customer journey und touchpoints

20 Customer Touchpoints That Will Optimize Your Customer Journey

Updated: June 15, 2021

Published: May 25, 2021

Have you ever made a model car, boat, or airplane? Or, built DIY furniture from IKEA? Or, maybe just played with Legos as a kid — or, like me, still do as an adult?

If you've tried any of these, you've encountered a set of instructions on how to build your product. Some are better than others, but all do the job of explaining the steps you need to take to achieve your goal.

Customer touch points (or touchpoints) work in a similar way. They represent important interactions that occur along the customer's journey. Grouping them chronologically paints a complete picture of an average customer experience with your business.

In this post, we'll explain what customer touch points are and the role they play on marketing and customer service teams. Then, we'll wrap up with a list of touch point examples and proven techniques to use them at your business.

Customer Touch Points

Touch points are interactions between businesses and customers that occur during the customer's journey. These moments significantly influence customer experience as well as brand perception. By outlining key touch points on a map, businesses can capitalize on timely opportunities to optimize their customer journey.

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Customer touch points are typically recorded on a customer journey map . They're put together in chronological order to demonstrate what a typical customer's experience is like with a business.

This helps marketing and customer service teams identify touchpoints that cause friction so they can remove them and enhance the customer journey.

Here's an example of what a customer touchpoint looks like on HubSpot's customer journey map .

While this is only a small section of a much larger document, it gives us a good idea of how useful touchpoints are to marketing and customer service teams. In the original document, the green dots represent interactions that are positive, and the red ones represent points of friction. Yellow dots are moments when customers have to make decisions, which leads to either a green or red dot.

With this layout, we can look at an overall view of different touchpoints occurring within various stages of the customer journey. This makes it a lot easier to spot areas of your business that can be improved to increase customer delight .

Let's take a look at some examples of customer touchpoints below.

Customer Touch Points Examples

• Social Media
• Online Advertisement
• Digital Marketing Content
• Company Events
• Peer Referral
• Conversations With Company Representatives
• Product Catalogs
• Product Reviews
• Point of Sale
• Thank You Letters
• Product Feedback Surveys
• Upsell/Cross-Sell Emails
• Billing Actions
• Subscription Renewals
• Customer Support Channels
• Customer Success Programs
• Customer Onboarding
• Customer Loyalty Programs
• Self-Service Resources

We've segmented this list to cover touch points that occur before, during, and after a purchase. Additionally, we've also added a section that's specific to customer service teams.

Touch Points Before a Purchase

1. social media.

Social media could be included in every section of this list, but it's mostly used in customer acquisition . That's because social media is a cost-effective way of reaching a large portion of your target audience. You can use it to promote products, build relationships with clients, and enhance the overall reputation of your brand.

2. Online Advertisement

Have you ever noticed banner ads displayed at the top or sidebar of a webpage? Those are touch points that take prospects back to your website. For some brands, like Best Buy below, it's an effective way to draw traffic to their sites.

Image Source

3. Digital Marketing Content

Aside from ads, digital marketing content refers to any material that your company publishes online to promote its brand. These materials could be promotional videos, infographics, or engaging blog posts — like the one you're reading right now.

4. Company Events

If you're on a marketing or sales team, then you may have attended a conference this year where you stood in a booth to promote your company. These events are an excellent way to introduce your brand to customers who may not be aware of it.

One example is INBOUND , where companies from around the world meet to discuss marketing, sales, customer service, and other business topics. It's a great chance for business leaders to connect with new partners and discover strategies that can help their organizations grow.

5. Peer Referral

It's no secret that customers trust their peers over your advertisements. 83% of customers say that their friends and family are their most trusted sources of referrals. This makes it imperative for businesses to focus on word-of-mouth marketing if they want to be seen as trustworthy.

Touch Points During a Purchase

6. conversations with company representatives.

The most direct point of contact you have with customers is your in-person interactions. These conversations that take place in your stores have an immediate impact on the customer's purchase decision.

7. Product Catalogs

Whether they're online or a hard copy, catalogs are an excellent medium for showcasing your product line. An image of the product, coupled with an enticing description, gives the customer everything they need to know before making a purchase.

You can remove friction by adding a CTA on the page that adds the product to a shopping cart, like in the example below.

8. Ecommerce

For many businesses, ecommerce is the most effective way to acquire customers and close deals. That's because websites can be accessed globally, making it possible for an SMB in one location to provide products and services to a customer on the other side of the world.

Understanding the various touch points within ecommerce can dramatically improve the customer experience for SaaS and other online companies.

9. Product Reviews

In today's digital age, product reviews are no longer a pre-purchase touch point. Now, customers have smart devices that can call up product reviews while they're shopping in your stores. Additionally, some online retailers include reviews on the listing page, so you can see what other customers think without navigating away from the page. You can see an example of this touch point in the image below.

10. Point of Sale

This is the last touch point your customers will reach before making a purchase. That's because this is where your sales rep makes their case for why the customer needs your product. For many businesses, this is a momentous step in the customer journey.

Touch Points After a Purchase

11. thank you letters.

One effective way to build customer rapport is by following up with a thank you letter. This can be an email, or, if possible, a hand-written note that thanks customers for their business. It's a great way to show customers you care and develop a long-term relationship with them.

If you're not sure how to start sending customer thank you letters, check out our guide here .

12. Product Feedback Surveys

Product feedback surveys are sent after a purchase and they evaluate the customer's experience with your product or service. If the customer leaves a negative review, the company can reach out to learn more about the issue. They then relay this information to the product development team, who makes enhancements on the next version of the product.

13. Upselling/Cross-selling Emails

Customer needs don't go away after a purchase is made. In fact, some customers have additional needs once they start to use your product.

This presents an opportunity for you to upsell or cross-sell customers on additional or premium items in your store. We can see an example of this in the image below.

14. Billing Actions

Billing is often an overlooked touch point on this list. That's because it happens after a purchase occurs and has no direct influence on the customer's decision to buy your product. However, it's still a vital step in the customer's journey because a negative experience can result in an immediate instance of churn, if not addressed properly.

15. Subscription Renewals

If you're a subscription-based business, renewals are crucial to your revenue model. You need customers to renew their subscriptions to maintain steady growth for your business. This makes it important that you remove as much friction as possible from your renewal process. After all, it should be effortless for an existing customer to stay a customer after their contract is up.

Touch Points in Customer Service

16. customer support channels.

Customer support channels are any platforms that service agents use to communicate with customers. This includes chat, email, phone, social media, peer review sites, and more. Businesses need to invest in omni-channel support if they want to create a delightful experience for their customers.

17. Customer Success Program

Customer success programs have a variety of touch points found within them. When a customer success department recognizes a potential problem, they reach out to customers to notify them of the issue or offer a solution. This demonstrates a commitment to the customer's goals, which builds additional rapport over time.

18. Customer Onboarding

Customer onboarding is a popular touch point for service teams because many customers abandon products shortly after buying them. That's because they either don't know how to use it, or they don't have the time to learn how to use it. Both result in churn, making it essential for companies to invest in effective onboarding programs.

19. Customer Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs are another important touch point that service teams should be aware of. These programs strengthen your relationship with a customer and turn them into lifelong advocates. By incentivizing people with exclusive rewards and discounts, they'll be more likely to share positive reviews about your business.

20. Self-Service Resources

When customers are in a hurry or only have a quick question for your support team, they don't want to spend 20 minutes waiting on hold for a rep. Instead, you can offer self-service resources that feature troubleshooting steps customers can take on their own. That way, they're not dependent on your service team for answers and can find solutions on their own time, making your product more convenient and easier-to-use.

All of these touch points are essential for creating a strong customer journey. But how do you use them in your business? Let’s walk through that below.

Using Customer Touchpoints in Your Business

By using customer touchpoints, you’ll exponentially improve the customer experience . But not all touch points will make sense for your company. For instance, if you’re a SaaS business, you might not have an online catalog. And if you’re running the business on your own, your customer likely won’t run into a sales team.

To create a custom customer touchpoint map, you’ll want to take the following steps.

1. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes.

First and foremost, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and envision the steps they take as they make a purchase decision. Where do they look first? How do they reach a purchase decision? And what do they do if they run into problems using the product?

Let’s take a look at an example customer journey below.

• The customer becomes aware of a problem and researches ways to solve their issue.
• After finding a solution, they search for a particular product. They look through product listings on Google, then explore offerings on retailer websites such as Amazon.
• They search for product reviews.
• After finding sufficient information, they purchase the product.
• They use the product, but run into trouble. They look for articles and resources on how to solve the issue on their own.
• They reach out to a customer service representative.

After, match each of these customer actions to a certain touchpoint. Here’s what that looks like:

• Touchpoint one : A robust blog that covers commonly-researched issues by your customers.
• Touchpoint two : A series of paid ads in Google’s and Amazon’s product pages.
• Touchpoint three : A collection of un-sponsored product reviews on your website.
• Touchpoint four : A customer portal that allows customers to easily check out and see their order status.
• Touchpoint five : Self-service options such as knowledge bases and product how-tos.
• Touch point six : An easy-to-find customer service portal or phone number that allows them to get in touch.

2. Decide what’s feasible based on your company size and budget.

Now that you have a rough idea of the resources and information your customer will need during their journey, it’s time to decide which ones are easiest to implement based on your company size and budget.

If you sell a complicated product but run a one-person business, investing in a full-scale service desk with knowledge bases and ticketing features might not be feasible. But you could start by adding free live chat .

The key here is to find an alternative that’s easy to adopt for you and your team and that’s scalable as your business grows. You don’t want to be boxed in after your customer touchpoint strategy yields positive results.

3. Establish touch point tasks.

Deciding on the touch points is one thing; translating them to actionable tasks is another. You’ve decided what’s feasible, and now it’s time to turn it into action.

Here’s what that can look like for the example referenced above.

First Touchpoint Tasks

• Create a strong cluster content strategy that solves for the customer.
• Decide on the first five posts, which will be published in four weeks.
• Hire four freelancers to write the content.
• Use the in-house marketing team to leverage buyer personas and current customer acquisition data.

Second Touchpoint Tasks

• Create a Google Merchant Center account and Amazon seller account .
• Write unique descriptions for each product using the services of two freelancers.
• Source product photos and general information such as specifications, country of origin, sustainability score, and so on.
• Add product listings to Google and Amazon.

Third Touchpoint Tasks

• Add product reviews to the site using a WordPress review plugin or another solution.
• Invite current customers to write reviews by offering a 10% discount on a future purchase.
• Respond to reviews as they come in so prospects can see the brand is active.

You’d continue down the touchpoints list, adding tasks until you have a comprehensive checklist that everyone on your team can reference.

4. Leverage software tools to automate touch point tasks.

Use marketing, sales, and service software to ensure touch point tasks run smoothly with minor intervention.

Let’s say that you’ve decided to invest in social media marketing as the first touch point, but you have a three-person marketing team, and you don’t know how to get started. You can consider a social media management tool such as HubSpot’s Social Inbox (included in Marketing Hub). And if your team is new to social media management, you can have everyone take a social media certification course.

If you’ve decided that one of your customers’ touch points is chatting with a salesperson, you’d invest in a CRM that helps your sales team keep track of all communication and automatically schedule follow-up calls.

If one of your touchpoints is a discount delivered over email, you’ll want to automatically send the message using email marketing software . No need for you to manually type each email out and send it to every customer.

And if one of your touchpoints is an easy-to-reach service desk, you’ll invest in customer service software that can take care of ticketing — and even resolve simple inquiries with a customer service bot.

These tools can help you streamline your customer touchpoint process so that it progresses with minimal intervention from your team. In that way, as you serve more and more customers, no touchpoint slips through the cracks.

Use Customer Touchpoints to Enhance the Customer Journey

By using customer touch points, you can play a role at every step of the customer journey. Nothing is left up to chance. Instead, you provide targeted information at just the right time. Whether you’re a one-person business or an enterprise-level team, you should use touchpoints to enhance the customer experience, empowering you to retain more customers and grow better.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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14 customer journey touchpoints to optimize

Do you know how your customers found out about your brand or product? Or what made your users convert—or abandon their carts? 

It’s important to understand the key touchpoints where customers interact with your business to help you determine how to improve them. If you don’t know exactly which elements drive your users—or which block them—you won’t be able to design a smooth customer journey.

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This chapter outlines the most important external and internal customer journey touchpoints and shows you how to optimize them to elevate the user experience and drive business growth.

Optimize your customer journey touchpoints with user insights

Use Hotjar to see how users interact with key touchpoints—and improve their product experience.

14 key touchpoints in the customer journey

According to Iga Gawronska, Product Designer at Hotjar :

 Touchpoints are the key moments your customer interacts with your brand, be it through social media channels, your product, or your customer support.

It’s important for companies to do customer journey map research to understand which touchpoints are ineffective or even causing friction, so they can quickly remove blockers and streamline the user experience. 

Below, we dive into external and internal customer touchpoints you can optimize to raise brand awareness, better understand your customers, and increase conversions.  

3 external customer journey touch points to optimize 

Before they get to your product or website, customers pass through several external journey touchpoints you need to effectively understand and perfect to guide users to your site or product:

1. Social media

Social media is a vital touch point that lets you communicate directly with your users to help them find information about your business or solve their problems, and grow your audience through engagement with posts and ads . 

Social channels also help businesses boost awareness, increase user engagement, and connect with customers. 

So how can you optimize your social media touchpoints? 

Encourage engagement with contests and giveaways, live Q&As, and ‘behind-the-scenes’ videos that get users excited about your brand

Create interactive, high-quality content users will want to share—and keep track of shares and clickthroughs

Use social listening tools to interact with users and track questions, comments, and complaints that help you better understand how customers are experiencing or what they expect from your brand

Humanize your brand by conveying your company's core values and involvement with social causes

Pro tip : highlight your expertise on social media to drive engagement. For SaaS product teams, that might include explainer videos and educational posts; for ecommerce businesses, it might mean showcasing different product pages or visuals, with tips for consumers on how they can use the products you’re selling in their everyday life. 

2. Online ads 

Display ads, social media ads, and video ads are all important customer touchpoints that introduce potential customers to your business. 

Ads help companies generate leads and successfully reach their target audience.  

Here’s how to optimize your online ads:  

Deeply understand your target audience and plan campaigns around their demographics, location, interests, and needs

Make sure you have a clear call to action (CTA) that guides users to complete the desired action—like subscribing to your product or signing up for newsletters

Use a landing page that displays relevant, compelling content and mirrors the advertisements in your campaign 

Use your ads to inform users about product upgrades, features, or improvements

Pro tip : Look for keywords—the words and phrases users type into search engines—that aren’t performing well to optimize specific product or landing pages and increase conversions. Use Google Ads to help you determine what keywords to use and which aren’t performing.  

Virtual or in-person events are an important touchpoint to build brand awareness, display industry thought leadership and influence, and generate sales . 

Some key tips for designing impactful event touchpoints: 

Target the right audience to provide attendees with real value and ensure you’re attracting interested potential customers

Tailor and segment your event using CRM or registration data to curate the content to your audience’s interests for more meaningful engagement

Create an immersive experience that lets you connect deeply with your audience

11 internal customer journey touchpoints to optimize 

Once your potential customers reach your website and product pages, key internal touchpoints can make or break their experience. 

Let’s explore the internal touchpoints you can optimize to land more conversions and delight —and retain—your customers:

1. CTA buttons 

Call-to-action buttons—like ‘Try it free’, ‘Learn more’, and ‘Add to cart’—guide your visitors to complete conversion action goals. Clear, compelling CTA buttons entice users to click, so they can take actions, like finding more information, booking a demo, starting a free trial, or initiating or completing a purchase.

Here’s how to optimize your CTA buttons:

Keep your CTA ‘above the fold’ , at the point before users have to start scrolling down your web page to learn more about your product offering

Use bright colors and white space to make sure your button stands out

Make sure any copy that accompanies your CTA clearly conveys how this action will solve the unique challenges of your potential customers

2. Homepage 

Your homepage is a crucial customer touchpoint: it's your users' first impression of your website, playing a huge role in whether they decide to keep navigating, and it guides them to intuitively find their way around your site.

Use your homepage to help visitors understand your product's value and show them what to do next. 

This touchpoint determines whether users will continue exploring your site and your product solutions —so make sure your web design is customer-centric, with clear, intuitive navigation menus, working links, and compelling images and content. 

Use these tips to make your homepage touchpoints more effective:

Set clear goals: define exactly what you want your website to do and what its customer journey KPIs should be. Stick closely to your core objectives to communicate your mission effectively to users. 

Create an attractive header: using an attractive, consistent header throughout your website experience—with a recognizable logo—elevates your brand's awareness and creates user trust

Build an intuitive navigation bar: make sure users are able to easily navigate your website from the second they land on your homepage with smart web design choices to improve UX

Add compelling CTAs: include calls-to-action that appeal to each type of user, and A/B test them to see which are most effective

Pro tip : use Hotjar's Observe products to see where users click, scroll, and move on your home page—so you know what to adjust to increase engagement. Hotjar's Heatmaps and Session Recordings tools help you A/B test CTAs and other homepage elements to get a granular view on which options compel users to click and engage.

#Hotjar Heatmaps tools

Source: Hotjar 

3. Landing pages 

Landing pages lead users to a specific product or offer—like an ecommerce promotion, a free trial, ebook, white paper, or webinar—that entices them to take action.

Landing pages focus users on one specific conversion action, helping online businesses guide targeted leads through signups that are more likely to convert. Use your landing page to home in on one unique value proposition and encourage users to complete that desired action on your site.  

Our top four tips for optimizing landing pages for customers are: 

Simplify design: don’t use complex design elements or cram your landing page with too much media or content—you don’t want to distract users from your landing page’s main objective. Keep design and copy simple and focused to make sure users get to your call to action. 

Clearly state your offer: don’t make users dig around for what you’re offering them. Make your value known to visitors: clearly explain the pains they’ll solve by taking an action, and why they should choose your solution to meet their needs. 

Prioritize value-based information above the fold: make sure your users are given the most valuable information before this point to encourage them to keep reading

Watch user recordings: Hotjar Recordings let you watch full user sessions, so you can see every click, scroll, u-turn, and rage click in real-time as visitors navigate your landing page. This arms you with valuable insights on blockers to remove and possible optimizations.

4. Signup forms

Signup forms let users opt in to communications like email newsletters or receiving educational resources. Using signup form touchpoints effectively can help you grow your mailing list, learn more about your users, and increase leads and conversions. 

So, how can you make your signup touchpoints more effective? 

Make it clear to users what the value of signing up is, and how it will help them solve their problems

Make signup forms short and clean—the more form fields you include, the more friction users experience

Personalize sign-up with tools like Mailchimp

Make the signup process easy with autofill forms

5. Blog posts

Blog posts are a vital touchpoint to earn your customers’ trust by offering them content that establishes credibility and thought leadership and helps them better understand your product's or website's jobs to be done .

