 Creating
Customer Touchpoints
By Paul Hudson
Paul has
extensive business and analysis experience and
maintains a close relationship with the Call
Centre Association (CCA), having been involved
with the sponsorship and direction of CCA Research
Institute. |
Customers aren’t happy. In an increasingly
crowded, competitive market, time-poor customers are
becoming the harshest critics of customer service,
and evidence is emerging that top-level management
of the channels available between the consumer and
company is essential for increasing customer experience
and satisfaction.
Marketers have traditionally found it very easy to
communicate with people because there were a limited
number of channels with extraordinary reach: television,
press, direct marketing etc. But consumers are now
segmenting into niche groups and adding new media
to the mix, including their mobile/PDA, the PC-based
Web, and iTV.
To add to the problem, the different media create
different emotional effects, so it becomes necessary
to communicate in a variety of increasingly subtle
ways to retain – or create - brand loyalty.
Research by Teleconomy shows the following:
· Customers want to feel empowered and in
control of their custom – they want to feel
in control of their relationship with companies
· People are increasingly buying according
to their mood, which is prone to disappointment when
that mood changes
· People want companies to approach them in
a transparent way.
· People are much less tolerant of any shortfall
in service
All of these channels to the customer have to fit
together to build consistent brands that connect and
communicate effectively, being applied in different
ways for different reasons and situations. Brand building
needs to be based on a bottom-up perspective like
an upside-down organisation pyramid, integrating all
staff in the branding process. But typically, the
customer helpdesk is controlled by the Call Centre,
the website is controlled by the e-Commerce team,
and the retail store is controlled by a separate division.
How often are we, as consumers, frustrated by the
apparent lack of communication, co-ordination and
ability of the organisation to listen to us? How often,
when we call them does it feel that they don’t
really understand us, don’t really care about
our problem and never really commit to keeping past
promises? How often does it feel like it our problem
and never theirs! In the new and evolving world, where
the consumer has more control over the contact, where
it is harder to ‘access’ them through
mass-media marketing and where there are many methods
to interact with an organisation it will be true that
those companies that have a strong brand will also
be those that have effective communication ‘touchpoints’.
Over the last 20 years, Teleconomy have been researching,
measuring and building methodologies to help our client
understand the service levels being provided through
their customer channels. Our new methodology, TouchPoints,
helps to unravel this complex situation, providing
management with quantified indicators of success across
their company, along with case studies of best practice
and strategic insight.
Touchpoints benchmarks the effectiveness of different
channels, highlighting strengths and weaknesses in
the customer relationship. For
more information, click here.
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