Back in 2005, The Wall Street Journal published an article that discussed the “First Moment of Truth” — standing in a store, looking at your options, and deciding what to purchase.
The “Second Moment of Truth” is when you’re at home using the product, and decide whether it was worth buying. This affects whether or not you’d purchase it again, as well as what you’d tell your friends about the product.
Google has published a free ebook that covers the latest moment — the “Zero Moment of Truth”. Thanks to the growth of the internet and smart phones, consumers are now spending more time reading reviews and learning about your product before they ever step foot in your store. A great example is a story I shared on here a few months ago:
One evening we found a pizza place with solid reviews that was six blocks away, so we started walking there. On the way, we passed a cute little restaurant and considered going there instead. We literally stood on the sidewalk in front of their building, took out our phones to check them out on Yelp, then quickly decided to keep walking toward the pizza place. I would guess this restaurant loses at least a few customers per week due to their reviews on Yelp, and probably have no idea why.
That is the Zero Moment of Truth. You need to be online, accessible, and engaged with your audience. Your online presence doesn’t need to be perfect; some evidence has shown that having a few bad reviews makes the positive reviews seem more trustworthy, which helps your overall appearance online.
If you own a small business, you really need to download Google’s ZMOT ebook and read about it for yourself. If any part of the book doesn’t make sense to you, or you can’t figure out how it would apply to your business, feel free to contact us and we’ll be happy to talk to you.
Have you read this book yet? If so, what did you think about it?
