers and your employees. These experiences can be further separated into what are called by some as Points of Connection that are anything your customers see, hear, touch, taste, feel or smell.

Recognizing that acquiring a new customer costs 6 to 7 times more than keeping an existing one and the cost to replace an employee ranges from one to three times the annual salary, common sense should tell most businesses that customer loyalty is a no brainer. This leads to the question of how are your employees building customer loyalty?

Here is a story that I just found that explains a real life experience. Of course you can find others in Carlzon’s book Moments of Truth.

Lesson from a Rainy Day (Author Unknown)

August 26, 1999 is a day that many New Yorkers would probably like to forget. However, this New Yorker will always remember that day because that is the day that I learned what a powerful gift appreciation can truly be.

On August 26, 1999, New York City experienced a torrential downpour. The relentless rain caused the streets to flood. New York City's subway system came to a screeching halt as the subway stations were inundated with water. Unfortunately, this happened during the morning rush hour. Many people who were going to work were stranded and forced to go home. Some battled with fellow New Yorkers to hail a
cab or to get on a bus. Still others braved the storm, walking miles to get to work. I happened to be one of people on her way to work that morning. I went from subway line to subway line only to find that most service had stopped. After running around like crazy and making my way through crowds of people, I finally found a subway line that was operating. Unfortunately, there were so many people waiting to board the subway that I could not even get down the stairs to the platform. Undaunted and determined to get to work, I decided to take the train uptown several stops and then switch back to the downtown train. It was a hassle, but it paid off. However, the train got more packed at each stop. People pushed and shoved. I was constantly hit with elbows and bags.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the train reached my stop. But the journey was not over yet. I would still have to walk several blocks to get to my office. The rain had intensified, and no umbrella was enough to withstand the forces of Mother Nature. When I finally got to work, I was completely soaked and left a puddle of water everywhere I sat. I was also exhausted and discouraged from my commute. My coworkers and I spent most of the day drying off.

When 5:00 rolled around, I was ready to go home. I was about to log off my computer when I received an email from Garth, my Deputy Director. I opened the email and found the following message: I would like to thank all those associates who made the effort and eventually reported to work. It is always reassuring, at times like these, when employees so clearly demonstrate their dedication to their jobs. Thank you.

As you can see, Garth's email was short, but I learned more from that brief message than I ever did from a textbook. The email taught me that a few words of appreciation can make a big difference. The rainstorm and the transit troubles had made me miserable and weary. But Garth's words immediately invigorated me and put a smile back on my face. Garth's actions also made me realize that words of appreciation not only make you feel good but it also motivates and inspires you. After reading his email, I felt that coming to work that day was an accomplishment that I should be proud of. Suddenly getting drenched and the extremely long commute did not seem so bad. As a matter of fact, his email made the whole subway ordeal all worthwhile.

Wow, just a short email message acknowledging an employee’s dedication created an incredibly strong moment of truth. Additional employee retention research suggests that simple and authentic acknowledgments such as:

Thank you for your efforts,
A job well done,
You are a valued member of this team

Are far more emotionally powerful than any monetary incentive. People want to be acknowledged and affirmed for making the right decision on the job. And the beauty of this is that it doesn’t cost anything. In this case, the cost was less than 30 seconds to send an email to everyone who had come to work.

Customer Loyalty Coaching Tip: Appreciation is a value. The behavior of sending an email demonstrated that value. If you want to build customer loyalty both internally (employees) and externally (paying customers), then return to your values statement (you do have one don’t you?) and identify the specific behaviors linked to those values. From my experience, this is not necessarily easy because many do not connect specific behaviors to specific values. However, the desired end results of saving thousands of dollars in new client acquisition costs to employee retention costs is well worth the investment of your time, energy and any dollars.

Related Articles
  Is It's Never Too Late or Early to Build Customer Loyalty
  Secret Shoppers and Moments of Truth Build Customer Loyalty
  Management Win-Wins - Challenging Personal Perceptions
  Simplicity & Dignity
  3 Strategies to Achieve an Effective and Responsive Sales and Service Culture

Article Tags: annual salary, brainer, building customer loyalty, common sense, crowds of people, customer costs, hail, life experience, moments of truth, morning rush hour, new yorker, rainy day, relentless rain, scandinavian airlines, screeching halt, subway line, subway stations, subway system, time president, torrential downpour



Related Forum Posts
Re: From Sales to Marketing - Loyalty, Glad to know a little about you. Yes, this forum holds quite a bit of useful information. We hope you will join into the conversations and get to know us. Welcome!
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
Re: Ways to Boost Productivity - 1. Give Employees More Than a Paycheck 2. Provide Better eSupport Channels to Promote Self-Service 3. Complete your most dreaded tasks first thing in the morning. 4. Outsource as much as possible 5. . Turn off the TV.
Me Too - So.... - I write. Its a form of 'pull' marketing that suits me, though I'm quite an outgoing person. I know all the stuff about it not being me, 'they're just not ready yet'. Truth is I'm not good with rejection and will walk if I get too much of it - so I do it differently. Each to his own I guess. Still, I wish I had the guts to do those 500, just to say 'I did it'! Will read that article!
CEOs and Email - Slaves? - I wonder if the emails they are responding to are filtered thru their assistants first 'cos they seem to spend a lot of their off hours responding to them. True they are successful but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that price. I'd be interested to know what's the in the typical day planner of Entrepreneurs on the Forum. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than Paid Employees- so it would be interesting to view the contrast.


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