Focusing Your Workforce On The Moment Of Truth

Deliver A Legendary Customer Experience Through Your Workforce

In the last few years, retail customers have experienced dramatic changes in their lifestyles. Fluctuations in the economy have eroded their net worth, eliminated job security and changed their spending habits. What spending power they do have now has a greater significance in terms of emotional impact than ever before. They have been forced to look broadly for bargains and value. To do that, they have been trying new brands and, in some cases, done without. Even as the economy begins its slow thaw and retail customers return to the brands they once frequented, they do so with new expectations.

What Makes Up A Great Customer Experience?

A great customer experience is a highly orchestrated journey of retailer actions with the goal of maximizing their impact at the time the customer is about to make a decision. While the buying decision is the decision retailers care about most, the reality is the customer journey is made up of many decisions, and we call each of these decisions a “moment of truth”. Just as there are multiple decision points, there are also multiple paths the consumer may take – and it is not always a linear journey. Think of it more like a scene on a stage, where the set must be laid out correctly, each actor must know her lines and the supporting props must be in place for the show to be a success. This requires the retailer to understand the customer journey as a whole, to understand the moments of truth along the way and to have a plan to staff the associates in the right place at the right time and armed with the right knowledge to maximize the chance of conversion, up sell and cross sell.