How To Identify Customer Touchpoints

Every business wants to improve customer satisfaction and to do this you have to understand how the customer interacts with the business at every touchpoint.

Identifying your customer touchpoints makes it easy to build a picture of the journey your customers take with your business. This process is called customer journey mapping, which enables you to empathise with your customer and discover ways to improve their experience.

What is a customer touchpoint?

A touchpoint is a point at which a potential customer or existing customer comes into contact with your business. This can be anything from speaking to a member of your staff, through to receiving monthly emails from you.

By taking all your customer touchpoints into consideration you have the opportunity to listen to your customers and make improvements that will keep them happy. The first thing you have to do is to work out what those touchpoint are:

Determine your customer touchpoints

Make a list of all your known customer touchpoints from initial contact through to on-going relations. Categorise them into before purchase, during purchase and after purchase to help you differentiate between any touchpoints that may be similar.

Identify missed opportunities

Create another list, detailing all of the touchpoints your marketing strategy should be utilising. You can base this on data analysis, customer personas, or new technology.

Survey your customers

Examine the circumstances around each touchpoint by surveying your customers. Ask them how they came into contact with your business and what affects their purchasing decisions.

Find out where the value is

Analysing the survey data, review and highlight your most valuable touchpoints. Which ones are producing the best ROI? Where are customers making their important purchasing decisions? Does the touchpoint provide a beneficial outcome towards your marketing goals?

What are the touchpoint dynamics?

Looking at your customer journey as a whole, where would be best to place each touchpoint. Would it be better to place the touchpoint on initial contact, or as part of your on-going relations?

Walk yourself through the entire journey as if you are a new customer. Consider how each touchpoint interacts with, or benefit the others. Are there any touchpoints that cannot exist without the other?

The process of identifying touchpoints and creating a customer journey map is complex, but remember to keep the end result for your customers simple. The Harvard Business Review found that brands keeping the purchase decision less complex were 85% more likely to be purchased from; 9% more likely to see repeat business; and 115% more likely to be recommended to others.  So keep it simple.

If you need help to develop your customer touchpoints, then we would be more than happy to help. Give us a call on 01536 560 435.