Why you need to get to know your customer touch points

Written by Pete Howroyd 

A customer touch point analysis is your key to unlocking the secrets of the customer journey and the value each touch point delivers to your customers – ultimately enabling improved customer experience, leading to heightened customer loyalty.

Few marketers would dispute that it is the sum of all customers’ interactions with a brand, over time, that ultimately creates or destroys brand value. As a customers’ needs and expectations change over time, the way you engage and transact with them must evolve in accordance with their changing expectations. Taking the time to review your business practices comprehensively, through the lens of your customer, in order to understand how your brand offering meets your customers’ expectations – and making improvements accordingly – will draw you apart from your competition.

A customer touchpoint analysis will uncover powerful customer insights into your customer journey as well as opportunities to improve how well you meet expectations, subsequently leading to increased brand perception and concrete improvements in acquisition, retention, customer loyalty and up-sell and cross-sell efforts.

So how can you carry out a customer touchpoint analysis?
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Firstly, baseline your performance by reviewing the insights that you currently have whilst creating a map of customer interactions so that you may understand where data collection is still needed.

Next, analyse which interactions matter most to customers and what dimensions of those interactions drive value from a customer perspective. Websites, social media and customer services desks tend to have higher volumes of customer interaction and can elicit potentially strong emotions in customers which tend to have a the most significant impact on a brand.

Thirdly, develop and implement an improvement plan. This may require the effort and support of several cross-functional teams. The level of buy-in across the organization to deliver a consistent brand experience will make or break your efforts.

Finally, measure the impact of your efforts to drive customer value. Measuring the improvement in customer experience and understanding movements in key performance indicators such as customer lifetime value and retention rates will help you understand how improving touch points affects loyalty, brand equity, and overall profitability of specific customer segments.