Uno Momento — The Power of Moments
Over the weekend, we had visited our friends after a long time. Once we were done with our catching up, we decided to play a game of Uno. I am sure everyone is familiar with the game — it's pretty straightforward. Everyone gets a turn to match a card from their hand either by colour or number with the current card put on the table.
The “Uno” moment in the game is the most exciting one.
The most exciting moment in the game is when you are left with just one card in your hand and you are supposed to say the word “Uno”, which means ‘one’ in Spanish. The “Uno” moment in the game is the most exciting one and it puts everyone on alert. The other players start visualising scenarios in terms of which cards they hold, how can they thwart the other person from finishing his cards.
Food ordering and the “Moment of Truth”
Now imagine a scenario. You are browsing on your favourite food aggregator app. You have selected the restaurant, added your favourite cuisine to the cart and have proceeded to the checkout screen. As you are prepared to make the payment, a message gets flashed on the screen, “Your location is currently unserviceable.” All your excitement comes crashing down.
The critical question is , who is to be blamed for this? The restaurant, the food aggregator app or the delivery person?
What has been loosely described in the above instance is the user flow of ordering food through an app. The need is to take a step back and understand the journey of ordering food, more holistically. Let’s look at it:
- The journey begins with a ‘trigger.’ The urge to have food or gathering of friends/family to celebrate an occasion, etc.
- The next stage is ‘choice.’ What kind of food (cuisine) to order and from which place (restaurant) to order from
- The next stage is ‘discover.’ Do you call up the restaurant or you look it up on the food aggregator app.
- The final stage is ‘transact.’ This is the stage where you actually place the order for food. This is what has been described in the above example.
From a food aggregator’s point of view, the key question is — How does it establish a presence (awareness) in the users’ minds? This is where a large chunk of the ad dollars are deployed by companies and rightly so. You can’t be a helpful brand if you are not present in the moments they need you the most.
“80 percent of success is just showing up”
- Woody Allen
Let’s zoom back into the food ordering instance. Each activity/step on the app is a micro-moment in itself, as there is an interplay of physical and digital touch-points all along. The touch-points which have the potential to impact customer experience are described as the ‘moment of truth.’
A moment of truth is simply any interaction during which a customer may form an impression of your brand or product. This impression may be either positive or negative.
Understanding the Power of Moments
Each of the micro-moment has the potential to define a memorable or a forgettable experience — jolt us, elevate us or change us. If you think about the process by which we assess our experiences, you will realise that we don’t really remember things minute-by-minute. Instead, all that we remember are the peaks, the downs and the transitions.
In an increasingly crowded and commoditised market, brands can only differentiate themselves on the basis of service. If you see the history of successful brands and products, very often you will find the incumbents’ weakness often becomes the challenger brands’ USP.
Let’s look at the case of Uber. Before Uber came into this world, hailing a cab or a rickshaw was an inconvenient experience and I am sure everyone has their share of experiences. Uber picked up this problem and built an entire business around it. Its proposition was simple, through its mobile app one could hail a cab at the click of a button. It also provided the estimated fare and time of arrival, which provided a great deal of convenience to the customers.
The problem was never the availability of the vehicles, but it was the sheer inconvenience which created an opening for a challenger brand.
The Interplay of Micro-Moments and Customer Experience
In a recent consulting that I was leading, identifying the ‘moment of truth’ was a key ask. The project was in the financial services domain and revolved around understanding the need for financial planning and the efficacy of digital interventions.
During one of the user interactions, the discussion moved towards understanding and mapping the usage of digital apps for managing finances (expense tracking). The user used an expense tracker which automatically picked up the transactions (income/expenses) based on the text messages.
He was quite happy with the convenience of tracking the expenses almost in real-time, but there was a moment in time that pushed the user to curtail the use of the app. When probed about the reason, the user articulated the difficulty in manually entering expenses done in ‘cash’, as the app only picked up information from the text messages and not beyond.
As you can see, the moment of truth can occur at any stage in the journey and at a later date as well. So, it is imperative to visualise the macro journey along with the micro-moments which help in defining the overall Customer Experience.
To sum up
I would end the essay by using the analogy of preparing a cup of cappuccino.
The espresso shot may have been made from the best beans, but the key moment is when the milk is been added to it.
What’s your “uno momento” story? Would love to hear them.
Until next time!
~ Sajid
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