High-quality blog posts build trust by showing users you understand their pains, helping them evaluate their options and make a decision. SEO-optimized blog posts can also help potential customers find your website on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Here’s how to make sure your blog posts are effective customer touchpoints:

Optimize for SEO: Optimize website readability , headlines, content, images, and anchor text to make your blog posts and other content findable to users 

Optimize for targeted keywords: stuffing your blog posts with less relevant keywords can harm SEO. Use a few long-tail keywords to narrow your focus and directly answer user questions. Remember, you’re writing for people , not search engines—and this approach will actually benefit SEO.

Add image alt text: search engines like images with alt text—they add to the user experience by summarizing what’s in the image, in the event that it doesn’t load

Optimize URLs: make sure your URLs and topic-specific ‘slugs’ are relevant to your content and inform users about what they’re about to open

Optimize meta descriptions: give search engines and customers a brief overview of what your blog post is about to inspire users to click through

5. Video/visual media

Great media elements compel viewers to convert by engaging your audience, providing useful information, and showcasing the benefits of your brand and product solution. Visual media can elicit an emotional response from users that helps them connect your brand with their needs. 

Make sure to optimize your visual media to maximize its effect on the overall customer journey. Here’s how:

Create user-centric videos: your videos should provide added value and insights, or educate users on the ins and outs of your product and features. Create content that’s relevant to your users to capture their attention and keep them engaged. 

Have a clear goal: determine the responses you’re hoping to get from viewers beforehand to design visual media with maximum impact 

Add key SEO information: do keyword research and add targeted keywords to video and image meta descriptions. Try transcribing your video content so users have the option to read it—and search engines can understand what it’s about. 

Consider lead capture methods: ask users for their email to access special or useful content and help you get qualified leads deeply interested in learning about solutions

6. Product pages 

Product pages help ecommerce companies showcase different product offerings and encourage users to make a purchase or learn more. 

Use an effective page navigation layout and high-quality images and product descriptions to give your customers everything they need to make their decision at this touchpoint. 

Here’s how to optimize product pages for your customers: 

Organize your products: group your products in a way that makes sense to your users, with clearly labeled categories, intuitive filters, and search bars

Make user-centric design decisions: adjust the style of your page, including its language, layout type, and item placement, to help users easily access all the information they need and improve their product experience (PX). Test out different product page designs with Hotjar's Heatmaps to see which attract more engagement—and ask users why with Surveys .

Add CTAs: include clear, compelling CTAs throughout the page to inspire users to carry out the intended action

Image quality: use professional, high-quality images of your products or services that clearly display their main features to compel users to keep browsing

Include all relevant information: add reviews, product comparisons, product specs, shipping information, and final price so your users have all the information they need to successfully convert

7. Point of exit   

The point of exit is when a user stops engaging with your website or product, whether it’s by unsubscribing, abandoning their cart, or exiting a page after clicking around.  Tracking churn touchpoints helps companies uncover key information on what’s stopping users from converting into paying customers.

It’s important to ask yourself— and your users —questions at this stage:

If a user abandons their cart: what about your checkout experience caused friction? 

If a user exits a page: what could you do to make your pages more targeted and engaging? 

If a user unsubscribes: how can you improve your product experience? 

How to optimize point of exit touchpoints: 

Identify where users drop off: use Google Analytics to track which pages are failing to convert by identifying the percentage of exits per page

Optimize pages with high exit rates: make sure web page design, navigation, and responsiveness are optimized for minimal exit. Include animations, images, and visual media—and optimize your content with the tips above.

Use multiple-choice churn surveys: place Hotjar Surveys on ‘unsubscribe’ pages to ask users why they’re churning. Let them choose a reason from a multiple-choice list so it’s quick and easy for users to complete—but also create an open-ended question where they can add their free-form feedback. 

Exit-intent surveys: use Hotjar exit-intent surveys to ask your users why they’re leaving your site without taking a conversion action. Then, use these actionable insights to make impactful changes.

8. Starting a free trial

Free trials are a key customer journey touchpoint that lets users experience your product on their own terms and decide if it’s what they’re looking for. 

This ‘show, don’t tell’ approach means you can focus on improving your solution so a trial user understands its value, rather than aggressively selling your product. 

Try the following to improve your free trial customer touchpoints: 

Build a trustworthy, informative landing page: create a landing page that’s dedicated to free trial signups and clearly explains the trial benefits and conditions. Include testimonials, trust seals, and guarantees to persuade users to give your trial a go.

Make signup and download easy: use a simple signup form with minimal steps, and make it easy for users to download and get started on your product trial, so they’ll be more likely to follow through. 

Provide clear timeframes: tell users how long they can expect their free trial to last, so they’re aware of when to cancel or continue with paid plans to build their trust

Showcase your product's value: make the trial worth users’ time and communicate how it’ll help them achieve their goals

9. Onboarding

Your onboarding experience directly impacts product adoption and helps build lasting relationships with users, which can turn them into brand advocates. 

Optimize onboarding touchpoints to make sure users are getting the most value possible, as they learn how to use your product and features, to minimize churn and maximize user satisfaction.

Make sure your onboarding process clearly and intuitively shows users how to get set up and introduces them to key features and use cases to help them integrate your product into their everyday life.

Here’s how to optimize your customer onboarding: 

Educational content and problem-solving: create high-quality educational content that simply and quickly answers user questions. Investing in an interactive knowledge base is one great way to address user issues that might arise during onboarding. Also, ensure that you have fast, effective customer support available.

Introduce users to key features: use hotspots, banners, and tooltips to draw users’ attention to features that might help them and let them quickly locate the answers to any questions they might have

Optimize welcome emails: A/B test your welcome email to find out what users respond to most

Collect user feedback: use Hotjar's Feedback tools to ask users what you could improve during the onboarding process and what they need help with. Use the Feedback widget for streamlined in-browser feedback forms to make gathering user opinions simple.

10. Using a new feature

New features keep users engaged with your product and add value to their experience to help them in their journey of becoming loyal customers. 

Find compelling ways of introducing new features to your customers so they understand how to make full use of your product and reach higher levels of product adoption. 

Here’s how:

Keep users in the loop on new features: tell users about upcoming features on your blog, social media, and newsletters to attract customers and get them to try them out. 

Set up guides and prompts: make sure users know about your features and updates within the product itself. Help them set up new features, and explain how to use them effectively. Use tooltips and hotspots to remind users of new features as they’re interacting with your product.

Include relevant features: focus on the user and include the right features that add value. Don’t feature-bomb your users and dissuade them from adopting your product. 

11. Customer reviews 

Customer reviews highly influence user decisions and can make or break a visitor’s desire to adopt your product. 

Positive reviews help build trust with your users and strengthen brand credibility . They encourage users to interact with your brand—and act as a knowledge base for potential customers. 

Here’s how to optimize your customer reviews:

Increase customer confidence: customers who are happy with their product decisions are more likely to leave good reviews and inspire confidence in other users 

Leverage bad reviews: use your reviews as a feedback mechanism to drive change and make user-backed decisions. Where possible, follow up with customers who leave negative feedback to learn more.

Improve your customer experience (CX) through feedback: use a customer experience survey to get user feedback , helping you make changes to improve CX and get better reviews

Optimize your customer journey touchpoints for brilliant results

Optimizing these key touchpoints will improve your customer journey from start to finish, helping you delight your users and meet organizational goals. 

FAQs about customer journey touchpoints

What are customer journey touchpoints.

Touchpoints are the moments your customer interacts with your brand along their journey before, during, and after purchase. 

Important customer touchpoints for websites and products include: 

Social media channels

Landing page

Product pages

New product features

Customer support

Point of exit

The quality of customer journey touchpoints affects the customer’s overall experience and often determines whether they convert, stay loyal to your solution, or churn, so it’s important to be aware of them.

What’s the difference between a customer journey map and customer journey touchpoints?

A customer journey map lays out all the touchpoints a customer may interact with throughout the buyer’s journey. Customer journey touchpoints are the individual interactions a user has with your company, like landing on your website, downloading an ebook, viewing your product pages, signing up for a free trial, making a purchase, or watching a video. 

How do you optimize the customer journey?

To optimize the digital customer journey, first map out all the touchpoints a customer could arrive at. Then, optimize these by evaluating whether they’re meeting user needs, using product experience insights tools like Hotjar, and making targeted changes to improve each touchpoint. If you optimize specific touchpoints throughout the journey, the entire experience will be optimized for user satisfaction. 

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What Are Customer Journey Touch Points? (And How to Optimize Them)

• Updated Sep 01, 2023
• Estimated Reading Time: 0

And it takes an average of seven interactions with your brand before a purchase will take place. Based on such interactions, customers often form the first impression of a brand and make an opinion about the product or service.

As a result, knowing your touchpoints and making sure that each of them leads to a good customer experience should always be a top priority for your business. 

By identifying and mapping digital customer touchpoints, it’s possible to build brand loyalty and increase customer experience. When you map your customer journey across multiple channels and connect them, it helps you understand customers and their requirements better.

In fact, optimizing the touchpoints can help you win more clients and also boost the word of mouth marketing. That’s why it’s important to first know what a touchpoint is.

What are Customer Touchpoints?

Customer touchpoints are defined as the point of interaction with the brand across three main phases of the customer lifecycle i.e. awareness, evaluation, and post-purchase. It has a great impact on the way customers perceive your products & services. The touch points include various digital or customer relationship management (CRM) touchpoints.

Identifying your customer journey touch points is the first and foremost step to create a map. It helps businesses to identify the touchpoints in different phases and manage customer expectations accordingly to deliver a great experience.   

Why is it Important to Map your Customer Marketing Touchpoints?

Touchpoint analysis is crucial for every business no matter big or small. Customer touch point management provides a complete vision and a map of their entire journey. Companies that use tools like customer journey maps reduce their cost of service by 15-20% .

Source: Idiro Analytics

Every consumer touch point, be it digital or traditional, has its own importance and the map helps you to evaluate their experience and make improvements at every step.

• Improve customer retention – Having the right knowledge of the consumer touchpoints helps you to provide instant support, which improves their satisfaction. When customers are happy & satisfied the retention rate increases. 
• Increase sales conversion – Effective mapping and tapping customer touch points can help customers to make quick purchase decisions as a result of which sales conversion levels up.
• Cultivate brand loyalty – Wisely mapping client touch points can help to make a customer brand loyal. You can build relationships via online and offline platforms like social media, event sponsoring, etc.

How to Optimize Customer Touchpoints?

Each of your touch points will have an effect on the overall customer experience. You thus need to have a clear idea about the touchpoints your potential customers will have before, during, and after purchase. Based on that, you can get a better understanding of the customer journey mapping and then optimize customer touch points. 

Here is the list of some ways you can optimize customer experience touch points under 3 main stages. .

• Social media
• Online advertisement
• Customer reviews
• Product demos
• Phone calls
• Product catalog 
• Email 
• Retail Store
• Feedback survey
• Customer loyalty programs

Let us discuss the three stages comprising of traditional and digital customer journey touchpoints and also understand how to optimize touch points.

Awareness – Marketing touchpoints

It is the very first stage when and how customers come to know about your brand? It could be through traditional or digital touch points in their journey. Let us discuss some common points of contact that fall under the awareness stage. 

A website is the most common touchpoint customers choose to reach out to your business. A well-designed site can make visitors want to stay longer and keep them more invested in what your company has to offer.

The main objective while designing a website is that it should leave a first good impression on your customers. Your website must have the right elements and components as they can grab your customer’s attention in the first go and also help attract them.

How to optimize a website? 

• Design – Consider making your site visually appealing to give an overview of your products & services. Focus on hassle-free navigation between the menus. Good website design reduces the bounce rate and increases conversions. 
• Clear messaging – You should highlight the core brand message so that your customers immediately understand what services or products your company sells. 
• Social proof – Social proof in the form of testimonials, reviews, star ratings, and real-time statistics can be used on different web pages such as homepage, product/service page, contact us, etc. It helps in validating their decision. 
• Clear call to action (CTAs) – Consider placing a relevant CTA text. Keep it short and to the point that requires minimum effort to read. For example, Free trial, Buy now or Contact us.  

REVE Chat is an omnichannel live chat platform that allows businesses to engage customers across their preferred channels in real time at any stage of their journey. Sign up with REVE Chat and connect with your customers and deliver instant service their expect at any phase.

2. Live chat

Live chat has become one of the most important channels to interact with businesses. Customers prefer to live chat over the reactive channels as it provides immediate sales and support assistance.

30% of customers expect live chat on your website. And when you address customer concerns in real time, they are highly satisfied which reduces the bounce rate and increases sales conversions.

How to optimize live chat ?

• Proactive support – With live chat, you can proactively start a conversation, when the customers are stuck on specific pages. It helps them in quick decision-making and reduces the bounce rate. 
• Fast response – Live chat can help deliver faster responses to the sales & support queries by using pre-drafted answers and connecting to the right team. It reduces the number of support requests raised by customers.
• Quick follow-up – Live chat can be connected with CRM tools so that the sales team can instantly follow up with prospects and ensure the best live chat customer experience .  
• Conversations on pending requests- You can implement chatbots to collect visitor information which can help initiate the conversation with customers based on their previous or pending requests. 
• Interactive resolution – Your business can combine live chat with co-browsing and video chat to enable the resolution of the query in an interactive manner.

3. Chatbots

Chatbots are being deployed by B2B and retail businesses mainly to deliver automated support and sales assistance. AI bots allow businesses to better assist their customer needs along their journey.

With chatbots , customers do not have to wait for human support. They get real time answers to simple queries reported by them. It creates a good impression on customers of your brand being responsive.  

How to optimize chatbots?

• Real time assistance – By implementing chatbots, you can provide instant support without making customers wait.
• 24×7 availability – Bots are always active to engage your customers by providing instant answers to common queries when your support team is not available or busy, which improves customer satisfaction.
• Reduce the number of support tickets – When bots are used as the primary contact, the repetitive queries are answered instantly, which reduces the number of support requests made by customers. 
• Personify your brand – You can program chatbots with different types of conversational styles to boost customer engagement.

REVE Chat offers automated platform to build and deploy chatbots and engage customers 24×7 across the customer journey touchpoints. Sign up today and deliver instant assistance to the common queries associated with the journey.

4. Social media

37% of social media users visit a brand’s page or like or follow a brand on social media. 

Social media is clearly one of the vital touchpoints for customers to reach out to businesses. For millions, platforms like Facebook, Quora, LinkedIn or Twitter have become a preferred medium to find information or solve problems.

Social channels are naturally a great way to grow your audience and reach business goals through ads and active engagement. They also help businesses to connect well with customers, boost awareness about their brand, increase user engagement  and boost leads and sales.

Source: Markerly

How to optimize social media ?

• Create interactive content –  You first need to understand your audience, their preference, etc. to create engaging content that they will like, comment on, and share. 
• Social media as a communication channel – Using social channels as a mode of communication helps to track comments, questions, and complaints. By responding promptly to their concerns you can make them feel heard.
• Humanize your brand – Social media is ideally the best platform to humanize the brand with a bit of informality and causal discussion it helps boost the engagement level. 
• Encourage engagement – You can encourage your customers to leverage new ways like posting  Instagram Stories , host a quick Q&A session via Facebook Live video streaming or create engaging video content for social media to get a better idea of your followers’ preferences.

5. Events 

Events or trade shows have been a popular way to market products & services. Taking part in events is a great way to build brand awareness, demonstrate industry influence, and generate sales.

In fact, 60% of leadership finds events a vast significant marketing channel for achieving business goals. 

The impact event marketing has on brands is incredible. People who attend a brand’s event are likely to give more value to that brand and view it more favorably over competitors.

Source: Camino Financial

How to optimize events?

• Target the right audience – Exhibitions as part of events cater to a specific category of products or services. You can draw the attention of the right audience with creative ideas. 
• Tailor your content based on segmentation – You can use data from registration or CRM to create a customer profile and then tailor the content to create meaningful engagement with the audience. 
• Offer immersive experience – Offer visitors an immersive and personalized experience through events that help maximize your potential to connect with the audience. 
• Create 1-to-1 connections – People attend events to network with others and share their interests, so you should use events to facilitate one-to-one connections to ensure a better experience for customers. 

6. Online advertisement

Online advertising helps you find the right audience. It targets the ones who are more likely to be interested in what you are selling. 

Your business can leverage online advertising tools such as display ads, social media, or video ads to reach the target audience easily and generate leads.  

Source: DigitalMarketer

How to optimize online advertisements? 

• Understand your target audience – You need to understand the audience based on the geography, demographics and interests as this helps plan your ad campaigns accordingly for better engagement.
• Use a relevant landing page – Make the landing page relevant to the content that relates to the campaign as this will improve the quality score of your ads.  
• A clear call-to-action (CTA) – Having a clear call to action means your ads offer the right visual guides to customers and solve their problems, which can reduce bounce rate and increase conversion.
• Educate your customers – Ads are the best way to tell customers about changes to your service, new product launches, and improvements.  You can inform about special offers or a benefit of your product.

7. Customer reviews

Spiegel Research Centre says, “95% of shoppers read customer reviews before making a purchase.” 

Reviews not only have the power to influence consumer decisions but can also strengthen your brand credibility. They can help gain trust by encouraging customers to interact with the company. 

How to optimize customer reviews? 

• Boost customer confidence – Customers not only find reviews helpful but also feel comfortable and confident about the products or services of your business. 
• Improved customer service – Your business can analyze the reviews and understand the level of customer satisfaction, which can help improve customer service.  
•   Feedback mechanism –  Customer reviews serve as a great feedback tool to understand the needs and pain points, resolve the issues and deliver a better experience.

Evaluation – Customer experience touch points

Mapping of the evaluation stage refers to when customers are impressed with your brand and have made up their minds to buy. With that intention, they start evaluating your product or services to make a final purchase. 

Let us discuss how to identify and optimize customer touch points that fall under the evaluation phase. 

8. Product demos

Customers generally use the product demos as a touch point when they are satisfied with your brand and want to learn more about the specific features.  

Product demos are an important B2B customer journey touchpoint to get a prospect interested and excited about your solution. They can also prove an effective way to address the prospect’s specific product-related concerns. 

How to optimize product demos?  

• Customize demos – You need to customize the product demonstration for each prospect and change the data and content to ensure an exceptional digital customer experience (CX). 
• Provide visual support – Product demonstrations should provide the right kind of visual support, showcase real value, and convey the customer’s story rather than focusing only on the features. 
• Show product from multiple angles – Customers always prefer video for product demos as this can help them see products from different angles and then make an informed decision.

9. Phone calls

The phone communication channel is one critical touch point that customers prefer a lot even after the advent of other digital channels.

B2B or retail businesses need to optimize their phone support quality in order to increase customer satisfaction. They should include phone support training in their customer service etiquette to meet and exceed customers’ expectations for service.

