It is important not just to be aware of the expectations of your customers, but also to meet – or even better, exceed – them. What is important for your products is also true of touchpoints. Although it is difficult to find one statement that is universally true, it can be said for most customer groups that the following aspects are relevant to your touchpoints:
Appropriate
What is appropriate can change depending on the context of the interaction and the customer’s particular culture. If your customer base is very multicultural, it’s worth using different content depending on the cultural group in question. One example is how to deal with humour – although this would be well received in many areas, it would be rather inappropriate to use humour in an industry such as medtech or private equity, where the preference is for a more serious tone.
Engaging
Every single interaction should reinforce the bond between brand and customer. In order to do this, you need to know how the customer likes to be addressed. Some prefer a more serious tone, while others favour a more informal approach. This may also change depending on the industry in which you operate.
Meaningful
The interaction should be meaningful. If you send out a daily newsletter but it contains no actual news, customers will stop opening it or will even unsubscribe, meaning that when there is news of actual interest to them, they will have long since switched to a different provider whose newsletters .
Personalised
Customers nowadays want personalised touchpoints. Amazon has been doing this for a while now, with its “Customers who bought this item also bought” recommendations. Machine learning can now help you to develop personalised content from the behaviour of individual customers.
User-friendly
Your website and app should have short loading times and be intuitive to use. This means that they should also be accessible to individuals with physical disabilities. These options can also be useful for able-bodied individuals. For example, you can have the text read out to you if you are cooking and don’t have a hand free.
Consistent
Finally, the interaction between individual touchpoints is also key. It’s important to convey an image that is consistent across all touchpoints in terms of content and tone. Do you strike a relaxed tone on your social media channels? Then employees in your call centres or who are in direct contact with customers should do the same. If you ensure that the expectations for touchpoints are met, this will also help to improve the experience of your customers, meaning that they will gladly come back and become regulars.
