by: Tracy Thompson
It’s 3:00AM and I can’t sleep. This isn’t a new problem. This is something I have battled for years and have learned to view it as a blessing in disguise. No one emails or calls me at 3:00AM. I embrace the quiet hours to catch up on reading and do research for clients.
In October 2012, I was invited to attend a Think Performance event at Google Headquarters. The focus was on the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). Essentially the ZMOT is the critical moment when the consumer starts learning about a product or service they are thinking of buying. The critical moment when the search begins and they encounter – or don’t – your service or brand.
At 3:00AM, I think a lot about the ZMOT. Because at 3:00AM, I’m not interacting with a salesperson, I am interacting with your website. How and what I learn about your product or service is dictated by the information I find online. There are no tradeshow booths or fancy giveaways to influence me.
There have been many recent articles about CEO’s and senior-level executives being early risers. Waking up at 4 or 5AM is the norm. While I am not a CEO, I am guessing that part of the reason for waking up this early is similar to my reason for embracing my insomnia: it’s quiet. It is so much easier to start and finish something without interruption.
Let’s think about that for a minute. The CEO, like the insomniac, is an early riser. They are also decision makers.
Post-Dreamforce, I have been tasked to research mobile apps for a client with a remote national sales team. My past few sleepless nights have been filled with a lot of frustration and few wins. The largest frustration is landing on a webpage and not being able to figure out what the actual product is, or its’ features. Seriously. It’s rather surprising to me that there are so very many companies, touting their cloud technology, who are incapable of defining their offering in a coherent manner.
What is most frustrating to me is, I am a ready-qualified buyer. I know what my client wants, I know the budget, and I know the timeframe and the technology involved. I want to buy. But I want to be informed before I make a decision and I am having a heck of a time getting the information I need unless I am willing to wait until the sun comes up and I can speak to a live person.
The thing is, by the time the sun comes up, I’ve already moved on. You lost me and you didn’t even know I was there in the first place.
Ask yourself how you are engaging with your customers and what your customer sees at that critical ZMOT. Go ahead and set your alarm for 4:00AM, pour yourself a cup of coffee and hit the search engines. If you want to improve customer engagement, try engaging with your brand the same way your customers do.