How to optimize phone calls? 

• Train your support team to leave a good impression on your customers and deliver great service access via this popular client touchpoint.
• Agents should be courteous to ask customers how they prefer to be addressed and make an effort to pronounce their names correctly.
• Using active listening skills is key with a focus on allowing the customer to finish speaking before responding.
• Interacting with the customer with confidence is critical for ensuring that the conversation is both productive and effective. 
• Agents must demonstrate a certain level of competence in order to adequately address the customer’s needs.

10. Product catalog

Catalogs are an excellent way of showcasing your product & services to generate favorable responses from customers. 

With an effective product catalog that has the right balance of layout and design, you can easily make your products look attractive and also make it easy for readers to find what they are looking for. 

Customers use catalogs to get a perfect understanding of the product before making a purchase. That’s why make sure yours has the right kind of information and images to drive customer action.

Source: Wherethetradebuys

How to optimize the product catalog ? 

• Know your audience – By knowing who your specific audience is, you’ll be better able to adjust the style of the catalog: its language, layout type, and location of items on the page.
• Organize your products – Set your products into groups and decide where to put each group in the publication. 
• Choose images – A well-written copy is of no value if the images are of bad quality. Select images that are of good quality or hire a professional to click top-quality pictures. 
• Add CTAs on the page – A good catalog should have the product image with a crisp description, together with CTAs on the page to ease customers in carrying out the intended action.

Email is one of the main channels of customer support for most B2B, B2C, or eCommerce companies. 62% of customers say they prefer email support to communicate with brands . 

Email as a customer touchpoint affects everything from repeat purchase rates to lifetime value to how someone talks about your brand privately and publicly. You can leverage the power and reach of email to drive engagement and deliver a better customer experience.

How to optimize email touch point? 

• Personalization – Personalizing emails based on the buyer’s journey, a past purchase, demographics, company size, etc. can help make customers feel like they’re doing business with a human, not a company. 
• Create more opt-in chances – You can create more opt-in chances on the site, such as a blog newsletter sign-up form to improve the click-through rate of the campaign. 
• Send a re-engagement email – By sending a re-engagement mail, you can take a targeted attempt at stirring the interest of potential leads that may have gone cold. 
• A/B test – Perform AB checks on different fonts, colors, CTAs, etc. to meet the audience’s preferences and gain key insights for future campaigns.

12. Retail store

Buyers will interact with retailers across multiple touchpoints, so delivering a consistent experience is always the key to success at the store. Plus, customers want in-person service, which is crucial to differentiate your store from the online store experience.

80% of customers say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences.

Source: ourownstartup

How to optimize retail stores?

• All the touch points of the store need to be consistent so that they can help in building credible brand impressions  
• Customers want personalized service from a sales associate and they are ready to share their personal details if it helps you provide a better experience.
• Many customers look for offers and coupons on their phones. They are more likely to shop at a store that has a mobile point of sale.
• You can give customers loyalty rewards and programs that allow them to identify shoppers via their smartphones when they are in-store.

Post-purchase – Customer service touchpoints

These are customer journey touchpoints that indicate what happens after the final purchase. It includes key point of contacts like:

13. Newsletter

Newsletters are one of the best customer touchpoint examples for the value they deliver to customers. They are a great way to keep your customers informed and engaged through interesting content and valuable tips. Newsletters are to give customers updates pertaining to your business, products, and services.

How to optimize newsletters? 

• Share product information – You can advertise your company’s new products and services in your newsletters, and explain the benefits of each product or service. 
• Match customer lifecycle – New product information and triggered-based content can be sent to all your customers based on their journey.
• Showcase your achievements – Your business can increase customer engagement by highlighting your awards to your existing customers. It helps you to deliver the best digital service experience.
• Deliver great content – You can measurably strengthen subscriber engagement and even gain more repeat customers by delivering great content on a regular basis.

14. Feedback survey

Customer satisfaction surveys provide you the feedback you need to keep customers happy and turn them into advocates.

77% of consumers view those brands more favorably that seek out and apply/ incorporate/ value customer feedback. 

How to optimize feedback surveys?

• Understand your customers – Surveys are best fitted to understanding your customers’ journey touchpoints, likes, dislikes, and where you need to make improvements. 
• Decide the area of improvement – The real value of surveys is only realized when the company has the goals in mind and is really concerned about improving customer experience.  
• Make your survey mobile-friendly – It’s important to have surveys that are easy to access and simple to navigate using multiple mobile devices as this will help them reach to more customers and bring their opinion about your business. 
• Ask just a few open-ended questions – keeping the survey short and asking just a few open-ended questions is the key to getting more customers interested in sharing details and insight for your business. 

15. Customer loyalty programs

Loyalty should not only be appreciated but also rewarded. It is one of the important client touch points that you should be aware of. 

So, rewarding loyal customers should be a core part of your customer loyalty programs. If your customer buys from you frequently or generates new customers for your business, they should definitely get something for it.

How to optimize customer loyalty programs?

• Focus on premium customers – Create early access programs for premium customers and invite them to special events to spread positive goodwill. You can feature them as customers of the week/month or give unadvertised discounts to surprise customers.
• Make customers feel appreciated – Personalized programs like rewarding on birthdays can make your customers feel like they have an emotional connection with your brand.
• Use innovative ideas – You can attract new customers with good reward programs like offering points or discounts for signup , or try something innovative like Sephora. 

Sephora’s Beauty Insider rewards program boasts more than 17 million loyal members . The members make up as much as 80% of Sephora’s annual sales. Customers earn rewards for each purchase based on a traditional point system.

Hitting the Right customer touchpoints is vital for a great experience

Having a thorough touchpoint analysis across all three stages; before, during, and after purchase is vital to understand their preferences and expectations. It helps you in mapping customer journeys and leverages them in the right way in order to deliver a consistent support experience. 

Mapping customer journeys across digital touchpoints is an important part as customers nowadays are using more digital channels. Hence, businesses need to focus more on the digital point of contact to deliver a great service experience.

REVE Chat is an omnichannel platform that will help you to connect and engage customers across all the journey touchpoints. Sign up today and provide your customers excellent service they expect from your business.

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Snigdha Patel

Snigdha Patel is a customer experience researcher, author, and blogger. As part of REVE Chat, she focuses on helping organizations maximize customer experience using omnichannel messaging and conversational AI.

She creates contextual, insightful, and conversational content for business audiences across a broad range of industries and categories like Customer Service, Customer Experience (CX), Chatbots, and more.

Serving as the lead content strategist, Snigdha helps the customer service teams to leverage the right technology along with AI to deliver exceptional and memorable customer experiences.

Being a customer service adherent, her goal is to show that organizations can use customer experience as a competitive advantage and win customer loyalty.

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From touchpoints to journeys: Seeing the world as customers do

When most companies focus on customer experience they think about touchpoints—the individual transactions through which customers interact with parts of the business and its offerings. This is logical. It reflects organization and accountability, and is relatively easy to build into operations. Companies try to ensure that customers will be happy with the interaction when they connect with their product, customer service, sales staff, or marketing materials. But this siloed focus on individual touchpoints misses the bigger—and more important—picture: the customer’s end-to-end experience. Only by looking at the customer’s experience through his or her own eyes—along the entire journey taken—can you really begin to understand how to meaningfully improve performance.

Customer journeys include many things that happen before, during, and after the experience of a product or service. Journeys can be long, stretching across multiple channels and touchpoints, and often lasting days or weeks. Bringing a new customer on board is a classic example. Another is resolving a technical issue, upgrading a product, or helping a customer to move a service to a new home. In our research, we’ve discovered that organizations that fail to appreciate the context of these situations and manage the cross-functional, end-to-end experiences that shape the customer’s view of the business can prompt a downpour of negative consequences, from customer defection and dramatically higher call volumes to lost sales and lower employee morale. In contrast, those that provide the customer with the best experience from start to finish along the journey can expect to enhance customer satisfaction, improve sales and retention, reduce end-to-end service cost, and strengthen employee satisfaction.

This is especially true in today’s multitouchpoint, multichannel, always-on, hypercompetitive consumer markets. The explosion of potential customer interaction points—across new channels, devices, applications, and more—makes consistency of service and experience across channels nigh impossible—unless you are managing the journey, and not simply individual touchpoints. Indeed, research we conducted in 2015 involving seven EU telecom markets found that when consumers embarked on journeys that involved multiple channels their experience was materially worse than during single-channel experiences, whether those experiences were digital or not.

The trouble with touchpoints

Consider the dilemma that executives faced at one media company. Customers were leaving at an alarming rate, few new ones were available for acquiring in its market, and even the company’s best customers were getting more expensive to retain. In economic terms, a retained customer delivered significantly greater profitability than a newly acquired customer over two years. Churn, due to pricing, technology, and programming options, was an increasingly familiar problem in this hypercompetitive market. So was retention. The common methods for keeping customers were also well known but expensive—tactics like upgrade offers and discounted rate plans, or “save desks” to intercept defectors.

So the executives looked to another lever—customer experience—to see if improvements there could halt the exodus. What they found surprised them. While the company’s overall customer-satisfaction metrics were strong, focus groups revealed that a large number of customers left because of poor service and shoddy treatment over time. “How can this be?” one executive wondered. “We’ve measured customer satisfaction for years, and our call centers, field services, and website experience each score consistently over 90 percent. Our service is great!”

As company leaders probed further, however, they discovered a more complex problem. Most customers weren’t fed up with any one phone call, field visit, or other individual service interaction—in fact, most customers didn’t much care about those singular touchpoint events. What was driving them out the door was something the company wasn’t examining or managing—the customers’ cumulative experience across multiple touchpoints, multiple channels, and over time.

Take new-customer onboarding, for example, a journey that spanned about three months and involved an average of nine phone calls, a home visit from a technician, and numerous web and mail interactions. At each touchpoint, the interaction had at least a 90 percent chance of going well. But average customer satisfaction fell almost 40 percent over the course of the entire journey. The touchpoints weren’t broken—but the onboarding process as a whole was.

Many of customers’ numerous calls during the process represented attempts to clarify product information, fix problems with an order, or understand a confusing bill. Most of these service encounters were positive in a narrow sense—employees answered the questions or solved the issues as they arose—but the underlying problems were avoidable, the root causes left unaddressed, and the cumulative effect on customer experience was decidedly negative. The company’s touchpoint-oriented, metric-driven way of thinking about customer experience had a large blind spot.

Solving the problem would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but the company needed a whole new way of thinking about and managing its service operations to identify and reimagine the customer-experience journeys that mattered most.

More touchpoints, more complexity

The problem encountered by the media company is far more common than most organizations care to admit and is often difficult to spot. At the heart of the challenge is the siloed nature of service delivery and the insular cultures, behaviors, processes, and policies that flourish inside the functional groups that companies rely on to design and deliver their services. In many cases, these groups are also the keepers of the touchpoints that shape and measure how the company’s activities meet the customer’s—say, an in-store conversation with a sales rep, a visit to the company’s website, or a query to the company’s call center. Whether because of poorly aligned incentives, management inattention, or simply human nature, the functional groups that manage these touchpoints are constantly at risk of losing sight of what the customer sees (and wants)—even as the groups work hard to optimize their own contributions to the customer experience.

The media company’s sales personnel, for example, were measured and rewarded for closing new sales—not for helping customers navigate a complex menu of technology and programming options to find the lowest-price offer that met their needs. Yet frustration about complex pricing for high-end equipment, confusion about promotions, and surprise over program lineups were all frequent causes of dissatisfaction later in the process, as well as frequent sources of queries to the company’s call centers. Executives knew that each of these discrete items was a challenge—but only when they took a broader end-to-end view did it become apparent that even though each individual link in the service-delivery chain appeared healthy, the cumulative effect was quite the opposite.

The answer isn’t to replace touchpoint management and thinking. Indeed, the expertise, efficiencies, and insights that functional groups bring to bear are important, and touchpoints will continue to represent invaluable sources of insights—particularly in the fast-changing digital arena. Instead, companies need to recognize and address the fact that—at least, in most cases—they are simply not wired to naturally think about the journeys their customers take. They are wired to maximize productivity and scale economies through functional units. They are wired for transactions, not journeys.

So how should companies tackle this issue? In our experience, six actions are critical to managing customer-experience journeys (articles elsewhere in this volume explore several of these topics in depth):

• Step back and identify the nature of the journeys customers take—from the customer’s point of view.
• Understand how customers navigate across the touchpoints as they move through the journey.
• Anticipate the customer’s needs, expectations, and desires during each part of the journey.
• Build an understanding of what is working and what is not.
• Set priorities for the most important gaps and opportunities to improve the journey.
• Come to grips with fixing root-cause issues and redesigning the journeys for a better end-to-end experience.

The amount of time it can take to identify journeys, understand performance, and redesign the experience can vary widely from company to company. For companies seeking only to fix a few glaring problems in specific journeys, top-down problem solving can be enough. But those that want to transform the overall customer experience may need a bottom-up effort to create a detailed road map for each journey, one that describes the process from start to finish and takes into account the business impact of enhancing the journey and sequencing the initiatives to do so. For many companies, combining operational, marketing and customer, and competitive-research data to understand journeys is a first-time undertaking, and it can be a long process—sometimes lasting several months. But the reward is well worth it; creating a fact base allows management to clearly see the customer’s experience and decide which aspects to prioritize.

Journeys explained

To better see how customer journeys work, let’s look at a measurable and routine service event—say, a product query—from the point of view of both the company and the customer. The company may receive millions of phone calls with questions about its product, and it is imperative to handle each of these calls well. But when customers are asked to recall their side of the experience months later, it is highly unlikely that they would describe such calls simply as a “product question.” That’s because the call has a context, and understanding it is the key to understanding customer journeys (Exhibit 1).

A customer-journey scorecard

Managers should know what a customer journey entails:

A journey is a specific, discrete experience in the customer life cycle. The act of simply purchasing a product in a store is a touchpoint within a customer’s journey. Researching and then buying a new product and getting it up and running at home would constitute the full journey as the customer sees it.

End-to-end experiences

It’s not enough to measure customer satisfaction on any single touchpoint; what matters is the customer’s experience across the entire journey. It’s common to generate high individual touchpoint-satisfaction scores and unacceptably low scores across the end-to-end journey.

Do managers describe journey events in the way a customer would (for example, “upgrading my product or service”)? Or do they lapse into company-speak (for example, “shipping new equipment”)?

Often multitouch and multichannel in nature, a “new-product onboarding” journey might begin with a website visit, then a sales call, then a second website visit, followed by a store visit, then a technical-help call during the activation or installation stage.

Journeys are often longer than you think. For example, the onboarding journey in the cable industry can extend through two or three billing cycles. (Most calls in the first few months are actually onboarding-related issues and inquiries.)

Journeys are repeatable—and can be repeated for a meaningful percentage of customers.

The customer might have been trying to ensure uninterrupted service after moving, for example, or was confused about renewal options at the end of a contract, or was trying to fix a nagging technical problem. A company that effectively manages its customer journeys would still do the best job it could with the individual transaction—but its agents would also understand the context for the call, address the root cause for the customer’s query, and create the feedback loops to help the company continuously improve the wide range of upstream and downstream interactions that surround (and sometimes cause) the call. That is a broader lens than most call centers apply (see sidebar, “A customer-journey scorecard”).

Most executives we talk to readily grasp the journey concept but wonder whether perfecting journeys pays off in hard-dollar outcomes. Our research, in the form of annual cross-industry customer-experience surveys that span pay TV, retail banking, auto insurance, and other sectors, shows that it does. Companies that excel in delivering journeys tend to win in the market. In both the insurance and TV industries, for example, better performance on journeys correlates strongly with faster revenue growth ; in fact, in measurements of customer satisfaction with the firms’ most important journeys, a one-point improvement on a ten-point scale corresponds to at least a three-percentage-point increase in the revenue-growth rate (Exhibit 2).

Moreover, the companies that perform best on journeys have a more distinct competitive advantage than those that excel at touchpoints; in one of the industries we surveyed, the gap on customer satisfaction between the top- and bottom-quartile companies on journey performance was 50 percent wider than the gap between the top- and bottom-quartile companies on touchpoint performance. Put simply, most companies perform fairly well on touchpoints, but distinctive performance on journeys can set a company apart.

Why are journeys so much more effective at driving results? For one thing, our research suggests that journeys are more predictive of desired outcomes. In most industries, the three journeys that matter most to customers account for more than 25 percent of total customer satisfaction. Indeed, across industries, performance on journeys is substantially more strongly correlated with customer satisfaction than performance on touchpoints—and performance on journeys is significantly more strongly correlated with business outcomes such as revenue, churn, and repeat purchase. In other words, delivering a distinctive journey experience makes it more likely that customers repeat a purchase, spend more, recommend to their friends, and stay with your company (Exhibit 3).

Journeys versus touchpoints: Some practical examples

Consider the case of the local operating entity of a global insurance player. Market leadership in one of its largest lines of business, car insurance, was under siege by both established players and new entrants. Executives knew that they would have to innovate in order to differentiate their offering. They also knew that for a long time the fragmented nature of their customer experience had been a problem: many of their customers bought their product and managed their claims via a broker. When a car needed repair after an incident, a local mechanic typically managed the process, with little involvement from the car insurer. With so many individual touchpoints outside the company’s control, the insurer struggled to provide a consistently high-quality and repeatable experience.

Research identified consistent and clear communications as one of the most important elements of customer experience. Improving the experience started with offering insurance policies that were easy to read, understand, and compare with those of competitors. But even more important to customers was securing answers to questions regarding the status of their car while under repair. What was being replaced or repaired? When would they get the car back?

The effort made it apparent that there was potential to resolve a critical frustration for customers during a very important part of their overall customer journey with the insurer. It also revealed the opportunity to build a deeper engagement and relationship. So the company set out to provide an end-to-end communications “glue” to what had been a multitouchpoint, multiparty customer journey.

Executives rapidly created a prototype using a sample of 20 current customer cases. Each day, the company would track where the case was and provide a simple update to the customer via email or text. The company set up “personal contacts” for each customer who would send the emails, serve as a single source of contact, and phone the customer directly if there was a material update to be announced, such as a delay in finishing the work. Overall, every effort was made to personalize communication during an important phase in the customer’s journey. By the end of the pilot, the company had learned a number of lessons related to the appropriate frequency of contact, the importance of using the customer’s preferred channels, and timing communications. The company also learned how to scale the service without adding substantial costs, largely by using underutilized call-center resources at off-peak hours.

The impact was profound. Net promoter scores for the customer journey climbed by 15 percentage points, and by 50 points for difficult cases, such as when repairs were first attempted but eventually the car had to be declared a total write-off. Delighted customers sent thank-you notes to the company, and brokers and mechanics reported significant improvements in their dealings with customers, who were now much better informed.

