We recently moved to Concord, Massachusetts and needed a little remodeling done. Our realtor recommended Dave Caccavaro, a local contractor. With some trepidation we told him what we needed and gave him the go-ahead. But would the work get done as promised? Would we ever hear from Dave? Our fears proved groundless. Dave stopped in every day and called us each evening to tell us what to expect the next day. The work was done in a week.
I opened a business account at the Fleet Bank in Concord and asked them to set up a credit card merchant account for Sounding Line. The bank told me the relevant party would call me soon. They called the next day and then figured out how they could suit their policies to my tiny, new business.
Concord Travel, just down the street, was happy to provide travel services along with 24x7 help desk support. The Mail Boxes Etc. shop calls me whenever an overnight letter appears — in case I might need to know. My independent agent, Dennis Lex, sent me a note telling me to ignore a premium notice from Safety since my check and their bill had crossed in the mail.
I'm sure you're very happy for me, but what's the point?
In 1987, Jan Carlzon, president of Scandinavian Airlines, published a thin book called Moments of Truth. In it he described his efforts to make SAS customer-driven. At the time, John Naisbitt (Megatrends), Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence), and others lavished praise on the book and the author's transformation of the airline.
Carlzon helped us all realize that businesses face moments of truth and are judged whenever they interact with their customers. How the phone is answered, what the invoices look like, the friendliness of a CSR, accuracy on a quote are all moments of truth. A decade ago, consumers expected moments of truth to routinely go bad. At that time, Carlzon was a prophet of sanity and good business practice.
Fast-forward 14 years. What once seemed unusual, odd, and exemplary has now become the norm. Businesses of all sizes — and even some governmental institutions — have become customer-driven. We're all beneficiaries of this amazing social transformation.
That's why it's particularly jarring to run into an agency that looks inward rather than outward; that flubs its moments of truth; that is pre-occupied with itself rather than with its customers.
A friend reported to me recently that when he tried to reach a principal of an independent agency (not yours), the receptionist repeatedly insisted on parking him in voice mail, without explanation, and wouldn't acknowledge his pleas for something more responsive. He wanted to report that the agent's Web site was broken. It used Flash, Macromedia's multimedia tool. When my friend tried to access the agency home page, his computer froze and had to be re-booted. The receptionist and Web site experience suggest an agency that is self-centered and arrogant rather than customer-driven.
Web sites are moments of truth, par excellence. An agency's Web site is for the benefit of its customers. It is not a sand box for agency Web dilettantes. If someone in an agency wants a vanity site, they should be encouraged to set up their own on their own time.
Out-facing services — that is, using the Web to provide insurance services directly to the public — offer an incredible opportunity to express a customer-driven attitude and deliver satisfying moments of truth through a new channel. You know that. Maybe your competitors don't. Too bad for them.
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