You May be Losing Customers Because You Are Failing in The Moment of Truth Customer Success & Failures

We’re moving so fast - light speed at times. In customer success we have to make so many micro-decisions that at times we can operate on autopilot. Think about a recent customer interaction you had. How did you respond to it? You probably relied on instinct based on your previous knowledge or processes and policies that your company has in place. You may not remember half of what you said. In most situations, that’s fine. 
But this of course doesn’t always work - especially where customers don’t agree with your response.  The challenge is recognizing when you have entered a special situation. A moment when your decision will make or break your client relationship. These are what I call moments of truth. Think of these situations like the butterfly effect where a small action will change the future. I will try and help you identify these moments of truth and provide recommendations so you can act appropriately. First let me tell you about my own wakeup call.
You can make a mistake, but how will you recover?
Going back a few years now I was in the depths of hell handling several client contract negotiations during the initial stages of the Covid crisis. I will be honest here - it was one of my most challenging times as a CS leader. As it was still early in the pandemic, it was difficult to understand the impact this would have on our customers. Different customers were experiencing the pandemic differently and I had to make decisions quickly based on sparse pieces of information. The main issue was that I had too many items coming at me from all directions. It didn’t take long until I made a colossal mistake that could have had larger repercussions.
One of our clients was starting to see an uptick in their business but they needed help. They needed to add licenses to help their team so they could better assist their own customers. Moving at the speed of light I coached my customer success manager to follow our process and offer our clients a solution based on our stated policies. The challenge was that this solution didn’t fit the client’s needs and would be costly. I didn’t realize it, but I was in a moment of truth, and I failed miserably. 
The client had no choice but to proceed and when the dust settled, they took the time to let me know that they weren’t happy with what transpired. They felt that we could have been more customer-centric and they were right. This was the wakeup call I needed, and I can’t express my appreciation enough to this client. After thanking them for their feedback I quickly reversed course. I obtained the necessary approvals to provide a better solution that made more sense in this situation.
Reflecting on this time, I realized that we should have pushed the pause button and considered the situation from the client’s perspective. Our policies were valid but didn’t account for the unique crisis we were in. We needed to consider the client’s business needs and go outside the lines of our established policies. This was our moment of truth and something I now constantly remind myself of.
Defining moments of truth
While I love Wayne McCulloch’s book The Seven Pillars of Customer Success, I disagree with how he defined moments of truth. He used this definition: “Anytime the customer comes into contact with any aspect of a company, however remote, he or she has an opportunity to form an impression”. He referred to a moment of truth as any time a customer interacts with you.
My definition is different. It was something that a former executive at Eloqua, Alex Shootman, had instilled in me years ago. I define a moment of truth as: “a critical interaction in the customer journey when the action(s) your company takes will determine if the client remains a long-term customer.” Therefore, this isn’t just any type of engagement. This moment will shape the future of your customer relationship.
How do you know it’s a moment of truth?
As I mentioned, it can be challengin