Or consider the European energy retailer that identified the “home moving” journey as a particular point of dissatisfaction among its customers, as well as a significant source of churn. The company mobilized a cross-functional team (service, sales, marketing, and IT) to understand what was happening—from the customer’s viewpoint—along the journey to prompt these high levels of customer dissatisfaction. What the team found was a basic journey that was performing poorly across the various functions and departments that supported it.

The journey’s design suffered from several features that imposed unnecessary inconvenience and anxiety on customers when moving. For example, customers had to contact the company no earlier than ten days before their move date to provide all of the necessary details—otherwise the IT systems would not record the information. An organized customer, one who called perhaps a month before the move date to set everything up, would find that his or her move details were never recorded. Customers also had only one method—voice calling—to contact the company.

Once the customer had notified the company of moving plans, he or she would receive several different forms of communication. Upon examination, the team found that some of the communications were redundant, while others contradicted other accurate pieces of communications. All this generated additional anxiety and confusion.

Poor communication, in fact, was the single largest reason that customers called into the call centers, and it was another source of dissatisfaction. Customer-service agents had no method of tracking where the customer was on his or her moving journey. More often than not, this meant that agents had to hand off the inquiry to a back-office team for further investigation and problem resolution. The back-office team, inundated with these types of inquiries, suffered delays in getting back to the customer with a resolution, naturally producing additional calls to the call center—and so on.

The good news was that, for the first time, the company understood the benefit of taking an end-to-end view of the customer journey and the importance of understanding how interdependent individual touchpoints were along the journey.

Several improvements were designed and implemented rapidly to address the key problem areas. The moving journey was redesigned into a signature customer journey for this energy-retail company: customers now have the flexibility to provide the company with their move information at a time that suits them. They also have the option to use a phone, the web, or a smartphone app to contact the company; all essential communications are now delivered consistently in a single “home movers” pack. Finally, the company now incorporates into the home-movers pack discount vouchers for do-it-yourself stores, tradespeople, and restaurants in the area—creating a welcoming cluster of local businesses (the businesses also happen to be customers of the energy retailer’s small and midsize business unit, thus creating a positive customer experience across all customer segments). The result? A 50 percent increase in customer satisfaction from the starting position, and a 15 percent reduction in the company’s customer-service cost. Employee satisfaction increased by 20 percent and churn related to this journey was cut by more than half.

In most cases, companies are simply not naturally wired to think about the journeys their customers take. Thinking about customer journeys—instead of traditional touchpoints—can require an operational and cultural shift that engages the organization across functions and from top to bottom. For the companies that master it, the reward is higher customer and employee satisfaction, revenue and cost improvements, and an enduring competitive advantage.

Nicolas Maechler is a principal in McKinsey’s Paris office, Kevin Neher is a principal in the Denver office, and Robert Park is an associate principal in the London office.

The authors wish to thank Conor Jones and Laird Rawsthorne for their contributions to this article.

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Customer Touchpoints | Definitions, strategies, & expert interviews

Customer touchpoints are essential to understanding your customer's journey.

66% of companies now compete primarily on customer experience . This makes sense given that 86% of buyers will pay more for a great experience.

Great customer experiences require a lot of attention to detail at every stage of interaction with the customer. So in this guide, we will not only go through the basics and why touch points are so important, we'll also walk you through how you can do a customer feedback analysis that breaks into a touchpoint analysis .

Whether you're a newbie or an industry expert looking to brush up on the finer points, this guide is for anyone looking to understand touchpoints in detail.

What's in the guide?

• What are customer touch points?
• Examples of customer touch points
• The typical touch points in a customer journey
• What makes touch points important?
• How to do a touchpoint analysis (5 steps in detail)

Touchpoint FAQs

• We've also created a complete guide to customer journey mapping here.

[ Read The Case Study ]: How to Reduce Response Time by 46% to Customers in Critical Need of Customer Service

What are customer touchpoints .

We had answered this question on our LinkedIn page a while back (follow us there for regular education like this):

Another touch points definition

‍ A touchpoint is any interaction (including encounters where there is no physical interaction) that might alter the way that your customer feels about your product, brand, business or service.

It sounds like business jargon, and it is! The reality is that a touch point is simply anytime you encounter a company. For example, you may be using an Apple computer right now. The computer itself is a touch point with Apple as a company.

Usually, businesses want to understand their ‘touch points’ because each one is responsible for how much money a customer spends and how frequently. For an airline, for example, the touch points include everything from the ticket, the signs in the airport, the agent at the gate, the seat, the flight attendant, and the onboard magazine. Each one of these points changes your expectations, emotions and feeling toward that airline.

Customer journey definition (and what's the difference)

If a customer touchpoint is a singular unit, a touchpoint map is an inventory of those touch points. A touchpoint map should not be confused with a customer journey or journey map.

A journey map is done on a very specific point: one touchpoint or a transition from one touchpoint to the next.

In a customer journey map , we choose an interaction like calling customer service . We then map the steps the customer must take from the moment of need through to the moment of completing or fulfilling that need. A journey map contains what the customer is doing or thinking or feeling.

What are the stages of a customer journey?

A customer journey can be many, many parts of their interaction with your brand. As stated above, the customer journey map is “the steps the customer must take from the moment of need through to the moment of completing or fulfilling that need.”

We could apply this to many needs a customer has with your company. Whether they’re filling out a form, trying to make a purchase, or wanting to learn how to do something new with your product. 

If we pick trying to make a purchase, the stages might include: visiting your website, browsing for products, making a search, adding to a basket, entering payment details, the confirmation email, and so on.

Customer touch points examples

Typical customer touch points for most businesses include an element of bricks and mortar, a website , a call centre, post, email, customer service /support and sales.

These touch points can then be multiplied by the number of indirect touch points such as social media , written and other media content, marketing, indirect partner channels, third-party review sites, market research, third-party industry regulators, and the list goes on.

In the example pictured below, we’ve used the SentiSum customer insights platform to identify touch points and understand how customers feel about each one. We’ve found that in the last six months, 297 customers mention ‘tracking of orders’.

This is a great example of a customer touchpoint. For an eCommerce brand that sends parcels to their customers, the parcel tracking (a host of touch points) really makes a difference to reassure customers it’s on the way.

In this example, 91% of customers mentioned “tracking of orders” in a positive way. Phew. If we dig one step deeper, we can see that it was ‘communication’ that mattered so much to customers. They were happy at each communication touchpoint, these could be:

• When the customer receives an SMS saying their order is out for delivery.
• When the customer receives a confirmation email that sets their expectations for arrival time.
• The phone call update to let the customer know the driver is going to be late.

Moving to another industry: fashion. The clothing industry, in particular, felt the pain of this COVID-19 pandemic. Their touch points were both physical and digital, and the digital portion dropped off the map almost entirely. Here's a list of touch points aligned with a customer journey map.

Here's a more general list of brand touch points. The touchpoint map in this image has been largely simplified to pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase.

Customer journey touch points

The pre-purchase touch points.

The pre-purchase touch points are often described as producing unknown results. They are defined as all the moments of contact a potential customer has with a business before they interact with the business themselves. Even though their individual effects on customers can not be translated into data all the time, they are still a valuable part of the customer journey.

There are plenty of different forms that a pre-purchase touchpoint can take, for example:

• Social Media Adverts
• Social Media Posts
• Displayed Advertising on Websites
• Word of Mouth
• Employee Generated Content
• Content Sponsorship

Knowing which of those touch points are the most significant to you and leveraging their influence is an essential part of crafting a good customer experience. Search engines are often a key part of the customer journey. If your website is SEO optimised you can answer specific queries potential customers might have, adding value to them before they know who you are. There are a ton of SEO case studies out there that can help you focus your content on pre-purchase customer queries.

The purchase touch points

The purchase touch points are all the interactions the customer has with the business whilst they are purchasing the advertised service.

Years ago, the main touchpoint of this most likely took the form of physically going into the shop to make a purchase. However, now there is much more to consider in terms of purchase touch points, for example:

• Customer Service Team
• Physical Store
• Through distributors or retailers

Ensuring that the experience customers have at this point is vital a good way to increase the likelihood that this customer will become a customer for life. Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer , hence it is in the best interest for a business to ensure that this part of the customer journey is as smooth as possible. 

The post-purchase touchpoint

Assuming that the customer journey is over once they have made their purchase is a mistake that can cost businesses time and money. The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%.

Here are a few examples of post-purchase touch points:

• Social Media (Making sure that you don't forget about your existing customers on your social media is crucial if you want to create a community around your business)
• Newsletters
• Customer Service
• Loyalty Programs

Customer Journeys are becoming more varied and complex due to the increasing number of touch points. For a business with the desire to improve their customer satisfaction , they need to be aware now more than ever of what their touch points are and whether they are aiding their businesses or not.

Related read: 8 unique customer service improvement ideas

Why are touch points important in the customer journey.

The most important thing about touch points is that they are where people form opinions about your company.

Often a customer interacts with your brand 20 times before they purchase. Each one of those leaves an impression. And each one is an opportunity to leave a favourable impression that ultimately leads to a sale.

Effectively monitoring and perfecting your touch points is now a competitive act. They create the opportunity to win a customer from a competitor, retain more loyal customers, and influence purchase consideration.

The link between customer satisfaction is why managing touch points is so important. But it's also why a large number of customer journey touch points make CSAT so complex. Feedback on every single one needs to be monitored, no easy feat at scale.

Why is optimising customer touch points online beneficial for businesses?

Most businesses have one main goal: maximising profit (we’d also like to add a second goal: making the world a better place). Profit is made up of two parts: revenue minus cost. Every customer touchpoint will have an impact on these two parts, optimising the touchpoint, therefore, will help businesses hit their goal.

A particularly important online touchpoint is your website. Most businesses will optimise their website depending on their own needs, for example, a software business may optimise their website so that visitors click to buy the product or sign up for a trial. A supermarket may optimise their website for easy ‘find what you want and check out’.

Either way, the more optimised every touchpoint is, the easier it will be for your customer to take the action you want them to take. Ultimately, this will help you hit your goals as a business.

Touch points are even more important in 2022

2022 is a new era of customer-centricity. More than 66% of companies now compete primarily on customer experience. Showing that customers want to be wowed by their interaction with your brand.

Successful businesses in the next decade will focus on innovating across multiple touch points.

Winning the tech-savvy customer will require the building of a brand story at each touchpoint and then weaving them together.

Contagious loyalty and brand advocacy come from authenticity and trust at every point in the customer journey. So it's essential businesses know which touch points are letting them down or causing mistrust so that time and effort can be directed there.

Customer touchpoint analysis: How to do a customer touchpoint analysis in 5 simple steps

Managing your customer experience is an ongoing process and one that is a team effort. If CX is not a cross-functional effort, you risk inefficiency, siloed customer insight and doing double the work.

Stage 1: Planning your touchpoint analysis

Get ready for customer touchpoint analysis by doing preparation and planning. Identify which personas you want to analyse the touchpoints for, outline your objectives, and plan your research methods. Will you be interviewing customers? Running a workshop with internal stakeholders? Gathering touchpoint data manually or using the software?

Stage 2: Measuring your consumer touchpoint baseline

Map each customer touchpoint you know using the templates above. Identify every touchpoint a customer interacts with pre-purchase through to purchase, and lay it out using an online platform or on a whiteboard.

Stage 3: Gather & analyse customer feedback data

Collect data to build out your knowledge of each customer touchpoint. Interview your customers and collect feedback to understand how your customers feel at each touchpoint.

If you're planning on using surveys to gather data, make sure they don't suck. If the output of your surveys isn't actionable (unbiased, statistically significant and insightful) then they're a waste of time. Here's our view on what makes great customer feedback surveys .

There are plenty of other ways to gather feedback. If your company uses a help desk like Zendesk, we have a Zendesk sentiment analytics tool or you can check out our guide for manual customer support ticket analysis .

However, if you don’t have time for manual analysis, we suggest using a voice of the customer tool like SentiSum. You’ll work with the SentiSum team to automate the tagging of every support ticket , survey and review across your company, which will make identifying and analysing touch points simple.

The platform will map sentiment (using AI -powered text analytics ) to each touchpoint so you’ll have a clear understanding of touchpoint performance.

Whatever method you use, it’s important that by the end you know:

• Which touch points are causing customer friction
• Which of that customer friction actually matters. Not all friction is equal, some make customers churn instantly, and others are small annoyances. Tie pain to revenue
• How many customers are affected by the friction point?

‍ Related read: Support ticket insights : Why support tickets are your most valuable insight channel.

Stage 4: take action on your analysis .

Develop a plan that revolves around your findings from stage three.

Low-hanging fruits are a great place to start. Ask yourself, which problems are having a large impact on customers but are easy to solve?

The rest of your plan should focus on eliminating or improving underperforming touch points. The ones that are most important to your customer should be prioritised.

You cannot do this alone, so it's important to articulate your plan clearly and back it up with evidence. Always try to speak the language of the business: growth. If you can tie your proposals to revenue outcomes you're likely to get buy-in from more company stakeholders.

The goal for all businesses needs to be a single source of customer truth. This will be the place where all customer feedback from all channels, direct and indirect, can be connected to provide a dynamic and real-time customer journey satisfaction view.

Stage 5: Measure improvements made to each touchpoint

From your baseline measurements, you'll want to track movement in CSAT, NPS and CPO that resulted from your projects. KPIs like the lifetime value of the customer and retention rates should also be measured and linked back to change.

What makes customer feedback actionable?

In our view, actionable customer insights have these characteristics:

• Detailed enough that you understand the root of the problem.
• Unbiased data; collected in a way that does lend itself to falsehoods.
• Data that is fresh. As discussed, customer expectations evolve rapidly. If data collection was done months ago then a problem may have evolved making the change you make potentially damaging.
• Clear ability to prioritise. Qualitative data lone struggles here. How do you know which problems are more important? Which issue at each customer journey touchpoint should you focus on first? Consider quantifying through the volume of topic mentions or manually assigning a severity number. This way you know what is driving customer complaints the most.
• Highly accessible. We've seen siloed data time and time again and it must stop. If you conducted a customer touchpoint analysis, the relevant team must know before they can work with you to reduce negative sentiment at their touchpoint. At SentiSum, we've built a daily digest feature so every day all users can have their finger on the pulse of customer complaints . Accessibility like this ensures your organisation is aligned around your customer's true expectations.

What is a brand contact point?

A brand contact point is just another name for a customer touchpoint. There needs to be no more explanation than: a brand contact point is a potential point of interaction between a customer (in whatever lifecycle stage they’re in) and your company. ‍

What are brand touch points?

Brand touchpoint is just another name for a customer touchpoint or brand contact point. There needs to be no more explanation than a brand touchpoint is a potential point of interaction between a customer (in whatever lifecycle stage they’re in) and your company

What is a touchpoint in the customer journey?

Take again the example of calling customer service . The touch points in this customer journey are the automated questions, the agent, the post-call follow-up, the chatbot used, and so on.

What are touch points in customer experience? Customer experience touch points.

We’ve just defined this question above. Touch points in customer experience are the same thing people are talking about when they say ‘customer touch points’. Customer experience professionals typically want to make every touchpoint (especially those causing customer churn or preventing customer acquisition) the best it can be.

What is the purpose of customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping is a way of creating a visual representation of the experience your customers go through when trying to achieve a goal with your brand, product or service.

It's a bit like a graph, which you use to make data easier to understand and digest. Likewise, the customer journey map makes your customer's experience easy to understand and easy to digest for people across your company.

A 'customer journey map' is usually an Excel document that outlines key events, motivations, customer satisfaction and experience scores at each touchpoint, which is ultimately presented as something that can be a resource for the wider organisation to use.

Read our complete guide to customer journey mapping here.

What are some automations that might help?

We have lots of automation tools that might help optimize the customer journey.

• Automated ticket routing
• AI ticket triage
• Automated customer service analytics

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What Are Customer Touchpoints and How to Identify Them?

Today, consumers expect businesses to provide a seamless customer journey from the moment they first interact with a brand. In fact, 84% of consumers believe that the experience a company provides is just as important as its offerings.

In other words, it takes more than an excellent product to get prospects to purchase from you. That’s why optimizing your customer touchpoints is more important than ever, ensuring that they pave the way for a frictionless journey for your prospects.

Don’t know where to start? This blog post will go through the following topics:

Table of Contents

What are customer touchpoints, why are customer touchpoints important, 15 examples of customer touchpoints, how to identify your customer touchpoints, how to optimize your customer touchpoints and journey.

Let’s start with customer touchpoints’ definition. Customer touchpoints are interactions between a business and a customer throughout the customer’s journey. Identifying key customer touchpoints helps companies determine opportunities to improve their customers’ journey.

Touchpoints affect your customers’ experience and their perception of your brand. When you provide a smooth journey from discovering your business until they buy from you and reach out to you after purchase, they’ll remember you as a helpful and reliable company.

Customer touchpoints are usually documented chronologically in a customer journey map . Doing so helps marketing , sales, and customer service teams identify what stops prospects and customers from proceeding with their journey.

Do your ads’ landing pages take too long to load? Are customer service representatives available to chat or talk when customers have post-sales questions? By identifying touchpoints with friction (such as a page load issue or unavailable customer support), businesses can eliminate them or optimize the journey.

Have you ever canceled your plans to purchase from a business because of a less-than-satisfactory experience? You’re not alone, with 73% of buyers saying customer experience is a critical factor in their purchasing decisions.

Identifying customer touchpoints pushing prospects away from your brand can help you determine which ones to optimize or remove altogether. As a result, you can improve your business’s customer satisfaction. Here are other reasons customer touchpoints are essential:

• Increased customer retention : Satisfied customers will likely purchase from your business again. And we all know that retaining customers is less costly than acquiring new ones.
• Brand loyalty : With happy customers turning to your business every time they need your products or services, you are building a loyal customer base that will refer and promote your company.
• Better post-sales support : An optimized customer journey enables businesses to better address post-sales inquiries and resolve tickets quickly.

If you’re a business-to-business (B2B) company, your customer touchpoints differ from those of an online retailer. That’s because different businesses have different customer touchpoints.

Read on to learn more about 15 common examples of customer touchpoints, categorized by when they occur in the customer journey—before, during, or after a purchase. They are summarized in the table.

Customer touchpoints before a purchase

The initial customer touchpoints typically happen before prospects visit your website or store. These touchpoints happen in channels where customers find you, including:

1. Social media

Did you know that social media is a source of product purchase advice for 80% of users ? A cost-effective way to reach your audience, social media is a customer touchpoint before, during, and after a purchase, but it is typically a strategy to gain new prospects.

To execute an effective social media strategy, ensure your business is on the platform your customers use most often. Use social media to nurture relationships with your audience and build a community of customers. You can promote your products, services, and special offers.

2. Digital ads

Have you ever noticed the ads on search engine results pages (SERPs)? Or how about the display ads at the top of a webpage?

