A 'moment of truth' in customer service circles refers to a critical moment at which time a person will make a decision – usually to decide to do business with you – or not.

Google uses the phrase 'Zero Moment of Truth' (or ZMOT) to refer to the online decision-making moment.

I use the phrase 'moments of truth' to refer to the small almost instantaneous and sometimes unconscious decisions that a person makes that contribute to the big overall decision.

The overall decision (or ZMOT) is of course whether they will buy from you, talk to you, sign up for something you offer or contact you in some form.

These small moments of truth are influenced by the experience that person has on your website. If they are positive it builds to a positive outcome. If they are negative, it means that the visitor is less and less likely to do what you want.

What makes for these moments of truth?

On a website these moments of truth are influenced by:

• The overall feel of the site – is it cheesy, cheap and obscure or professional, impressive and inspiring?
• The images – do they resonate with the visitor? Do they illustrate a point or are they just for decoration? Are they good quality or out of focus, low quality images that you took with your iPhone?
• The font – is it too big or too small? Quirky, formal or relaxed?
• The design – is it easy to find out what to do?
• The content – is it easy to read and does it contain all the information they need? Is it compelling or is it incomplete and obscure? Does it contain grammatical problems or spelling mistakes?
• Jargon – every time you make a visitor wonder what a word of phrase means they experience a negative moment of truth
• Functionality – does the site work as expected? Are there broken links, do the buttons and forms work?
• Do your social links make it easy to share good content or are they just there for decoration?
• Do you provide enough information about who you are to prove you authentic and can be trusted, or are you hiding behind feel good vision statements and unsubstantiated promises?
• Are you just trying to be clever – this usually leaves people confused and frustrated.

I'm not suggesting that businesses agonise over every word or pixel. We are (sometimes painfully) aware of how hard it is to get it right. We don't always understand what those moments of truth are for different visitors. Sometimes you have to test out things and be ready to make a change if it doesn't work.

And of course everyone makes mistakes. We are after all, only human.

What I wish businesses would do

I'd like it if businesses understood that they should care about these moments of truth.

That a good website will make the difference between someone doing business with them – and choosing a competitor instead.

I'd like people not to make decisions about their website based on what's easier for them or who can do a year's hosting in Uzbekistan for $3.50 a year and a free set of steak knives. It should be about what will be easier for their customers.

I'd like people to appreciate that good web designers and developers are worth the money because they know how to create positive moments of truth – and they're worth the investment.

I'd like people to realise that the cheap website slung together with little care by the inexperienced and uncaring will hurt their business.