A customer touchpoint, or brand contact point, is any time a customer interacts with a company. The interaction can be physical, such as from an encounter at a brick-and-mortar location, or be non-physical, such as through social media.
Customer touchpoints are the deciding factor for your target audience along their journey from discovering your brand to becoming a loyal client. They cover the lifecycle of your clients’ journey, occurring before, during and even after the buying experience. They affect buying decisions and perceptions of your brand at each encounter.
Optimizing customer touchpoints increases your client’s experience. To optimize your touchpoints, look for ways to help your business improve relationships with existing and potential clients so that you can strengthen the way they feel about your brand, business, product, service, etc.
Here are 3 tips on how to optimize customer touchpoints:
Review your client’s journey at every stage.
Your client’s experience goes from the moment they need a product or service to the moment they fulfill that need. Whether it is scheduling consulting services or purchasing a book or training course, you want to make their experience the best possible.
A journey map of the client’s experience breaks these moments into different stages of your clients’ journey by mapping a series of touchpoints. Consider the steps they must take as they think about what they need and search for the solution to that need. Whether they are searching on your website, sorting through product and service options, scheduling a meeting, or wanting to learn more about your services, you want to make the most positive impression.
Create a great first impression.
We have all heard how important first impressions are, so this is a critical moment in creating the best possible experience. First impressions occur during the pre-purchasing stage of a client’s journey. Factors that influence this stage include ways your client might find out about you and your company. To enhance this experience, think about how you can improve your brand strategy, including identity and awareness. Think about how your clients perceive your brand value. You want to look for indicators that start brand loyalty.
First impressions are often made through word of mouth. Although you cannot control word of mouth, you can influence it. Ask for referrals and positive testimonials. Create a challenge that has people sharing good things about how your consulting services have helped them. This is a great stage for creative marketing.
Enhance the touchpoint experience.
The purchasing touchpoint is another important stage in your clients’ journey. Evaluate how your clients are making a purchase. They might visit your website, browse for products, sign up for a webinar, enter payment details, and so forth. The best experience for this process should be smooth and easy.
To enhance this process, look at the ease of navigating your website, the convenience of scheduling options, customer service, and quality of presentation. These are just a few things that factor into the buying experience, and you want to make that experience amazing to stand out as the company they do business with repeatedly.
The Profit Enhancer Analysis is a good tool for evaluating the efficiency in your customer touchpoints. Learn more about how communicating the plan of action and progress of service using real time methods can help you improve your customer experience and retention.