Moments of Truth and Creating Community Well-Being

What is a Moment of Truth

The term “moment of truth” is used quite a bit in marketing. We’ve adopted this term to recognise the impact that our carers have when they do something special for a customer. We use the term in a way that is very similar to how it was used by Jan Carlzon in a book entitled (would you believe) Moments of Truth. I should wholeheartedly recommend this work to you if you are even vaguely interested in inspiring leadership stories. Carlzon recounts the way he turned around a failing Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in the early to mid-1980s.

Carlzon became Chief Executive Officer of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in 1981 and transformed its fortunes. When he took up his post, the company was losing about $20 million, a year later it turned a profit of about $54 million. He did this by concentrating on the customer experience. He managed to get most of his workforce to buy into his vision. SAS developed an unrelenting, uncompromising, obsessive customer focus.

I have taken this a step further. When a moment of truth occurs carers have placed upon them a privileged duty. I have explained privileged duties thus;

"It is a duty, but one that is unenforceable. I can walk away from it. I can ignore it. The world will probably be no worse if I ignore it. However; the world generally, my community more particularly and the group of people to whom my duty is owed more especially still, may benefit from my acting on my duty. My acting for the benefit of others – and in the circumstances outlined I am the only person who can act in this way and bring about this benefit – benefits everyone, including me. It adds something to the store of individual and community well-being. And being able to do that, indeed, is a privilege."

Carlzon explained that a moment of truth occurred when a customer had an interaction with an SAS employee. He estimated that each day there were about 50, 000 of these moments of truth, probably lasting no more than 15 seconds. He called them moments of truth because this moment in time is an opportunity for an SAS employee to provide a customer with a peak experience. It is, of course, equally an opportunity to leave customers feeling deflated. In short, then, a moment of truth is a brief moment in time when an employee can delight or deflate a customer.

Caremark Thanet’s Moments of Truth

As a domiciliary care provider, we have hundreds of moments of truth each day and almost inevitably some of these interactions will provide carers with the opportunity to delight or deflate customers. When carers delight customers, it gives us wonderful opportunities to recognise the fantastic work that they do. We invite customers and their families to tell us about the special things our carers do. We also invite our carers themselves to tell us about the things they or their colleagues have done. Each month we choose three winners. Each winner receives either our gold, silver or bronze moments of truth award.

Some of our moments of truth winners

What delights a customer can be something that may seem quite small. That does not mean that it is without monumental significance to the customer concerned. The customer who is anxious because he can’t get out to post his weekly letter to his sister will be delighted when his carer walks twenty yards to the post box to ensure his letter is sent. Of course, the actions of some of our carers are, occasionally, far from small.

Creating Community Well-Being: Transforming Domiciliary Care

We did not call our recognition awards moments of truth just because we thought it sounded good – it does sound good by the way. We chose it because it says something fundamental about the type of company we are. We are not an ordinary domiciliary care provider. We are different. We are different because by our activities we are creating community well-being and transforming domiciliary care. And to do this we need people who buy in whole-heartedly to our belief that creating community well-being and transforming domiciliary care are the right things to do. Our Moment of Truth awards also recognise the fact that award winners have responded to the duties they owe to other carers, customers and our community in general. 

Creating Community Well-Being

The people who care for our customers are special people. We expect our carers to buy into our vision of a world where their actions can have a very positive effect on the well-being of the community in general.

We live in an interconnected world. By providing outstanding care to our customers - something upon which we will never compromise - we are making a significant contribution to the store of community well-being. But we do far more. We do far more by making further contributions to the store of community well-being. We do this in many ways. One way is by providing fantastic opportunities for our carers to progress personally and professionally.

We believe in communities; in the Thanet community and the wider East Kent community. We believe in the people who make up our community. Our carers and our customers. We believe that each of us has opportunities to contribute to the store of community well-being. We believe that each of us has a duty to ourselves and our communities to develop ourselves to enable us to play a greater role in creating community well-being. We believe that one of our responsibilities as an employer is to provide opportunities for our carers to develop their talents to allow them to play that greater role in creating community well-being.

Moments of Truth and Community Well-Being

Our moment of truth awards recognise occasions when carers have delighted customers. They also represent occasions when carers have contributed to the store of our community’s well-being. It might only be a small addition, but like grains of sand small additions grow.

Recognising achievement

Could you buy into our vision? Do you want to play a significant role in your community? Why not find out more about the type of company we are and our opportunities for you.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet and Caremark Dover Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or 01304 892448 email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet or Caremark Dover's at www.caremark.co.uk/dover.