Why You Should Care About Customer Journey Touchpoints?
This article provides an overview of what a customer touchpoint is and why you should care about customer journey touchpoints.
Introduction
Customer journey touchpoints can alter your audience’s reactions to your product or service. In order to improve your customer’s experience, you need to understand what touchpoints are, how they work, and when they are encountered.
Some stats prove the significance of customer touchpoints in the performance of a business. For example, the average consumer journey today includes between 20 and 500 above touchpoints, and 72% of customers now only interact with tailored communications.
What Are Customer Touchpoints?
Customer journey touchpoints include any direct or indirect interactions your brand has with your customers that influence their attitude toward your brand. Visits to physical stores, magazine articles, advertisements, or test samples are all customer touchpoint examples.
Customer Jurney Touchpoints – Categories
Here are some touchpoint categories that might appear on a customer journey map:
Before Purchase
Prospects discover the value of a brand during the stages of awareness, engagement, and evaluation. Getting your customer’s attention from the beginning is one of the most important parts of customer journey maps.
Awareness
Describes the moment when a prospect first learns about your brand. When a brand is at the awareness stage, it must demonstrate how it can meet the needs and prospects’ goals.
In this case, the touchpoints are:
- Social media: Social media is the heart of your brand, and your website is its face. Use it to tell your brand’s story and demonstrate your commitment to quality.
- Press and flyers: In addition to building awareness and inspiring interest in your brand, these old-school methods may still influence your target audience’s behavior.
- Corporate website: The look and feel of your website should be exceptional because it represents your brand. Clear, concise information, visual representations, and links to action should be provided.
- Ads: Your brand awareness can be driven by targeted ads thanks to social media and search engines gathering enormous amounts of data.
You can capture your prospects’ attention through all of these customer journey touchpoints. After gaining their attention, it is important to nurture and engage them with additional product and service information.
Engagement
In addition to following your brand on social media, opting into a newsletter, reading your blog, or trying promotional items, prospects may also sign up for a newsletter if they find it interesting. Brands need to show prospects what makes their offerings unique and guide them toward them. Great engagement and exceptional customer care go hand-in-hand with excellent customer experience.
In this case, the touchpoints are:
- Social media: Engaging your customers through content marketing is easy with this medium. Communicate with your prospects through social media platforms. Your content should be reposted or liked by them. Keep your brand’s name in user-generated content.
- Sales representative interactions: The products or services you sell are likely to be the subject of questions from your prospects. Live chat, phone calls, or in-store touchpoints are all options.
- Product catalogs: Providing detailed information about your products and services is possible through online and offline catalogs.
Using these customer journey touchpoints, you can show the value you bring to your prospects.
Evaluation
This stage allows your prospects to compare your brand with others to determine whether it’s a good fit for them. You may also receive communication from them asking them for advice or consultation on the products or services that you sell. You should also pay attention to other touchpoints besides sales representatives.
In this case, the touchpoints are:
- Customer reviews and testimonials: Your website can feature customer reviews, and you can promote them on social media.
- Educational content: From awareness to evaluation, this engages your prospects. Potential customers will be able to decide if you are the right choice for them if they see it. Therefore, make it easy to read, digest, and locate. Touchpoints such as blog posts, podcasts, and vlogs could be used here.
- Demo products and promotional items: You can encourage people to purchase your products or services by allowing them to try them without committing. You can showcase your products and services, win the loyalty of prospects, and persuade them that you are the best choice.
Your prospects are more likely to move on to the next customer journey touchpoints if you do your homework.
During purchase
A prospect may become a customer here. A simple purchase process and intuitive tools are all they need to make their purchase once they have chosen your brand. You can guide them in the following ways:
- Use instructions: If you want your users to use your product effectively, give them easy step-by-step instructions
- Checkout process: To ensure your customers complete their purchases, you need a quick and intuitive checkout process with a variety of payment options.
- Chatbot assistants: It is possible to eliminate long checkout forms with the help of chatbots.
After purchase
Customer journey maps do not end after purchase but can start a new relationship with the customer. Loyalty may be gained or lost based on post-purchase experiences.
In this case, the touchpoints are:
- Follow-ups: To find out how your customers feel about your product, compile a shortlist of specific questions. Your business will be able to address customer problems with this type of feedback survey.
- Customer feedback surveys: Customers can be motivated to return by offering them additional support or services, such as discounts on future purchases, to make them more likely to purchase in the future.
Why You Should Care About Customer Journey Touchpoints?
The customer of today expects brands to anticipate their needs before searching for them. With personalized techniques, a brand is more likely to be noticed by a customer and chosen over its competitors.
To accomplish this, you should make sure that all customer journey touchpoints are relevant, endearing, appropriate, and meaningful.