Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. - Bill Gates
It's not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It's the customer who pays the wages. - Henry Ford
More business is lost every year through neglect, than through any other cause. - Jim Cathcart
There is only one boss - the Customer. And he can fire anybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. - Sam Walton
In the early ‘80s, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) was having a tough time competing. Jan Carlzon, then president of the airline wanted to focus on improving services among other areas he found broken. In 1984 he coined the phrase “moments of truth,” in a book of the same name, to describe those incredibly valuable service interactions customers have with companies. His strategy was to manage, in a unique way, those “never-to-be-repeated opportunities” to distinguish SAS from its competitors. And it worked; SAS was turned around in record time and became one of the best-run airlines around the world. Moments of truth became the mantra of those focused on customer service. Companies like Nordstrom became famous for their fabulous treatment of customers, and their results showed the benefits of service as they were able to generate better than average profit and revenue growth than their competitors.
Nearly two decades later, after Billions of investments in new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and other service systems, it seems like many of the important lessons learned have been forgotten or ignored. Interactions with companies today feel much more like “moments of denial” than opportunities to win a customer for life. What happened? Was Jan wrong? Is customer service irrelevant in this seemingly impersonal internet era?
