How to win customers in the era of ‘micro-moments’

How would you describe your relationship with your mobile? What role does it play in your life?

People posed with this question gave replies like “it is attached to my hip”, “an affordable butler”, “literally my lifeline.” Smartphones, these days, are like little genies.

Have a look at how millennials are using their phones:

Now why is that? Because this little device that we keep by our sides all the time is transforming our lives. We may not notice this transformation actively, but it is happening.

Consider a busy mom. She must find the nearest coffee shop to grab her breakfast on her way to office. She uses her smartphone app to place orders and goes to the store to pick them up, thus saving time.

During lunch hour, she recalls that her son’s school is starting tomorrow and that she needs to locate a store that stocks her son’s shoe size for Nike’s new sneaker range. The busy mom looks for local businesses on Google and quickly gets a pair.

While playing with her son in the evening at the park, she wishes to click a wide-angle picture with her new camera. However, there is no time or desire to go through the voluminous camera manual. So, she quickly searches for a video tutorial on YouTube, follows the steps, and gets the job done.

Introducing micro-moments

Imagine what would have happened if the busy mom in the above example didn’t have a smartphone which could do all those tasks for her. We know the answer – These tasks would have taken the better part of her day.

In all these instants where she used her mobile phone, there were three governing motivations – urgency, intent, and engagement.

Google calls such instants, micro-moments. In the company’s own words,

What has micro-moments got to do with retail?

Earning customer’s consideration and action in the era of micro-moments

1. Be there

2. Be useful

3. Be quick

How to be quick at every micro-moment

Designing your micro-moment strategy

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