The most successful businesses across the globe recognize the importance of customer experience to their sales and brand image. Many customers may be able to admit that customer experience is more significant to them nowadays than previously.
For your company to establish an optimal customer experience, you require explicitly defined customer journey touchpoints that direct prospects across the purchase process. Touchpoints can be described as interactions or platforms a potential customer comes across during their customer journey. Usually, these touchpoints take place in one of five customer journey phases: awareness, consideration (pre-purchase steps), purchase, retention, and advocacy (post-purchase steps).
Here are six examples of customer journey touchpoints you can use in your business.
Touchpoints You Can Use Before a Purchase
1. Social Media
Social media is mainly applicable during the customer acquisition stage. That’s due to it being a cost-efficient approach for reaching a wide section of your prospective clients. You can utilize social media to improve your overall brand image, promote services, and establish relationships with customers.
2. Peer Referral
It’s a well-known fact that clients trust their peers more than they can trust your promotions and advertisements. Research indicates that most clients admit that their family and friends are their most reliable sources of referrals. That’s why your company should focus on one-on-one marketing for it to be perceived as trustworthy.
Before a purchase occurs, other touchpoints you can use in your business include online advertisement, company events, search engine optimization (SEO), and digital marketing content.
Touchpoints You Can Leverage When a Purchase Is Taking Place
3. Product Catalogs
Product catalogs, also known as brochures, are an excellent way to display your products or services, whether through online soft copies or hard copies. Images and illustrations of products assist clients in acquiring the necessary details they require to buy.
4. Interaction with Sales Representatives and Point-of-Sale
The most direct touchpoint you can use with clients and prospects is the in-person interactions with the sales representatives. These interactions that happen in your physical areas of operations have an instantaneous effect on the client’s purchase decision.
The final touchpoint your clients will have to go through before buying is your point of sale. This is a critical touchpoint, especially during the purchase stage. At this point, your sales representatives will offer useful details about the product and tackle any concerns and needs of the customer. Your sales representatives will also give clients reasons why they need your product.
Other touchpoints you can use during a purchase include product reviews and eCommerce.
Touchpoints You Can Use After a Purchase
5. Billing and Subscription Renewals
Many brands consider billing the least significant touchpoint, but that’s not true. That’s perhaps because it takes place after purchase and doesn’t directly impact the client’s decision to purchase your product. However, that doesn’t mean your client won’t have any negative experiences. Billing miscalculations and delays in responses can put off your potential customers and even cost you customers.
If your business model is subscription-based, renewals are important to your revenue model. Therefore, you’ll want your clients to renew their subscriptions to maintain steady revenue for your company. That’s why it’s paramount that you get rid of as many grievances as necessary from your renewal process. Ultimately, it should be a smooth process for your existing client to renew their subscription and remain a client once their contract ends.
6. Customer Support Channels
These touchpoints involve any platforms that your customer service representatives leverage when interacting with clients. They include phone, chat, social media, email, and peer review webpages. Therefore, you should invest in omnichannel customer support touchpoints to enjoy the benefits of ccaas (Contact Center as a Service). Ultimately, this will allow you to create a fun experience for your clients.
In Summary
At this point, you’re fully aware of the most important examples of customer journey touchpoints you can focus on to grow your business. Therefore, by adopting these and other customer touchpoints in your business, you can create an exceptional customer experience for your clients. It’s such experiences that will allow you to acquire and retain clients. Ultimately, this will help you create a successful business model.
