Understanding the different components of the decision making process is a key factor of success for a customer relationship management program. It will enable you to trigger the accurate stimuli in order to lead sales.
The Traditional Decision Making Process
It has 3 main components:
- The stimulus: The first contact with the potential customer. It could be by different advertizing media. Usually, before, mass media campaigns, such as TV or radio spots
- The FMOT: the first moment of truth. The ten minutes the then shopper takes to pick up your product in a store.
- The SMOT: the second moment of truth. The moment the shopper becomes a consumer of your product, experiencing if it is what he really expected.
Then the ZMOT shows Up
Then the Zmot appears. The ZMOT, or zero moment of truth is all the different interferences along the purchasing process created by Internet that could affent the brand image by the shopper. There are 4 main ZMOT:
- Information search: products characteristics, pricing
- Advice readings: comments, forums
- Video reading
- Social Media
The trick is that the ZMOT could happen at any time of the decision making process, making it difficult to influence and/or to master.
The ZMOT is a real revolution in a way that customers now can interract with the brand, either while a prospect (looking for information to make the right decision), a shopper (while actually making the purchase), or a customer (using the product). The ZMOT is therefore a key for a CRM company to understand, even though it is nearly impossible to master it at a 100%.
Moreover, the multiplication of the stimuli (different media of advertizing) makes the communication to customer difficult to make, especially during push campaings. Attention of people is more and more difficult to get, therefore lowering the impact of advertisement, and highering its effective cost.
Now, I believe that ZMOT is actually a way to make people understand the importance of social media and new media such as mobile phones, tablets, augmented reality, in order to connect with people, in order to improve customer experience.
