You may have heard that customer touchpoints are key moments that make or break your ability to make sales and build relationships with customers. But what, exactly, are they? Customer experience touchpoints encompass any and all points at which customers interact with your business. Each of them will form an impression, and the results will ultimately determine whether you’ll gain new customers or retain existing ones.
How Customer Journey Touchpoints Create Customer Experiences
Presale Touchpoints
Marketing Materials
Presale touchpoints create awareness and draw in new customers. Perhaps you place advertisements or your brand is active on social media. The messages you send here are the first impressions you create, and they are vitally important. At a glance, customers form opinions, not only on what you offer, but who is offering it.
Social Proof
Your existing customers may become presale touchpoints too. When someone who has nothing to gain from talking about your business tells others about their experiences, it will form a lasting impression. Although you aren’t always aware of word-of-mouth, the experiences people report are within your control.
Of course, it’s common practice for customers to search for reviews when deciding whether to make a purchase. You can’t (or shouldn’t) write reviews yourself, but you can influence what customers say about your business and its products. Deliver value and excellent service, and the third-party evidence mounts, optimising this touchpoint too.
Your Physical or Online Store
If your initial touchpoint interests people within your target market, they will take a closer look at what you do. For example, they may visit your store or website, read your blog, browse your products, or sign up for your newsletter. If your messaging at these touchpoints is consistent, it reinforces initial impressions, moving customers further down your sales funnel and closer to conversion.
Point of Sale Touchpoints
You might think that touchpoints that lead people to form an intention to buy are half the battle, but point of sale touchpoints are even more important than anything that has gone before.
Your mission is to make buying from you an action that customers can complete easily and with confidence that your product is right for them. When it comes to ease of purchase, many online businesses fail.
- 35 percent of people can’t find the information they need to help them decide on a purchase
- 24 percent of people abandon carts because they have to create an account to make a purchase
- 49 percent do so because they discover that products cost more than they initially expected
- 18 percent find checkout processes too complex and abandon purchases in frustration
- 9 percent find that the store doesn’t support their preferred payment method
Optimising these touchpoints means identifying what customers want from them and providing just that.
After-Sale Touchpoints
Having made a sale, you can’t rest on your laurels. With an investment in a purchase, customers will pay even closer attention to the touchpoints they experience. From delivery to service, support, and communications, paying customers will expect your business to fulfil its promises, recognise them as individuals, and take care of their needs.
Customer Touchpoint Mapping
If you’re serious about selling, you’ll have mapped out customer journeys so that you have access to a customers’-eye-view of all the steps that lead to sales and promote customer retention. Customer touchpoint mapping provides further detail by identifying which interactions are relevant to each stage of your customers’ journeys. This helps you to understand customer mindsets and needs so that you can cater for them properly.
It’s a little more complex than it sounds. For example, if your website publishes a blog post, it represents a touchpoint. You should consider each post and decide whether it addresses customers at the top of the funnel, or those at the bottom of the funnel. Your content is shaped by its readership’s needs and these will differ depending on where they are in their journeys.
The same is true of your newsletter. An undecided customer might like more information on why they should choose your product over its competitors. An existing customer won’t find that information valuable. Instead, they’d like to learn more about using your product.
Optimising Customer Touchpoints
Once you’ve identified all the touchpoints that go into customer experiences, your task is to make them as good as they possibly can be. Areas to consider include:
- Crafting marketing messages that resonate with your target audience
- Creating an appealing and easily navigable store or website
- Taking steps to guide customers through the process (for example, calls to action)
- Providing information resources for self-service customers
- Allowing for omnichannel communication
- Providing access to live agents who can assist customers and answer their questions
- Offering tools to enhance customer satisfaction. For example, demo videos and onboarding services
- Using social media to interact with customers – not just as a means of advertising
- Following up on sales to ensure customer satisfaction
- Offering effective after-sales help and support
- Building relationships through personalised newsletters and offers
Our top tips? Touchpoints are there to please your customers, so take a look at each of them from their perspective. And customers aren’t all the same, so search for common ground or ways to allow customers to shape their own journeys.
Once you think you’ve got a good framework down, find out what your customers think about your efforts through surveys, feedback, and non-verbal messages they send out. For example, if website pages have a high bounce rate, they aren’t working as constructive touchpoints.
In-Person Service As an Impactful Touchpoint
Digital tools and technologies make it easy for businesses to achieve more with less. But if there’s one area where this is not always effective, it’s in customer service interactions. As a technology magazine points out, it’s all too easy to become over reliant on technology without first thinking about how it impacts customer satisfaction.
According to market research statistics:
- 39 percent of people will abandon a company for the simple reason that they can’t access in-person service.
- 48 percent of people preferred to contact businesses over the phone.
- 66 percent reported a feeling of loyalty towards companies after successfully interacting with representatives
- 65 percent said they’d recommend a company offering good in-person service
- 48 percent said they were willing to spend more money after talking to a representative
- 43 percent said they felt emotionally connected to brands following interpersonal interaction
In an age in which interpersonal contact is becoming ever-more scarce, this presents a golden opportunity for brands who hope to set themselves apart from their competitors. In-person service is, without doubt, one of the most powerful touchpoints out there, but offering it can present challenges.
Customers don’t want to be kept waiting. When they interact with representatives, they expect efficiency, empathy, and professionalism. For most businesses, offering this kind of service across channels and around the clock just isn’t possible. The solution, of course, is to outsource, but to do this effectively, you need to find the right company to act on your behalf.
Enter RSVP, a London-based company that offers outsourced customer service to famous name brands and promising startups alike. Our metrics keep you informed, and our agents are the voices your customers want to hear. Looking for a genuine partnership with a company that will make you proud of your in-person service? Like all the best things in life, it begins with a conversation. Reach out today.