What impressions do your customers and employees form about your business? Are they positive experiences that they are likely to pass on to their friends and family, or are they negative experiences that they share with others?

The last thing you want is for one of your customers or employees to pass on a negative experience about your business. If they share this experience with others, then other people may also form a negative opinion about your business. If people form a negative opinion of your business, they will be less likely to do business with you. This means that you should work to ensure that the impressions that people form about your business are positive ones.

As a member of Toastmasters International I have learned about an idea called Moments of Truth. According to Toastmasters International: “A moment of truth is an episode where a person comes in contact with any aspect of the Toastmasters experience and forms an impression of a club’s quality and service.”

This idea is not just applicable to Toastmasters. People can have Moments of Truth with any business or organization, not just with Toastmasters. The impressions that they form will impact their future decisions when they decide whether or not to do further business with you and they can pass those impressions on to others.

First Impressions

One of the Moments of Truth for a Toastmasters club is first impressions. When guests first visit a Toastmasters club they will form an impression about that club. These impressions will have a direct impact on that guest’s decision to visit the club again. A guest’s first impressions about a Toastmasters club will also influence her decision to join as a member of that club.

A bad first impression may cause a guest to not come back. A bad first impression could also cause a guest to choose not to become a member. If this happens to all guests for a Toastmasters club then over time that club may lose members and a club that loses too many members may cease to exist. Alternatively, a club that always gives a good first impression to guests is more likely to have guests become members, and this club will survive as it regularly gains new members over time.

Different aspects of a Toastmasters club meeting impact a guest’s first impressions of the club. For example, the following list outlines some of the elements of a Toastmasters club meeting that can influence a guest’s first impressions:

• Was the meeting location easy to find?
• Was the guest greeted warmly when he arrived at the club meeting?
• Was the meeting well organized?
• Did the meeting begin and end on time?

One aspect of a Toastmasters meeting that can have a significant impact on a guest’s impression of the club is how well that guest is treated. If you don’t greet the guest when he arrives at the meeting, then he may not feel welcome. Even worse, if no one talks to the guest during the meeting then the guest will feel ignored. Alternatively, if you greet the guest and welcome him to the club he is more likely to feel welcome. You should also talk to the guest during and after the meeting to help him feel welcome. Another important thing to do is to invite the guest to attend future meetings and to invite him to join as a member. Ultimately, you want the guest to feel welcome and not to feel ignored.

This first impression can apply to any business, not just to Toastmasters. For example, consider a retail business. When customers first walk in to a store, are they welcomed? Furthermore, is the store designed so that customers can find help if they need it?

Consider a hardware store where employees are hard to find. When a customer comes into this store and needs help finding a product, there are no employees anywhere to be seen. This could cause that employee to leave the store in frustration without finding the item she was there to purchase. This means that customer will go to another store and the store with hard to find employees will lose a sale that they could have made if their employees were accessible to their customers. Even worse, the customer could tell other people how hard it is to find products at this store and this could lead to other people choosing not to visit that store.

In addition to making customers feel welcome in a store, you also want them to feel respected. This means that employees of your store should treat customers with respect and they should be willing to help customers when customers need help. Customers should also perceive employees to be friendly.

I still remember a negative experience I had when shopping at a retail store. I approached an employee to ask her for help in locating an item in the store. Instead of responding in a friendly and helpful manner she was angry that I had asked for her help. I had interrupted her while she was stocking shelves, and her anger at being interrupted was obvious to me. This gave me a negative impression of that business.

The ultimate lesson here is that you want your business or organization to give people a good first impression so that they will pass on those positive experiences to others. When people hear good things about a business they will be more likely to patronize that business and to mention that business to other people. Alternatively, a negative experience could drive potential customers away from your business, so be sure that your customers always have a positive first impression when doing business with you.

Membership Orientation

Another Toastmasters Moment of Truth is membership orientation. This Moment of Truth is about how you treat the members of your Toastmasters club after they join as members. Do you ignore your members after they join your club, or do you offer them encouragement and support?

As a member of Sundowners Toastmasters I was offered support after I joined as a member. I was invited to attend a membership orientation meeting where the Toastmasters club program was explained to me. I was also assigned a mentor to help me learn the Toastmasters program and this mentor was also someone who could help me with my first three speech projects. What this means is that I was supported as a member and I was not ignored. I knew I had help if I needed it.

This Moment of Truth is not just for Toastmasters. How you treat your customers after they become your customers is also important.

How easy it for your customers to get help when they need it? Take for example my bank. The bank I do business with is on an online bank. Their online banking website is fairly easy to use and they also have a cell phone app that is very easy to use. However, when I want to phone the bank to ask for help it is very difficult to find an actual person to talk to. The only phone contact info they give leads to an automated system and this automated system does not have a simple option for talking to a person. I have to navigate several menu options before I stumble across an option that actually lets me speak to a person. This gives me a very negative impression about this bank’s willingness to support its customers. It means I may not recommend doing business with this bank because I cannot get the support I need when I need it most.

Membership orientation also applies to employees, not just customers. How well do you treat your employees? Do they feel like valued members of your company and do they feel like they can get help when they need it?

If you don’t treat your employees well, then they may leave. A business that does not treat its employees well will more likely have high turnover of employees. This leads to increased costs because more time will be spent training new employees. High turn over of employees also leads to loss of the knowledge and expertise that those employees take with them.

An even worse situation that can occur when you don’t treat employees well is that they may tell other people about it. This can give other people a bad impression about your business and then they may choose not to do business with you. Even worse, if your business develops a reputation as being a negative place to work this may make it harder for you to recruit talented people to work for you.

The ultimate lesson here is that you want both your customers and employees to form good impressions about your business. You want all of their impressions to be good ones, not just their first impressions. This means that you should work to ensure that all interactions with your customers and employees are positive interactions. Don’t just treat them well the first time you interact with them. Treat them well during all of your interactions.

Conclusion

If you own a business you want your customers’ and employees’ impressions of your business to be positive. When they talk about your business you want them to speak well of your business. If they have good impressions of your business they will likely pass on those observations to others and other people will then be more likely to visit your business. If instead you give your employees and customers a bad impression, then they may pass on those observations to others and other people will then be less likely to visit your business.

The key thing to take away from this article is that you want your employee’s and customers’ Moments of Truth to be positive ones. Make sure you give a good first impression. Make sure all interactions with your customers and employees generate positive impressions. Remember also that it is not just your customers who matter. Moments of Truth applies to your employees as well.

Give customers and employees a good impression of your business and word of mouth will spread a positive message about your business. This will help you to grow your business and it will develop a positive reputation for your business.