These are digital ads that serve as initial customer touchpoints. They can attract searchers or site visitors to click on the ad and visit a landing page. If your ad features a special offer, ensure it leads to a landing page with all the details they’d expect from the ad.

3. Online content

This blog post you’re reading is an example of online content, which is any material that your business publishes on your site. Other formats include:

• Whitepapers
• Case studies
• Infographics
• Short- or long-form videos

Publish helpful content that your customers seek. When done right, online content helps establish a brand’s credibility and build trust among your prospects.

4. Family or friend referral

Ever wonder what customers say when they talk about your brand with their family, friends, or colleagues? When they share a positive experience and refer others to your business, your new prospects are four times more likely to buy . That’s why it makes sense to invest in word-of-mouth marketing, which boosts your business’s trustworthiness.

5. Face-to-face events

Events and pop-up displays are a great way to introduce your business to potential customers who may not have been aware of your brand. Conferences and trade shows related to your industry are excellent places to start.

Customer touchpoints during a purchase

At this stage, you’ve successfully converted a prospect into a customer. Leave a good impression on your customers at these touchpoints so you’ll start a harmonious relationship with them.

6. Conversation with a sales representative

A prospect is convinced to walk into your brick-and-mortar store after an initial online touchpoint, and the first person they meet is your sales representative. When your sales rep provides the same frictionless experience as they had online, your prospect will likely proceed with their purchase.

7. Product brochures

Brochures are helpful tools for customers to learn more about a business’s product line. They usually contain images and product descriptions. They come in digital formats or hard copies.

Ensure this customer touchpoint assists your prospects during their purchase by providing helpful information. If it’s an online brochure, add a call-to-action that lets site visitors add the product to their cart.

8. Product reviews

Consumers used to do their research about business and product reviews well in advance of a purchase. Today, though, consumers can pull up their phones to do that research in the span of five minutes while they’re shopping in-store. Ecommerce sites now feature product listings with ratings and reviews.

9. Ecommerce site or website

Another digital customer touchpoint during a purchase, ecommerce sites and websites let brands reach customers from anywhere in the world. Make sure your pages provide the information that your audience needs. Provide product descriptions, images, and videos to enhance the customer experience while they’re on your website.

Mind your site’s page load speed so your prospects don’t bounce off your site.

10. Point of sale

At this touchpoint, your sales representative is at the final stage of convincing your prospect that your product or service is what they need.  Make this interaction count by providing the necessary information that your customer needs.

If the point of sale happens online, ensure the page provides easy-to-digest information for your customers.

Customer touchpoints after a purchase

You’ve closed a deal with a customer. Congratulations! The touchpoints don’t end there, though. Make sure customer touchpoints after purchase are still as pleasant as before they were paying customers.

11. Thank-you or welcome emails or notes

Build rapport with your customers—old and new—by providing a thank-you or welcome email. Show your customers that you care about them and appreciate their trust. You can even leave your customer support contact details in the note so they know how to reach you when they stumble into any questions or problems.

12. Billing

While billing may not directly influence your customer’s purchase decision, it is still a vital touchpoint in the customer journey. A negative experience during billing, especially for B2B businesses, may result in your customers leaving.

13. Feedback surveys

Do you want to know what customers think about your product or service? Feedback surveys are customer touchpoints that let you discover whether your business helped them address their pain points.

When a customer leaves a negative review, reach out to learn more about their issue. This can help you improve your product and your sales process .

Did they have trouble using your product? Consider adding another touchpoint of onboarding or tutorial to address this issue.

14. Upselling or cross-selling emails

When customers buy a product from you, they may find that they need other tools to help them get the most from their purchase. Use this opportunity to upsell or cross-sell other helpful products to your customer.

15. Customer support channels

Let your customers contact you when they need your help through chat, email, phone, or social media.

Want to take it a step further? Omnichannel support enables you to provide a seamless experience at this customer touchpoint. If they initially called your customer hotline, but your support team needs screenshots, they can jump into a chat or email without starting with a new service ticket.

Now that you know the different examples of customer touchpoints, it’s time to identify yours.

1. Know your customers and their needs

Identify the different types of customers you have by collating information from your market research and customer surveys. Create buyer personas from them, and identify their various needs.

Based on your different buyer personas, what are the best initial touchpoints for them? For example, let’s say you provide interior design services, and most of your customers have found you via search.

Your initial customer touchpoints are search ads and online content. Optimizing these touchpoints is a good idea to make a good impression on your prospects. 

2. Review how customers interact with your business

If you already have customer touchpoints in place, identify the ones your customers use regularly. Do they interact with your business more through social media or your website? You can also ask your customers where they prefer to engage with your brand through surveys.

3. Map out your customer journey and customer experience

Now that you’ve identified your existing customer touchpoints, map out your customer journey.

How does a buyer persona identify their problem, research a solution, and find your business? Map out how they first interact with your business, purchase from you, and engage with you afterwards.

Customer experience matters at every touchpoint. That’s why it’s crucial to map out the customer experience to find their pain points throughout their journey.

4. Get feedback from your customers through surveys

Are your customers satisfied enough with your product and service that they’ll recommend your business to their family and friends? You can find out by running a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey.

An NPS survey examines your customer’s satisfaction and asks them if they’re likely to recommend your business. If they’re not satisfied at any point during their engagement with your company, address the friction.

You can also run other surveys throughout your customer’s journey to determine which touchpoints need to be optimized.

5. Regularly review your customer touchpoints and customer journey map

Optimizing your customer touchpoints isn’t a one-and-done activity. Review them regularly and update your customer touchpoints file whenever you have new marketing campaigns or customer paths.

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Once you’ve mapped out your customer touchpoints, you can use this information to optimize your customer journey, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and business growth. Here’s how you can use your customer touchpoints to achieve these goals.

Use feedback to enhance the customer experience

Identifying customer touchpoints and mapping out the customer journey gives you insight into which elements of your touchpoints customers liked and which may need improvement. 

You can use feedback from surveys, questions customers asked your sales or support team, and data about when leads dropped out of the journey to identify areas for improvement.

Discover new opportunities

Identifying your customer touchpoints may also help you identify new opportunities for interacting with prospects or increasing sales. 

For example, through a survey, a customer may identify an outreach channel you’re not yet using. You could also discover an upsell opportunity you weren’t aware of through the pages a customer viewed on your website.

Prioritize your touchpoints

When you determine which touchpoints are most popular with your customers and which most often lead to a sale, you know which touchpoints to prioritize. You can then allocate the right amount of time and resources to each communication channel based on their value to your business and customers.

Identify and optimize your customer touchpoints with Nutshell

Optimizing your customer touchpoints is an essential activity if you want to increase customer satisfaction and retention. A customer relationship management (CRM) tool like Nutshell can help you identify which interactions lead your prospects to purchase.

Our CRM comes equipped with a variety of features for optimizing customer touchpoints. You can categorize customer data and even generate in-depth reports on it to find out how you can better optimize your sales pipeline.

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Mapping the Customer Journey: Optimizing Touchpoints

The journey is at the heart of customer experience, introduction.

In today's highly competitive market, understanding customers and effectively engaging with them throughout their journey is vital for business success. In particular, mapping the customer journey and optimizing touchpoints are two crucial steps for shaping and optimizing customer experiences. In this blog post, we'll explore the importance of focusing on the customer journey and how it can be leveraged to your advantage.

What is the customer journey?

The customer journey encompasses the series of a customer’s interactions with a business, from their initial awareness to post-purchase engagement. It typically consists of four stages: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Loyalty. At each stage, customers encounter and engage with the brand through various touchpoints, or points of interaction.

Benefits of mapping the customer journey

There are several benefits associated with mapping the customer journey:

• Enhanced understanding of customer behavior: By visualizing the entire journey, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer preferences, pain points, and motivations.
• Identification of gaps and opportunities: Mapping identifies or discloses areas where customer experiences can be improved, allowing businesses to fill existing gaps and seize opportunities.
• Personalized and targeted marketing efforts: A comprehensive understanding of the customer journey enables businesses to deliver tailored messaging and personalized experiences at each touchpoint.

Mapping the customer journey

To effectively map the customer journey, businesses can undertake the following steps:

• Conduct customer research and analysis: Gather data, conduct surveys, and analyze customer feedback to gain a deeper understanding of their needs, expectations, and pain points.
• Create customer personas: Develop representative profiles of different customer segments to better understand their motivations, goals, and challenges.
• Visualize the customer journey map: Use customer insights to create a visual representation of the journey, highlighting touchpoints and interactions at each stage.

Optimizing touchpoints for better customer experience

To optimize touchpoints and enhance customer experience:

• Identify pain points and areas of improvement: Analyze customer feedback and data to identify bottlenecks or pain points that require attention.
• Implement strategies to enhance each touchpoint: Develop strategies to make each touchpoint more seamless, personalized, and delightful for customers.
• Measure and track customer journey performance: Use data and customer feedback for the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of touchpoint optimizations. This information can help drive iterative improvements.

Best practices for mapping the customer journey and optimizing touchpoints

In order to drive successful customer journey mapping and touchpoint optimization, follow these best practices:

• Collect and analyze customer data: Leverage both quantitative and qualitative data to gain actionable insights into customer behavior and preferences.
• Collaborate across departments and teams: Break down silos and foster collaboration between marketing, sales, customer support, and other relevant departments to align efforts efficiently and deliver a consistent experience.
• Continuously refine and adapt the customer journey: The customer journey is highly dynamic and requires frequent reviews and refinement of your maps and strategies in line with evolving customer needs and market trends.

Mapping the customer journey and optimizing touchpoints are essential steps required to tailor and deliver exceptional customer experiences. By understanding your customers' needs, pain points, and preferences and fine-tuning interactions at each touchpoint, you can create memorable experiences that drive engagement, build loyalty, and fuel business success.

Remember - the customer journey is an ongoing process, requiring continuous evaluation, adaptation, and improvement. Embrace the journey and strive to deliver exceptional experiences at every touchpoint to foster strong customer relationships and drive business growth.

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13 mins read

Mastering Customer Touchpoints to Elevate the Journey and Improve CX

Amropali Shetty

Introduction

What are customer touchpoints, why are customer touchpoints important, how to identify customer touchpoints effectively, examples of customer touchpoints, how yellow.ai enhance customer touchpoint identification and engagement, success stories, the final thoughts, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Executive summary

Customer touchpoints play a crucial role in every business-customer interaction. This blog takes you through the essence of customer touchpoints, illustrating their role in sculpting the customer journey and enhancing customer experience (CX). From the initial spark of interest to the post-purchase glow, every touchpoint is an opportunity to impress and retain customers. We’ll navigate through the various touchpoints, providing insights on optimizing each for a seamless, satisfying customer journey . This comprehensive guide offers practical examples and strategies, positioning it as a vital tool for businesses aiming to elevate their customer engagement game.

The concept of customer touchpoints is a critical element in shaping the customer journey and enhancing the overall customer experience (CX). Each touchpoint represents a moment of truth where businesses have the opportunity to influence customer perception positively and build lasting relationships. It is a strategic mix of interaction, communication, and experience management that can set a brand apart in today’s competitive market.

Consider the weight of these interactions: A Salesforce report reveals that 88% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. This statistic is a clarion call for businesses to map out and meticulously enhance every customer touchpoint. From the initial digital advertisement that catches a customer’s eye to the post-purchase follow-up email that makes them feel valued – every step in this journey matters. 

This blog aims to explore these various touchpoints in-depth, offering insights and strategies to refine them for a more impactful customer journey.

Customer touchpoints are those moments when someone bumps into your brand, forming the steps of their journey from curiosity to loyalty. Picture each touchpoint as a handshake or a conversation, ranging from seeing an ad and visiting your website to getting support help. It’s all about the interactions, whether big, like a purchase, or small, like social media engagement.

Related read: 10 Reasons why customer experience is important?

Now, why fuss over these touchpoints? Each one is your stage to shine. For instance, a person spots your eco-friendly ad on Instagram, clicks, and lands on your site. These moments are your chances to impress. When they buy something, and later, when you send them a friendly email, or they reach out with a question, you’re weaving your brand into their daily life. Done right, these touchpoints turn a browser into a buyer and then a fan.

The magic of these touchpoints lies in their cumulative impact. It is vital to understand that these touchpoints are not isolated interactions. Instead, they are parts of a more extensive and cohesive journey. Each touchpoint builds on the previous, and combined, they weave experiences that can turn a casual browser into a loyal customer. The artistry for businesses lies in recognizing and optimizing these touchpoints to create a smooth, satisfying customer journey that resonates with both the consumer’s mind and heart.

Related must-reads:

• Customer service software: How to select the best one
• Good customer service: Ways to deliver [+10 Examples]
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The significance of customer touchpoints in the business landscape cannot be understated. They are the gears that drive the mechanism of customer engagement and satisfaction. Each touchpoint holds the potential to elevate a customer’s experience and build a deeper connection between them and your brand. This relationship-building is crucial in a market where customers have several options. Well-managed touchpoints can become the distinguishing factor that sets your brand apart, turning casual interactions into lasting customer loyalty.

Related read: Customer Experience vs. Customer Service

1. Creating a positive brand image: Each touchpoint is an opportunity to reinforce a positive image of your brand in the customer’s mind. Whether it’s through a user-friendly website interface, a helpful customer service call, or a prompt response on social media, these interactions collectively build a perception of your brand as caring, efficient, and customer-centric.

2. Facilitating repeat business and loyalty: Personalized and positive touchpoints significantly influence customer decisions to return for repeat purchases. Customers who feel valued and understood are more likely to become loyal brand advocates. They will share their positive experiences with others and contribute to organic business growth.

3. Streamlining customer service: Efficient management of touchpoints can lead to higher resolution rates from the first contact, simplifying the workload for customer service teams. Besides improving the work environment for your employees, it also ensures that customers receive quick and effective solutions.

4. Gathering insightful feedback: Every interaction is a chance to gather valuable feedback. Analyzing these touchpoints provides insights into customer preferences and pain points, enabling you to fine-tune your offerings and communication strategies.

5. Enhancing customer retention: Customer experience often trumps price and product in today’s world. So, mastering touchpoints is vital to retaining customers . Keeping existing customers is generally more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. That makes touchpoint optimization a financially sound strategy.

6. Building a loyal customer base: Satisfied customers are likely to choose your brand for future needs. That forms a loyal customer base that is less susceptible to competitive market shifts.

7. Optimizing post-sales support: A well-managed customer journey allows for more effective post-sales support. It involves addressing inquiries and resolving issues swiftly, which further cements customer trust in your brand.

Identifying customer touchpoints is like mapping a well-traveled road; it involves understanding every stop-and-start that a customer experiences with your brand. Here’s how businesses can effectively identify these vital interactions:

1. Decoding customer insights

Start by getting under the skin of your target audience. Who are they? What do they need? Conduct market research and analyze customer feedback to understand their preferences. For instance, if your clientele primarily discovers your services through online searches, then your digital presence (websites, online ads, SEO efforts) becomes a crucial touchpoint. Tailor these digital interactions to create a strong first impression.

2. Evaluating interaction patterns

Review how customers currently interact with your business. Is it through your social media platforms, website, or in-store visits? Customer surveys can reveal where your audience prefers to engage. That will enable you to focus your efforts on enhancing these touchpoints. For example, if a majority interact via social media, it’s time to ramp up your social media engagement strategies.

3. Charting the customer journey

Mapping out the customer journey helps you visualize how customers go from recognizing a need to making a purchase and beyond. Outline the journey for each buyer persona . It can start from discovery to post-purchase interactions. Understanding this journey in detail allows you to identify where you can improve experiences and smooth out any friction points.

4. Gathering direct feedback

Use tools like Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to gauge customer satisfaction and the likelihood of referrals. These surveys can pinpoint areas of discontent and help you identify which touchpoints need refinement. For example, if customers indicate dissatisfaction with post-purchase support, this area becomes a priority for improvement.

5. Continual reassessment

The process of identifying and refining customer touchpoints is ongoing. Regularly revisit your customer journey map and touchpoint analysis, especially when introducing new products, services, or marketing campaigns. Keep abreast of changing customer preferences and market trends to ensure your touchpoints remain relevant and effective.

Customer touchpoints include every interaction a customer has with a brand. Each of these touchpoints shapes a customer’s perception and experience. These crucial moments define the journey a customer takes with a business, from first awareness to post-purchase engagement. Let’s explore these touchpoints in detail, dividing them into three key stages: before purchase, during purchase, and after purchase.

Phase 1: Before purchase

The customer journey begins even before a customer decides to make a purchase. This before-purchase phase is all about creating the right first impression. It builds the foundation of a potential long-term relationship. It involves the initial interactions that a customer has with your brand, often determining whether they will proceed to the next step in the buying process.

1. Social media

While most people think that platforms like Meta, Instagram, and X are just for socializing, the truth is that they’re vital for first impressions. A customer’s journey often begins here, where they discover your brand, engage with your content, and form initial opinions. 

Effective use of these platforms involves more than just promotional posts. You must focus on authentic engagement, responding to comments, and sharing content that resonates with your audience’s interests and values. This stage is crucial for building brand awareness and setting the tone for customer expectations.

2. Digital advertisements

These are the billboards of the digital age. Whether it’s a banner ad on a website, a sponsored post in a social feed, or a targeted ad on a search engine, digital advertisements are often the first point of direct interaction between your brand and potential customers. 

These ads need to be eye-catching, relevant, and, most importantly, lead to a landing page that delivers on the ad’s promise. It’s about creating a seamless transition from interest to engagement.

3. Customer reviews

Reviews on platforms like Amazon or TripAdvisor play a crucial role in shaping potential customers’ expectations. They provide insights into other customers’ experiences, offering a glimpse into what new customers might expect. Businesses must monitor and manage these reviews, addressing concerns and highlighting positive feedback. This stage is crucial for building trust and credibility.

4. Family or friend referral

Personal recommendations carry significant weight. A referral acts as a trust signal, often carrying more influence than any advertisement or review. Encouraging referrals through loyalty programs or incentives can turn satisfied customers into brand ambassadors. These ambassadors will extend your reach through their networks.

5. Website resources

A well-designed website acts as a digital storefront. It’s where potential customers explore, learn about your offerings, and make decisions. Resources like informative blog posts, detailed product descriptions, and FAQs help guide customers, providing them with the knowledge they need to move forward confidently in their purchase journey.

Phase 2. During Purchase

It is a phase where interest transforms into action. It’s a critical stage where the customer’s experience can directly influence the outcome of a sale. This phase includes all interactions that occur during the actual purchasing process, such as conversations with sales or support teams, navigating the ecommerce site, and the point-of-sale experience.

6. Conversations with sales or support teams

Direct interactions with your team can make a significant impact. These conversations are opportunities to provide personalized advice, address concerns, and build a connection. Training your team to understand customer needs and offer solutions can turn a simple inquiry into a successful sale.

7. Product brochures

Product brochures are like the storytelling books of your brand’s offerings. Whether flipping through pages or scrolling online, these brochures paint a picture of what you are selling in vivid detail. They are a combination of eye-catching design and essential info. They guide customers through features, benefits, and why your product is the solution they have been searching for. A well-crafted brochure engages and persuades, turning curiosity into concrete interest.

8. Product reviews

Product reviews are the word-of-mouth. They offer a platform for customers to share their experiences about your services. Reviews give a raw, unfiltered glimpse into the real impact of your products or services. Whether praise or constructive criticism, each review adds to your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness. Engaging with these reviews showcases your commitment to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement.

9. Website or ecommerce site

Your online presence must be user-friendly, informative, and reflective of your brand’s values. It includes easy navigation, clear product information, and a straightforward checkout process. Ensuring a smooth online experience is key to converting interest into sales.

10. Point of sale

The actual transaction moment, whether in-store or online, should be efficient and secure. This final step in the purchase process is crucial in leaving a positive impression and encouraging repeat business.

Phase 3. After purchase

After the purchase is made, the journey is far from over. The ‘After Purchase’ phase is where you solidify the customer’s decision, enhance loyalty, and lay the groundwork for future interactions. This stage includes touchpoints like customer onboarding, follow-up communications, satisfaction surveys, and ongoing support.

11. Customer onboarding

After a purchase, the first step in solidifying a customer’s loyalty is effective onboarding. This process involves guiding new customers through the features and benefits of your product or service, ensuring they understand and can fully utilize their purchase. A well-designed onboarding experience can significantly reduce churn by addressing any potential confusion or issues upfront.

12. Thank-you or welcome emails

The power of a personalized thank-you or welcome email can’t be overstated. This simple gesture of appreciation can make customers feel valued and recognized. Such emails can also provide additional information about the product or service, offer customer support contacts, or promote related products or services. The key is to strike a balance between gratitude and informative content, enhancing the customer’s post-purchase experience.

13. CSAT surveys

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys are crucial for gauging how well your product or service has met the customers’ expectations. Sending out these surveys shortly after purchase provides timely insights into the customer’s experience. This feedback can be instrumental in making improvements to your offerings or customer service approach. Addressing any negative feedback promptly can also help in resolving issues before they escalate, ensuring a better customer experience.

Related read: How to Improve Customer Satisfaction in 2024?

14. Customer support channels

Providing accessible and efficient customer support channels is vital after a purchase. These channels could include live chat, email support, phone support, or social media interactions. The goal is to offer easy and quick ways for customers to seek help or get their questions answered. An effective customer support system not only resolves issues but also strengthens customer trust and loyalty.

15. Company knowledge base or community forum

A comprehensive knowledge base or an active community forum can be invaluable resources for customers post-purchase. These platforms can offer self-help options like FAQs, how-to guides, and user forums, allowing customers to find answers at their convenience. A well-maintained knowledge base or community forum not only enhances customer autonomy but also reduces the load on your customer service team, creating a win-win situation for both the business and its customers.

As the market evolves, understanding and utilizing customer touchpoints has become more crucial than ever. Yellow.ai chatbots are intelligent partners in this journey, offering businesses the finesse needed to identify and make the most of every customer interaction.

The Yellow.ai edge: Transforming customer touchpoint management

1. AI-powered insights: Yellow.ai’s chatbots delve deep into customer interactions, extracting valuable insights that help businesses understand and optimize touchpoints.

2. Omnichannel presence: Seamlessly integrating across various platforms, our AI chatbots ensure a unified experience, whether customers engage on social media, websites, or messaging apps.

3. Personalized interactions: Tailoring conversations based on customer behavior and history, Yellow.ai chatbots make each interaction feel personal and relevant.

4. Real-time engagement: With the capability to respond instantly, Yellow.ai chatbots keep customer engagement continuous and interactive. That significantly enhances the customer journey.

5. Data-driven decision-making: By analyzing customer interactions, our AI chatbots help make informed decisions to refine marketing strategies and customer service approaches.

6. Scalability and efficiency: Our AI chatbots automate routine inquiries and free up human resources for more complex tasks. It ensures a high level of efficiency.

Embrace the future of customer interaction with Yellow.ai. Book a demo to discover how our AI chatbots can revolutionize your customer touchpoint strategy.

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The landscape of customer interaction is both complex and dynamic. In this age, where every touchpoint can turn a potential lead into a loyal customer, understanding and optimizing these interactions is essential. The key lies in integrating technology like Yellow.ai’s AI chatbots with a deep understanding of customer needs. This mix of technology and empathy is what transforms routine interactions into memorable customer journeys.

Customer touchpoints are vital because they represent every interaction a customer has with your brand. These moments shape their perception, influence their satisfaction, and ultimately determine their loyalty. Each touchpoint is an opportunity to build trust, address needs, and enhance the overall customer experience, leading to stronger customer relationships and long-term business success.

What is touchpoint analysis, and how do I conduct one?

Touchpoint analysis involves examining all the points of interaction between a customer and a brand. To conduct one, start by mapping out the entire customer journey, identifying all potential touchpoints (from discovery to post-purchase), and assessing their effectiveness and impact. Use customer feedback, analytics, and direct observations to evaluate how these touchpoints are currently managed and identify areas for improvement.

How do customer touchpoints affect customer loyalty?

Customer touchpoints directly affect loyalty by shaping the customer’s overall experience with your brand. Positive and meaningful interactions at each touchpoint can foster satisfaction, trust, and emotional connection, leading to repeat business and advocacy. Conversely, negative experiences can quickly erode loyalty, pushing customers toward competitors.

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• July 7, 2021

What Are Customer Journey Touchpoints & How To Use Them

A customer journey is a series of touchpoints that a customer has with your business. Touchpoints can vary from the time they search for you on Google to the time they use one of your products or services. 

By identifying both on and offline customers touchpoints along the customer journey, you can then personalise a customer’s experience. This tailored approach leads to higher customer satisfaction and engagement, and ultimately improves conversion rates and customer loyalty.

In this blog post, we discuss how to identify and improve customer journey touchpoints in order to deliver an unforgettable customer experience.

What are customer journey touchpoints?

A customer touchpoint refers to any time that a customer comes into contact with an on or offline experience, service, or showcase related to your business along their customer journey. 

A common example of a customer journey with multiple touchpoints is that of an airline. While booking a flight for a holiday, a customer interacts numerous times with a business in a multitude of ways. For example, they go to the airline’s website to book the ticket via their laptop, check-in via an app on their phone, liaise with ground staff at the airport, enjoy service on the flight and watch in-flight entertainment. 

At each point of this journey, the customer’s initial perceptions—formed from their first touchpoint with the business—are either being modified or reinforced. A customer, disinterested in a particular business, may well enjoy their experience so much that they end up becoming a loyal business ambassador. Similarly, a bad customer journey can go south. 

Customer touchpoints form part of the complete end to end journey. From seeing the initial online advertisement to dealing with a sales rep, to making phone calls and complaining to a customer support team, it’s the entire journey.

Why are customer journey touchpoints important?

Customer journey touchpoints are important because they influence the customer’s buying decision as well as any business referrals (such as through positive word of mouth).

So, when optimised correctly, customer touchpoints can be a powerful tool capable of engaging current customers, reaching new ones and influencing purchasing decisions.

Creating rewarding customer experiences with personalised touchpoints along the user journey is easier said than done. 

Businesses, unfortunately, do not have access to large enough data pools and therefore much of the customers’ journey along the businesses touchpoints remains unknown. The better a business can engage its customer through personalised touchpoints, the higher its ROI will become.

This is where the next generation of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) can help. These are capable of creating customer segments that then allows businesses to hold relevant conversations with the right customers, across multiple channels. This personalised communication in turn makes the customer feel understood and valued, enhancing the experience the customer has with the business and cultivating customer loyalty.

Customer Journey Touchpoint Examples

As we defined earlier, customer touchpoints are the moments in which a customer will come into contact, interact or engage with a business. These moments of interaction can come before a purchase, during the purchasing experience, after purchasing, and when using the product or service. 

Commonly they’re split into three areas: Pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase.

Pre-purchase touchpoints 

Pre-purchase touchpoints refer to the touchpoints a customer will experience before engaging with the business itself. Pre-purchase touchpoints can be harder to translate into data because some pre-purchase touchpoints will be impossible to capture, such as word-of-mouth marketing.

Pre-purchase touchpoints commonly take the form of:

• Social media marketing
• Display advertising (promoted on other websites)
• Word-of-mouth referrals
• User-generated content
• Forms of paid media, such as online, TV and print advertisements 
• Content sponsorships
• Out-of-Home (OOH) marketing 

Purchase touchpoints

Purchase touchpoints are the most crucial touchpoints in the customer journey because they define the interactions the customer has with a business while they are purchasing the product or service.

Previously, this touchpoint would have been confined to brick and mortar stores, but now these purchase touchpoints can span a number of different locations including websites, apps and social networking sites.

Common purchase touchpoints now include:

• The business website
• Social networking sites that feature shopping capabilities
• Live chat 
• Sales teams
• Customer service teams
• Physical locations
• Events like pop-up shops or shows
• Distributor, retailer or supplier channels

Purchase touchpoints must be optimised to ensure that the experience a customer has at this point in the journey is positive, consistent and relevant. This increases the chance of a customer becoming a repeat customer and referring the business to their network.

Post-purchase touchpoints

Post-purchase touchpoints refer to the touchpoints a customer will come into contact with after they have made a purchase. This includes things like the product packaging, any marketing materials and the product or service itself. 

Businesses can be guilty of overlooking post-purchase touchpoints, which can then have negative effects on potential returning customers or repeat purchases. 

Examples of post-purchase touchpoints are:

• Customer satisfaction or experience surveys
• Social media platforms
• Email marketing and communications (i.e shipping updates)
• Newsletters
• Customer service outlets
• Loyalty programs
• Billing 

Mapping Your Customer Journey Touchpoints

Customer journey mapping  is a process in which marketers map out the potential journey a customer will take as they interact with various business touchpoints.

These journeys are not always linear, which is why the mapping process can be expansive, but they should still be able to display a path from the first to the final touchpoint.

It’s important to consider every touch point you can think of. From digital channels, point of sale, sales team or company app. Any possible way customers interact with your business.

The following steps can help with creating a customer journey map:

1. Map out the journey from A to B

Creating customer personas helps to ensure that every aspect of the journey map is directed toward your ideal customer. Customer personas encompass all the demographics and psychographics which represent the average customer and are useful when deciding upon objectives for the map such as deciding the map’s goals, who it is targeting, and what experiences it is being based upon. 

2. List all of the business touchpoints

List all the touchpoints your customers and prospects are currently using, as well as any they are not using but should be. Then associate an action, emotion, or obstacle or pain point alongside these. 

Actions refer to the number of actions your customers may need to take to achieve their goals, for example, buying a product but needing to click through several different menus. 

Emotions and Motivations

Each action customers take is the result of an emotion, and these emotions change throughout their journey. Emotions are usually influenced by pain points or problems, so displaying solutions to these can positively impact emotions.

Obstacles and Pain Points

Obstacles or pain points stop your customers from taking action. A common example is cost. By identifying these pain points, highlighting them and then offering solutions in the customer journey, you can help to mitigate them.

3. Choose your maps elements

There are four types of customer journey maps that provide different insights. Depending on your specific objectives, you’ll need to choose the appropriate one:

Current State

Current state maps are the most commonly used type, and they visualise actions, thoughts and emotions customers experience whilst interacting with the business.

Day in the Life

‘Day in the Life’ maps also visualise the actions, thoughts and emotions experienced by customers but these are extended to create a wider picture of the day-to-day life customers lead, such as their hobbies or real life pain points.

Future State

Future state maps visualise the predicted actions, thoughts and emotions of customers. These are best built with comprehensive data to ensure accuracy when setting objectives.

Service Blueprint

Service blueprints are simplified versions of one of the above styles. Their purpose is to outline the factors responsible for delivering the desired experience and are best used to identify the cause of a customer journey or outline the steps needed to attain future journeys.

4. Identify and make necessary changes

Bringing together the data in your analysis should give you a more insightful idea of the experience a customer has in order to take action.

This information can then be used to make the experience more refined, accurate and personalised to enable customers to have a positive experience.

How To Improve Your Customer Journey Touchpoints

Leveraging consumer data to gain better insights into their audience.

1. Match goals to touchpoints

Each touchpoint that your customer interacts with must serve a purpose: to propel your customer into the next stage of the buyer’s journey, or to influence their purchasing decision.

With that in mind, your touchpoints need to be supporting the completion of goals that can help carry your customer through to their next step. For example, a customer’s first touchpoint with your business could be through a Google search for a new kitchen appliance. 

Your eCommerce site has ranked the highest because it contains the most information, and so the prospective customer clicks through onto the page where you detail the product, its uses and other relevant information. 

At this moment, your customer’s initial goal is to establish more information about the appliance, but their underlying goal is to ultimately end up purchasing the appliance. With this in mind, how can your touchpoint better meet your customer’s underlying goal?

Instead of just displaying the information, perhaps a live chat advisor could prompt the customer and provide a selection of relevant, frequently asked questions. This meets the customers’ needs as they are receiving information, and also nurtures them as potential customers for your business.

Because your company is the one being helpful and supplying more detailed information, it’s subtly conveying industry expertise and credibility, which cultivates trust in your company and could influence a customer to make a purchase.

2. Cultivate connections

Customer experiences are always enhanced by the creation of emotional connections. Connections are what make us human and they’re what change corporations from faceless entities to businesses that have swathes of loyal customers.

If customers feel that they can establish a connection, or resonate in some way with your business, product or service as they interact with a touchpoint, they will be more likely to continue their customer journey and convert. Customer journey mapping can help identify that certain touchpoint that is better suited to build relationships.

Great customer touchpoints to begin cultivating connections are those in the pre-purchase and purchase stages. Here, connections can be leveraged by directly speaking to customers by addressing their pain points, or playing to their needs and desires using techniques such as emotive language.

On  social media marketing touchpoints , for example, posting content made by users (UGC) can help to establish the feel of a community, which strengthens the connections between the business and its consumers. Alternatively, if your business has a social media manager,  marketing team or community manager, these employees can actively communicate with prospective customers online either through live chat features or by being active on audio chats , replying to messages or posts.

Once your customer feels in some way that they are seen as more of a person and less of a number, they may be inclined to click through to your website and continue their customer journey – especially if their experience with another business has not been as direct or personalised.

3. Personalise touchpoints through segmentation

Tools such as Customer Data Platforms can collate large quantities of customer data and then organise this data into such a way to form segments.

Customers can be segmented into groups according to their demographics, their hobbies or interests, or even socio-economic factors. 

Having these segments then enables businesses to create personalised experiences as different customers will interact with different touchpoints in different ways.

For example, customers on a travel website interested in skiing holidays could be prompted with skiing promotions, whilst customers interested in cheap weekends away could be prompted with affordable city break offers.

Collating the data to enable segmentation would begin from as early as pre-purchase touchpoint stages where a customer may click through a social media post or other targeted advertisements.

If the business was using a CDP (Customer Data Platform) it could automatically capture data such as a cookie or tag analytic, enabling an initial customer’s profile to be built and grouped by their displayed interest, i.e city breaks.

This data can then be fed into a Customer Data Platform where the customer’s initial data can be enhanced to build a more comprehensive profile and segmented to enable personalised experiences  to be targeted toward the customer on their return to the website.

The Benefits Of Customer Journey Mapping & Identifying Customer Touchpoints

The customer experience is made up of various touchpoints occurring throughout customer journeys. These customer touchpoints define the customer experience and whether it’s a positive or negative experience. How can you expect to improve the customer experience without knowing the touchpoints which make it up?

If you’ve created your customer journey map and are actively using it to improve the customer experience the following long term business benefits can be expected.

• Improves customer satisfaction – With a more tailored and responsive customer experience, you can expect customer satisfaction to be improved. Especially if you’re taking customer feedback into account.
• Increase customer retention  – With a better understanding of the end to end experience you can provide instant support and resolutions to any customer issues, this improves their satisfaction. If you’re meeting, or possible exceeding customer expectations they won’t be leaving any time soon.
• Improve Sales –  If the above two points are happening, chances are you’ll see an increase in sales and new customers.
• Improve brand loyalty  – Providing a more tailored, and personalized customer journey keeps customers happy and coming back to your business. You also have the potential to identify and save negative customer experiences before the customer runs out of patience.

Bringing It All Together

Mapping out your customer journey touchpoints is the first step in being able to gather sufficient data that can then be enriched with personalisation to improve your overall customer journey.

Keeping on top of these touchpoints will be a constant battle: you’ll need the right tools, team and commitment to make sure every interaction a customer has with your business is a positive one.

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Touchpoints and channels in customer journey mapping

Touchpoints and channels are crucial elements of any customer journey, but they tend to get mixed up when it comes to actual mapping. Read on to find out a practical way to distinguish between touchpoints and channels.

First, let’s dive into these two definitions, then find the difference between them and settle this issue once and for all.

• 1 What is a customer journey touchpoint?
• 2 Channels in customer journey maps
• 3 The difference between touchpoints and channels
• 4.1 Strategies and examples from various businesses
• 5.1 Touchpoint optimizations strategies:
• 6 Visualizing touchpoints and channels in UXPressia

What is a customer journey touchpoint?

Let’s first take a look at touchpoints. A touchpoint is a moment in time when an interaction happens between a customer and your product, service, or business in general. 

The examples include situations that happen on the website, through marketing, personal interactions, or a phone call. If customers find out something about your product, sign up for a newsletter, buy something, or give feedback, they do this by "touching" your business. And that's why they're called touchpoints. 🙂

Our main goal when mapping a customer journey is to find and map out all the possible touchpoints. The touchpoint with the less favorable experience defines the overall level of customer satisfaction at the end of the entire journey. 

Mapping all the possible touchpoints sounds great, but doing that can be challenging. So, is there any well-tried number to take as a starting point for a customer journey map?

We’d go with 5–7. And it’s the minimum because you will definitely find more physical and digital touchpoints once you start analyzing your business.

Here are a few customer journey touchpoint examples:

• Getting a product demo;
• Getting help and support;
• Checking out;
• Booking a table;
• Giving feedback about one's experience;
• Collecting information about a product or service;
• Doing a warranty return;
• Signing up for an online service.

Channels in customer journey maps

Unlike touchpoints, channels are a medium of communication between a business and its customers. It is the environment where touchpoints occur. 

For example, it’s a corporate website or the phone the customer uses when calling customer support . Some channels are interactive, they can give your customer a response, e.g., live chat , phone calls, social network. 

Others are not, e.g., billboards and flyers. Channels can be offline (brick-and-mortar store, an ad at an airport) and digital or online (a website or a mobile app).

A few examples of channels:

• Skype call;
• Online advertisement;
• Call center;
• Face-to-face communication;
• Mobile app;
• Social networks;
• Talking to friends.

The difference between touchpoints and channels

In essence, you can think of the difference between channels and touchpoints in the following way. A touchpoint happens when a customer has a certain need. For example, they want to learn more about a service, make a payment, or arrive at a hotel to stay for a few nights. And they're looking for ways to satisfy this need. So, a channel is a means a business provides to meet this customer need.

And while one and the same touchpoint might happen across different channels, some channels support only a specific set of touchpoints.

For instance, a customer can pay for the order (touchpoint) through the website, via bank payment, or by handing cash to the delivery man. At the same time, customers can use their smartphone to access the website to pay for the chosen item, order delivery, and give a phone call to the support team.

Note: not every channel can provide good support for a certain touchpoint. For example, you're trying to send emails, whereas your customers may prefer calls, but according to GlobalCallForwarding , 57% of customers ranked call support as their first and most comfortable preference for communication. 

If you don't have enough resources to support all of your channels, it's better to focus on the ones you can support to keep customer experience consistent across all the stages. So remember that when (re)designing your customer journeys.

To learn more about customer journey mapping or polish your mapping skills, be sure to check out the UXPressia Academy course .

How to improve your customer journey touchpoints?

Improving and optimizing buyer journey touchpoints is crucial for enhancing the overall customer experience and fostering customer loyalty.

Strategies and examples from various businesses

• Understand customer needs and expectations

Conduct surveys and interviews or analyze customer feedback to understand customers’ pain points and expectations. Let’s take an Airbnb as an example. This platform regularly collects feedback from hosts and guests to enhance its platform and user experience.

• Personalization

Amazon uses data analytics to personalize recommendations based on customer browsing and purchasing history. This personalization enhances the shopping experience and increases the likelihood of repeat business.

• Seamless multichannel experience;

Starbucks allows customers to order and pay through its mobile app, providing a seamless transition from online to in-store experience. This approach not only saves time for customers but also encourages app usage and loyalty.

• Consistent branding

Coca-Cola maintains consistent branding across all touchpoints, from its social media presence to packaging design. This consistency helps reinforce the brand image and creates a unified customer experience.

• User-friendly website and mobile app design

Apple’s website and mobile app design focus on simplicity and intuitiveness. The clean interface and straightforward navigation contribute to a positive user experience.

• Proactive customer support

Zappos definitely stands out among similar online stores as it is known for its exceptional customer service . They go beyond customer expectations by offering free shipping and returns, as well as providing 24/7 customer support, ensuring a positive touchpoint experience for customers in need of assistance.

• Social media engagement

Wendy's, a fast-food chain, uses humor and engages with customers on social media platforms. This approach humanizes the brand and creates a positive emotional connection with customers.

• Streamlined checkout process

Shopify simplifies the checkout process for online retailers, reducing friction in the purchasing journey. The platform allows easy customization and integration of payment gateways, optimizing the end-to-end transaction experience.

• Loyalty programs

Sephora's Beauty Insider program offers personalized rewards, early access to products, and exclusive events. This encourages repeat purchases and loyalty by providing added value to customers.

• Post-purchase follow-up

Etsy sends follow-up emails asking customers to review their purchases. This not only helps gather valuable feedback but also reinforces the customer's connection with the brand.

• Gamification

Nike's Run Club app incorporates gamification elements, such as challenges and rewards, to motivate users to stay active. This makes the fitness journey more engaging and enjoyable.

• Augmented reality experiences;

IKEA's AR app lets customers visualize furniture in their homes before making a purchase. This technology enhances the online shopping experience and reduces the likelihood of returns.

By incorporating these strategies and learning from successful examples, businesses can enhance their customer journey touchpoints, providing a more satisfying and memorable experience.

How to optimize the number of buyer journey touchpoints?

Optimizing the number of customer journey touchpoints involves streamlining interactions to create a more efficient and effective experience. Need some bright ideas on how to do that? Leverage other companies' experience.

Touchpoint optimizations strategies:

• Use CRM systems like Salesforce or HubSpot to consolidate customer data across various touchpoints. Using them ensures a unified view of customer interactions, helping businesses avoid redundant customer journey touchpoints and provide a more coherent experience.
• Consider using an SSO solution like the one provided by Google. You may have used Google’s SSO by yourself, for instance, to create an account on some website. As a result, there’s a smaller number of customer touchpoints required for authentication, streamlining the user experience.
• Dropbox has an interactive Help Center that dynamically adapts based on user queries. This makes customers less dependent on support and eliminates the need to contact support by providing instant answers to common questions.
• Netflix uses predictive analytics to recommend content based on user preferences, reducing the need for users to search extensively for what they want to watch.
• Workflow automation tools like Zapier and Make can connect various apps and automate repetitive tasks, minimizing multiple touchpoints in processes like data entry or lead nurturing.

• Shopify integrates with various payment gateways, shipping providers, and inventory management systems, consolidating e-commerce touchpoints and providing a seamless end-to-end experience for both businesses and customers.
• HubSpot's progressive profiling allows businesses to collect additional customer information gradually over time. Instead of bombarding customers with lengthy forms, this approach minimizes initial touchpoints and enhances the user experience.
• Google Analytics offers cross-channel attribution models, helping businesses understand the impact of each marketing channel on the customer journey. Having these insights allows for a more strategic allocation of resources, reducing unnecessary touchpoints.
• Many websites use chatbots for instant customer support. For example, the chatbot on the website of a travel agency can assist users with booking queries, reducing the need for customers to call or email.
• AT&T provides a self-service portal where customers can manage their accounts, pay bills, and troubleshoot common issues. This makes clients less reliant on customer service touchpoints for routine tasks.

• Airlines like Delta use X (former Twitter) and Facebook for customer support. Integrating social media as a customer service channel reduces the need for customers to switch to a different platform to resolve issues.

By leveraging these strategies, businesses can minimize unnecessary touchpoints, making customer journeys more efficient and enjoyable. 

It's also crucial to regularly assess and refine touchpoints based on customer feedback and emerging technologies.

Visualizing touchpoints and channels in UXPressia

Now, when it comes to actually placing channels and touchpoints on a customer journey map, you can do it in a few ways by using our CJM tool .

First off, there’s a Processes and Channels section with over 160 channels for different domains to choose from.

You can also have separate sections for touchpoints and channels, where you can easily add them to your map. 

As for touchpoints, once you set up them in your Team Library , you can reuse them in different projects:

Add as many touchpoints per stage as seems necessary. The result may look like this:

Pro tip: On the touchpoint page, you can add not only touchpoint-related information but also channels associated with this specific touchpoint.

In the channels section, you can add background icons and describe them in plain text if you want.

By the way, you can also visualize touchpoints and channels associated with your persona right in the Persona Online tool . Here is what it can look like:

And that’s all there is to it. Hopefully, these two key concepts of customer journey mapping are a little clearer to you now, and you will easily tell them apart when creating your journey maps.

Ready to visualize your customer touchpoints and channels?

GO TO UXPRESSIA

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This was insightful. I finally get the difference between customer journey touchpoints and channels, but still have a question about applying that to personas. Should I add all channels they generally use even if my company is not present there?

We’re happy that you found the article useful, Alice! The channel section of your persona should have all their mediums of communication and research, including the ones that are yet to be covered by your company. You can then look into closing the gaps to:

a) be present where your customers expect to find you, b) reach out to them through the channels that they prefer.

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Your relationship with customers is built one step at a time. Every interaction they have with your organization leaves an impression — and you want it to be a good one!

‘Touchpoints’ have been a hot topic for marketing, sales, and customer experience teams for decades. And for good reason! Each customer journey touchpoint is an opportunity to reinforce your brand value and engage customers in meaningful ways.

With the rapid spread of artificial intelligence, your team even has the power to automate many touchpoints and experiences (with a few notable pitfalls if you’re not careful).

But, what exactly is a touchpoint? And why do they matter for customer experience teams?

What is a Touchpoint?

A touchpoint is any contact or interaction a customer has with your organization. Touchpoints span the entire customer journey, including before they become a customer and well after their first purchase.

Social media posts, brand websites, customer review websites, demo request forms, QR codes, email marketing messages, sales team outreach (SMS or phone calls), and every direct or indirect brand interaction are touchpoints. But that’s only scratching the surface.

Customer Experience Touchpoints Are More Than Transactional Moments

In terms of customer experience, touchpoints are more than just transactional moments. They’re critical interactions within the customer journey that help define key moments in the process that can build or erode customer trust.

Each touchpoint is an opportunity to show who you are to customers. In the best case, every touchpoint will evoke positive emotions and deeply fulfill your customer’s need at that specific point in their journey.

But customer touchpoints are often misunderstood for what they really are, or go unappreciated from the customer’s perspective.

And therein lies the problem.

Related Article: 3 Employee Experience Touchpoints That Impact Customer Experience

“Customer Journey Touchpoint” is NOT Just Business Jargon

The concept of customer touchpoints is more than just business jargon!

Touchpoints are meaningful only if and when the company understands them. Without understanding, sure, the term touchpoint may as well be meaningless business jargon.

Understanding your customers’ current situations, and what drives them toward loyalty or defection , is one of the first steps in delivering a superior customer experience. Understanding the actual touchpoints your customers have with your organization is a basic part of that understanding.

Channels are Not Touchpoints.

Channels are a way for you to understand where customers come from and how they interact with you, the company. Touchpoints are more precise and specific.

For example, Online could be a channel. Online chat could be a touchpoint.

What Most Organizations Get Wrong About Customer Journey Touchpoints

When defining their customer touchpoints, most organizations list things like:

• Mobile Apps
• Social Media
• Direct Mail
• In-Store Cashiers
• Self-Checkout
• Customer Communications
• Contact Centers

The challenge with viewing touchpoints this way is this approach often assumes the customer:

• Has been in a linear and direct relationship with the organization
• Reads and engages with these touchpoints in meaningful ways

In short, an examination of touchpoints is often entirely company-focused. (Sometimes, it is so company-focused the touchpoints are categorized by org chart: marketing; operations; billing, etc.)

Instead, I challenge you to take an inventory of customer touchpoints from the customer perspective.

A Fictitious Example of a Customer-Focused Touchpoint Inventory:

• I have a need, and look up a service online. <- Search, site, and mobile
• I select this company. <- Why? A great online demo? Excellent Yelp reviews?
• I use online chat to engage. <- Are chatbots able to quickly answer questions? (And are those bots actually helpful?)
• I start the relationship. <- What does that first charge look like on the credit card bill? Does it make sense to the customer?
• I have a question so I find the help center. <- Is your content accurate and updated? Is there a dynamic path to assist customers, or are there points inadvertently driving customers mad?
• I have a problem and look for customer service. <- Where? How? Online? Via an 800 number? How am I treated when I call? How many transfers does it take to solve my problem?
• I want to stop being a customer. <- How do I cancel? Do I feel confident this happened?
• I love the service and want to tell a friend. <- Do you make it easy for customers to refer their friends (or incentivize them to)?

Of course this is a simplified version of what it takes to identify meaningful touchpoints.

Other considerations should include who your customers actually are, what channels are most popular, and other data points.

Related Article: How the Most Important Touchpoints Get Ignored, And How to Fix It.

How to Inventory Your CX Touchpoints

Taking a comprehensive and thorough inventory of your touchpoints can be extremely challenging. It can take months to categorize all the ways customers may interact with you.

But it’s worth it, and here’s why: If you organize your touchpoints (the customer perspective) against your channel strategy (your company perspective), you can have a clear vision of where your priorities should lie.

Use your Customer Experience Mission Statement and CX Success Statement to guide you. These resources will help you determine what to prioritize and how to optimize each experience so you fulfill your promises to customers at every interaction.

Related Article: Touchpoint Mapping: Discovery, Enlightenment, and A-HA! Moments

It becomes obvious that while your online channel is working pretty well, your in-store experience is suffering due to lack of care. Or that your automated and artificial intelligence-driven experiences may need some fine-tuning.

By creating a customer-centric vision for the future, you can continue to track what is working for your customers and what simply isn’t.

Identify Customer Touchpoints by Customer Journey Mapping

Experiences are evolving rapidly today, and it’s easy to be left behind. Understanding your customer touchpoints could help you stay ahead in meaningful ways.

So, how should you start making a plan to identify and optimize each touchpoint? Start by building your customer journey maps.

A customer journey map details the steps that distinct customer personas will take as they seek out your product or service. The mapping process will immerse you in the customer’s view and help you realize their needs. You’ll quickly see things from their perspective and find plenty of ways to either transform their experience or fine-tune an already acceptable experience into something memorable.

And remember: A map is a tool to get you to where you want to go. Set yourself up by focusing on your goals first. Focus on one area at a time and create action plans to execute. You can address the rest of the journey and the other touchpoints when you’re ready! This is about progress — not perfection.

Need Help? Download the Customer Journey Mapping Workbook

About jeannie walters, ccxp, csp.

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How to Map Customer Journey Touchpoints to Improve Customer Experience

For a business to be successful, it needs customers who stick around — and with increasing levels of competition with other products and services, customer retention is harder than ever.

To enable the most sustainable growth, you don’t want your customers to just view you as a commodity. You want them to see you as an extension of their business, as something vital they cannot operate without.

Having a product or service that provides value and progresses them toward their goal is one aspect of developing that kind of relationship, but the experience you create through your delivery is equally important.

Mapping out your customer journey and monitoring how clients progress through it can help you maximize customer experience.

1. Align on Your Framework

Your customer journey framework ensures that key stakeholders have a shared understanding of what aspects of customer experience you’re monitoring and measuring in your customer journey map.

Aligning on your framework includes:

• Defining touchpoints and how you’ll measure them
• Defining your customer journey lifecycle stages
• Identifying what quantitative and qualitative data points are significant

Touchpoints

A touchpoint is an engagement between your customer and your company. They can consist of an email, a call, a follow-up communication, a chatbot conversation, a support ticket, an update via a project management tool, etc. Use of your product or service and visits to your website can also be considered touchpoints, but you should have a way to differentiate non-human engagements from the human ones.

In addition to tracking what occurred, mapping touchpoints also needs to involve tracking the impact of that engagement. Was it reactive or proactive? Positive or negative? Did it mark a progression or regression in the customer experience ?

Qualitative and quantitative data

For the sake of customer journey mapping, qualitative data points will include measures of sentiment and volatility, along with details about the customer like their persona and ICP . Quantitative data points are the numerical measurements of how you're helping progress them toward their goals, like their KPIs. 

These data points will help you segment your customer base because the indicators of a successful journey will differ depending on the customers’ needs, level of engagement with your company and maturity.

Customer journey maps tend to be linear: they’re typically presented as a timeline with touchpoints being recorded chronologically. This format is used because you want the maps to be as simple as possible so they can be leveraged easily by your customer-facing employees.

However, the customer journey isn’t linear. Customers will not necessarily move chronologically from one lifecycle stage to the next, and there will always be progressions and regressions. 

So, as you’re establishing your framework, you also need to consider how you will account for those ups and downs. For example, you could map experience on a vertical axis instead of just visualizing touchpoints on a timeline.

2. Understand Current State

Once your organization defines how you want to map your customer journey touchpoints, the next step is to compile example journeys representing key segments of your customer base so you can gain an understanding of what customers are experiencing.

• How are customers flowing through your journey? 
• Where are they experiencing value and where are they experiencing a value gap?
• Where are they entering and where are they exiting? 
• Why are they entering and why are they exiting?

The goal of this is to get a baseline for significant points and to identify quick wins for enhancement. 

To best understand everything that’s occurring in the customer journey, it can be beneficial to break the experience into arcs.

Within their end-to-end journey, a customer might have several micro-journeys. As their company grows and evolves, they’ll have different goals and different needs. Measuring these arcs, or micro-journeys, allows your team to meet your customer where they are at each stage through their journey.

3. Determine What the Ideal Journey Looks Like

The goal of customer journey mapping is to enhance experience across the lifecycle and increase customer lifetime length. In order to understand how to improve what you have, you need to know what you’re working toward. 

Define what the best-case customer journey looks like for each customer segment .

If everything goes right in a customer journey, what are the touchpoints that occur? What needs to happen for you to provide a personalized customer experience?

4. Bridge Current State to Ideal State

Compare the current state of your customer journey to the ideal state, and conduct a gap analysis to identify what’s missing between the two. Then create a roadmap for short-term, mid-term and long-term enhancements to improve the journey. 

• Are there periods without any touchpoints? 
• Are you seeing the wrong type of touchpoints occurring at key stages in the journey?
• Where can you add positive touchpoints in order to set the customer up for success later in the journey? 
• What areas are most likely to introduce friction?

Operationalize around the weak points, and work to gradually shift the customer journeys you’re creating to be more similar to the ideal journey while still accounting for the individual needs of each customer.

The Takeaway

The goal of customer journey mapping is to understand how your current state compares to your ideal state so you can start delivering on the best possible experience for your customers.

To benefit from customer journey mapping, you can’t just document what you want the journey to look like. Nor can you just create a cool-looking visualization of how your journey currently operates. You need both perspectives.

By mapping out both journey states, you will establish a roadmap to enhance your end-to-end journey and drive customer satisfaction .

Dylan Berno

Dylan is a former Client Success Manager at New Breed. He specializes in problem solving and creative strategy to ensure clients and organizations achieve their desired outcomes.

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Customer touchpoints: How to optimize the customer journey

November 8, 2023   •   3 min read

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If you enjoy the entire experience, you revisit or refer it to your friends and family. By imparting a memorable first experience, the city wins a lifelong fan and advocate. But if the experience is unpleasant or inconvenient, it loses the visitor and earns a bad reputation.

Likewise, customer touchpoints can make or break your brand’s customer experience and reputation. Every touchpoint presents an opportunity to deepen the relationship with a customer or prospect, ensuring they return to your brand over and over again. Let’s learn about it in detail.

What are customer touchpoints?

Why should businesses know about customer touchpoints, identifying your customer touchpoints, be omnipresent at all customer touchpoints with sprinklr.

A customer (say, George) stumbles upon your ad on social media (touchpoint 1).

He hits the contact sales button and reaches your sales rep (touchpoint 2).

The rep understands George’s requirements and schedules a personalized demo (touchpoint 3).

During the demo, George asks questions about trials, integrations and pricing and is directed to pre-sales (touchpoint 4).

Satisfied with the deal, George signs up for the trial, during which he interacts with the in-product chatbot (touchpoint 5) and explainer videos (touchpoint 6) to complete onboarding.

Post-trial, he shares the experience on social media (touchpoint 7) and review sites (touchpoint 8), and grievances are promptly acknowledged by your brand PR team (touchpoint 9).

He signs on the dotted line and becomes a paying customer.

Post-sale, George’s feedback is solicited via a timely customer survey (touchpoint 10) and recommendations are implemented with agility, which drives adoption, customer engagement and customer satisfaction (CSAT) .

Evidently, the experience at each customer touchpoint is positive, harmonious and smooth. The sum of these individual experiences shapes the overall customer experience quality.

The concept of Dark Funnel

Not all customer touchpoints are traceable. There are hidden or unattributed sources of traffic and leads that constitute the “dark funnel.” Often, these touchpoints are not mapped on the customer journey since standard analytics tools are unable to identify them.

Direct traffic: Searchers may directly type a website URL or access it through obscure apps, making attribution a very big challenge.

Dark social: Users may share links through non-public means like direct messaging apps and email. Data privacy regulations prevent the tracing of private messages.

Private browsing: Traffic from incognito browsers or private browsers is also hard to trace and attribute to any touchpoint.

Private groups and communities on social: Facebook groups and pages also send traffic to brands, but it’s not easy to trace its roots.

Neglecting touchpoints in the dark funnel can lead to distorted journey maps and faulty decision-making. To address the challenge posed by the dark funnel, use alternative tracking methods like including short URLs for private sharing, advanced attribution models or referral tracking in analytics. This way, the picture is more accurate and real-time.

Customer touchpoint mapping can optimize the customer journey, expediting customers toward conversion and brand advocacy . There are many other micro and macro benefits as well.

Enhanced customer experience Mapping customer touchpoints enables brands to envisage each customer’s journey objectively. Thereafter, brands can identify friction points and areas of improvement at every turn in the journey. Process and product improvements can translate into a more satisfying and seamless experience for customers. Editor’s Pick: A Detailed Guide to Customer Experience Management

73% of customers consider customer experience as a key buying factor. – PwC

Tailored marketing Brands can orchestrate individualized marketing campaigns when they know the journey each customer takes with them. Messaging and timing can be tailored to meet and exceed customer expectations at every touchpoint. When the right message reaches the customer at the right time, engagement is guaranteed. With customer obsession at the heart of marketing, brands are sure to win customer retention and loyalty.

Competitive advantage 83% of businesses struggle with end-to-end journey mapping, reveals a Gartner survey of 382 CX professionals around CX priorities and challenges. Most respondents admit they tracked only the purchase funnel, neglecting the post-purchase journey altogether. In such a scenario, rigorous touchpoint and journey optimization can tip the scales in your favor.

Typically, customer touchpoints are plotted on a customer journey map . They can fall into the three broad journey stages:

Pre-purchase In the discovery stage, the common customer touchpoints are –

Social media: The modern customer is an avid social media user. A majority of customer journeys today start on social media. Customers come across a brand via newsfeeds or sponsored ads. 💡 Pro Tip: To capitalize on this customer touchpoint, you must cut through the noise with impressive creatives and targeted messaging. Piggybacking on relevant social media influencers can also put you on your audience’s radar and win their trust. Learn more: The Definitive Guide to Social Media Marketing

Online advertisements: Display ads on Google and within websites to grab attention and lure customers to your brand. With catchy, bite-sized copy and alluring visuals, ads are a high-return customer touchpoint that can expedite conversions. 💡 Pro Tip: Use consumer insights to get into the minds of your customers and serve them on-point ads. Retargeting ads to activate passive customers is another great way to extract mileage from this touchpoint. Suggested Read: Social Media Advertising 101 [Detailed Guide]

Company events: Online and offline events are a great touchpoint to interface with customers and connect with them 1:1. Conferences and webinars can help you establish brand awareness in new markets and make inroads in the competition. 💡 Pro Tip: Event marketing is successful when it’s exclusive and well-planned. Choose your target audience carefully – middle-of-the-funnel leads who have shown an interest in your brand and products are likely to attend and deepen their association with you. Interesting Read: Real-Time Marketing Examples at Events

Digital marketing content: Apart from digital ads, there are other kinds of content that can trigger engagement, such as blog posts, videos, emails, newsletters, infographics, organic social posts and so on. A customer might come across these, like, comment or reshare them – which might be the start of a productive journey for your brand. 💡 Pro Tip: To stand out on overcrowded digital platforms is no cakewalk. You will have to post quality content consistently and ensure it is relevant to your audience. Stick to your brand style guide to build brand recall over time.

Peer referral: It’s common knowledge that most people ( 83% to be precise) trust referrals from their friends and family. Peer referral is organic word-of-mouth marketing and one of the most bankable customer touchpoints for a brand. 💡 Pro Tip: To get into your customers’ circle of influence, you can institute a formal loyalty program where referrals are incentivized.

Purchase During purchase, a customer encounters these touchpoints –

Product reviews: Customers in the consideration stage tend to check out product reviews to narrow down their choices and shortlist brands. Product reviews by influencers, experts and peers give confidence to potential buyers and push them closer to conversion.

Conversations with company reps: Dialog with support and sales reps is another common customer touchpoint at this stage. Customers might want to enquire about product features, availability, demo/trial and other concerns. Train your agents in customer empathy , active listening and product knowledge to win hearts. Dig deeper: Quick Tips to Inculcate Customer Empathy

Checkout flow in website/app: A critical touchpoint, checkout or point of sale (POS) should be smooth, distraction-free and uncomplicated. Offer multiple payment options and declutter your checkout page by removing distracting elements like product recommendations and surveys.

Post-purchase As stated, touchpoint mapping continues well beyond purchase and includes –

Feedback surveys: Post-purchase, customer surveys are shared for gauging a customer’s experience with your product/service. If sentiment analysis reveals negative sentiment, customer success teams can reach out to the customer and try to address their grievances.

Gratitude notes:  Seemingly small gestures like thank-you notes go a long way in nurturing customer relationships. It’s wise to pour thought into this customer touchpoint and craft an endearing and personalized note for each customer, thanking them for their business.

Upselling/Cross-selling:  Encourage repeat purchasing by pitching complementary products or upgrades on the sold product/service. It’s an opportunity to reengage the customer and extend the customer lifetime value (CLV) . 💡 Pro Tip: Instead of hard selling, try an alternative approach. Ask the customer to participate in surveying another product or taking a free trial of it. There’s a good possibility of scoring a sale if the experience is positive.

The Re-Imagined Digital Customer Journey

Touchpoint mapping is challenging with siloed channels and systems. When marketing, sales and support work in isolation, the customer experience is broken, and touchpoints are not mappable. Consequently, there will be repeated and redundant touches that can irk customers and drive them away from your brand.

Enter Sprinklr – the world’s only truly unified customer experience management platform .

It brings together all customer-facing channels and teams on one centralized platform, giving a unified view of all customer journeys. From social media to website to messaging platforms, all channels are tracked to identify touchpoints that matter. Not only this, Sprinklr’s AI feeds insights from one touchpoint to the next, enabling strategic decision-making and quicker conversions.

Sounds unbelievable?

Try Sprinklr for free and start up-leveling your CX now!

Frequently Asked Questions

Customer touchpoints are crucial because they represent moments of direct interaction between a customer and a brand. These interactions significantly impact customer perception, satisfaction, and loyalty, making them vital for shaping the overall customer experience.

Measuring customer touchpoints involves: 

Collect and analyze data from website visits, social media interactions and other platforms 

Leverage post-interaction customer surveys to read customer sentiment 

Define metrics for each touchpoint, such as click-through rate, conversion rate, etc. 

Do customer journey mapping to evaluate if each touchpoint is performing as intended.

It varies with product complexity, industry and customer journey. Some customers might convert in a few clicks and others might take a long-winded route to reach checkout. However, typically, it takes 6-8 touchpoints for a B2B customer to convert and 3-5 for B2C. Brands should focus on the quality of interactions at touchpoints rather than the number of touchpoints.

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Bhavna Gupta

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Mapping the B2B Customer Journey: Key Stages and Touchpoints

The B2B customer journey serves as a compass for businesses navigating the complex realm of buyer interactions and decision-making. Understanding the intricacies of this journey is crucial for organisations looking to build lasting partnerships and drive exceptional business outcomes. 

A customer journey map helps B2B operators re-imagine their customer journey and deliver more personalised experiences. It presents a great opportunity to reinforce brand awareness and drive customer satisfaction.

This article explores B2B customer journey mapping, unravelling its key stages and touchpoints that pave the way to fruitful business relationships. 

Table of Contents

How B2B and B2C customer journeys are different

What makes an effective b2b customer journey map, why you need a b2b customer journey map, #1. awareness, #2. consideration, #3. decision-making, #4. implementation, #5. support and relationship management, #6. renewal and expansion, awareness stage, consideration stage, decision-making stage, implementation stage, support and relationship management stage, renewal and expansion stage, define buyer personas, conduct customer interviews, analyse data and metrics, collaborate with sales and customer service teams, conduct journey mapping workshops, analyse competitor journeys, 19 awesome gamification ideas – ted talk edition, 12 ways to use gamification in banking for better engagement, what is the b2b customer journey.

The B2B customer journey refers to the process that business-to-business (B2B) customers go through, from problem identification to post-purchase. 

The process encompasses the entire lifecycle of a B2B buyer’s interactions with a company or brand. This includes their research, evaluation, purchase, ongoing relationship with the business and experiences along the way.

Consider a small business needing a scalable CRM (customer relationship management) solution, for example. There are many steps that it goes through before committing to a purchase. Even after the purchase, there are still post-purchase steps to cover, such as setting up the CRM system and providing after-sales services. That’s all part of the customer journey.

The B2B customer journey is characterised by multiple touchpoints across various channels. It is influenced by several factors, including industry-specific needs, organisational dynamics, and the involvement of decision-makers. Ultimately, the lasting impression of this journey is what defines the overall customer experience

Businesses and individual consumers approach the buying process quite differently. Understanding these differences is crucial for companies to tailor their strategies effectively to meet their customers’ unique expectations.

Some key aspects in which B2B and B2C (business to customer) journeys differ include: 

• Target audience — As a B2B operator, you rarely buy or sell to one person. More likely, you’ll transact with businesses, organisations, or a diverse group of individuals composed of stakeholders, senior management, and end-users
• Complexity —  B2B customer journeys tend to be more complex and involve longer sales cycles compared to B2C journeys. For example, B2B purchases typically involve higher stakes and larger investments, so there are often multiple decision-makers and longer negotiation processes.
• Decision-making factors — B2B customer journeys prioritise factors such as ROI, efficiency, scalability, and alignment with organisational goals. On the other hand, B2C journeys are frequently influenced by emotions, lifestyle preferences, and individual satisfaction.
• Relationship duration — B2B customer journeys typically involve longer-term relationships compared to B2C. This often necessitates continued engagement and support beyond the initial purchase. With B2B transactions, you look at ongoing partnerships, term contracts, or retainer arrangements.
• Personalisation approach — B2B journeys often emphasise customisation to meet the specific requirements of the purchasing organisation or target market segment. B2C customer journeys, on the other hand, may prioritise personalisation based on individualised experiences.
• Communication channels — B2B customer journeys typically involve multiple touchpoints across various channels, including direct sales interactions, professional networks, and industry-specific publications. B2C customer journeys rely heavily on digital channels such as websites, social media platforms, and online marketplaces.

What is the B2B customer journey map?

Simply put, the B2B customer journey map is a framework for capturing the customer experience. This visual representation illustrates customers’ pain points and their internal perception of the company throughout the business relationship. 

Source: apizee.com

These insights help the business identify areas to optimise to design and deliver more positive customer experiences.  

Mapping the B2B customer journey requires a business to step into the customer’s shoes to see how its processes impact its purchase decisions.

The customer journey map is a blueprint for the journey the customer takes. This means it should be comprehensive enough to cover all the important touchpoints — from initial awareness to post-sale.

Depending on the type of business relationship, customer journey maps should also cover the cessation of the relationship with the company. How a business handles this stage can be crucial to minimising churn and encouraging future relationships. 

Generally speaking, effective customer journey maps should include the following:

• A detailed flowchart of the customer journey showing the various interactions between the customer and the company
• Clearly outlined customer pain points or issues that may get in the way of a positive customer experience
• Identified areas where the company can take action to improve overall customer satisfaction 
• Details about what departments or people are responsible for moving the customer relationship forward at each touchpoint 
• Well-defined linkages between touchpoints
• The company’s performance at each touchpoint

Mapping the B2B customer journey gives businesses a powerful way to understand and cater to their customers effectively. 

Here are the key reasons to design a B2B customer journey map:

• Enhanced customer understanding —  A customer journey map provides valuable insights into the needs, motivations, pain points, and behaviours of your B2B customers. It helps you better understand their challenges, preferences, and decision-making processes.
• Strategic decision-making — A customer journey map helps businesses make data-driven decisions about their marketing, sales, and customer service strategies. It allows them to identify areas of improvement, optimise touchpoints, and align resources better to serve customers at each stage of their journey.
• Personalised experiences — A customer journey map enables a company to deliver tailored experiences to its B2B customers. This ultimately fosters stronger relationships and dramatically improves customer satisfaction.
• Alignment across teams — A customer journey map is a common reference point for different teams within an organisation. Marketing, sales, customer service, product development, and other departments can become more aligned and collaborative. This ensures consistent, cohesive customer experience across all touchpoints.
• Continuous improvement — Mapping the B2B customer journey is an iterative strategic process. It provides a framework for ongoing evaluation and optimisation of the customer experience to drive better business outcomes.

Key Stages of the B2B customer journey

The B2B customer journey typically consists of the following stages:

In this stage, the B2B vendor aims to raise awareness about what their business offers. The B2B customer, on the other hand,  becomes aware of a need or problem they want to address. For example, the company might be planning to attend an industry event in another state. So one of the first things they’ll need to sort out is the transportation for their staff. 

Now they’re aware of the need, so they start researching potential solutions and exploring available options.

As the name implies, this is where the customer “considers” their options. In the consideration stage, the B2B customer narrows their choices and evaluates different vendors or providers. 

Here, they delve deeper into the features and benefits of each option. They may compare the prices offered by the shortlisted vendors and consider payment options, flexibility, and customisation. At the end of the day, it’s about arriving at an informed decision about who they will purchase from.

Having narrowed down their options, it’s time for the B2B customer to decide what B2B vendor to contact to initiate the buying process. 

This is a pivotal moment in the B2B buyer journey. For one, it represents a successful conversion for the vendor, and is a sign that their lead nurturing methods are sound.

After the decision is made, the customer moves into the implementation stage. This involves the buying process, onboarding, and installation/configuration. 

Depending on the product or service being provided, this stage may also include special training for specific staff within the B2B customer’s organisation. Once everything is properly set up, the customer integrates the chosen solution into their existing business processes.

With the solution fully implemented, the customer enters the support and relationship management stage. For instance, they might require ongoing technical support or they might be assigned an account manager to handle post-purchase concerns and requests.

This is the B2C equivalent of customer loyalty. In this stage, the B2B customer evaluates their experience with the vendor and decides whether to continue the relationship. Additionally, there may be opportunities for upselling or expanding the scope of services provided to the customer.

It’s important to note that the B2B buyer journey is not strictly linear. This means it’s not uncommon for buyers to move back and forth between stages based on their specific needs and circumstances.

Touchpoints in B2B customer journey mapping

The customer journey mapping process includes several critical touchpoints that occur before, during, and after a sale. Touchpoints are the various customer interactions or moments of engagement with a company throughout the customer journey. 

Each one provides an opportunity for the company to leave an impression on the customer and ultimately impact their decision-making process. That’s why optimising touchpoints to deliver a consistent and personalised experience is essential in building strong relationships and fostering customer loyalty.

Source: salespanel.io

These touchpoints can occur through various channels, both online and offline, and are crucial in shaping customer experiences. 

Customer touchpoints can occur at different stages of the buying journey. Here are some examples:

• Industry events and conferences — These events are great for learning about new trends, technologies, and potential solutions.
• Online research — Conducting searches on search engines and exploring industry publications and social media communities are great ways to facilitate customer interactions.
• Word-of-mouth referrals — Seeking recommendations and feedback from colleagues, industry contacts, or trusted sources make for great customer touchpoints.
• Company website and landing pages — Visiting the company’s website and landing pages to explore detailed information about potential solutions.
• Product demonstrations or webinars — Participating in live or recorded demonstrations and webinars to gain insights into the functionality and benefits of the offerings.
• Case studies and success stories — Reviewing real-world examples and success stories that highlight how the product or service has helped other businesses.
• Consultations — Engaging in meetings or consultations with sales reps to discuss requirements and solutions.
• Proposal and pricing discussions —  Collaborating with the B2B vendor on contract terms and negotiating proposals that align with the B2B customer’s requirements.
• Reference checks — Seeking references from existing customers to validate the company’s reputation and track record.
• Vendor presentations or pitches — Attending presentations or pitches by vendors to assess their expertise and how well they understand the business’s challenges.
• Onboarding and training sessions — Participating in onboarding sessions and training programs to learn how to use the solution effectively.
• Technical support and guidance — Seeking technical support and advice during the implementation stage to resolve any issues that arise.
• Documentation and user manuals — Accessing comprehensive documentation, user manuals, and resources to support the implementation process and user adoption.
• Dedicated account managers or customer success representatives — A designated point of contact is great for nurturing current customers. 
• Helpdesk or support ticket systems — Utilising helpdesk or support ticket systems to log and track support requests, ensuring timely resolutions. This is a key part of modern B2B customer expectations and is a leading factor in increasing customer retention.
• Surveys and feedback mechanisms — Providing feedback through surveys or related mechanisms to help the vendor improve their offerings and sales process.
• Contract renewal discussions — Engaging in discussions with the B2B vendor regarding contract renewal terms and potential adjustments based on changing business needs.
• Cross-selling and upselling opportunities — Exploring opportunities to expand the relationship by considering additional vendor offerings.

Mapping the B2B buyer journey

Customer journey mapping requires a thoughtful approach to design truly innovative experiences tailored to the B2B context. 

It’s important to look for common pitfalls that typically accompany a journey mapping exercise. 

Some businesses make the mistake of overgeneralising the buyer’s journey. This results in them creating a one-size-fits-all customer journey map that doesn’t account for the unique needs of different customer segments. 

Another common mistake is focusing primarily on the sales stages and neglecting other key touchpoints of the buyer journey. This makes it difficult to capture the nuances of the buying experience truly.

The ideal customer journey map takes into account all the key stages of the journey with the view to achieving repeat business. It must also contain all the major elements necessary to improve customer touchpoints.

Check out the B2B customer journey map template below for an idea of the mapping process. 

Source: slideteam.net

Here are some techniques you can use to map the B2B customer journey:

Start by developing detailed user personas that represent your target B2B customers. The most effective way to create personas is first to identify the pain points, motivations, and decision-making criteria of various customer segments. 

This helps you understand their needs and tailor the customer journey map accordingly.

Engaging in one-on-one interviews with existing customers is a surefire way to gather insights about their experiences and interactions with your company.  You can also collect customer feedback data through the usual tools — customer satisfaction surveys, feedback forms, focus groups, etc. This helps identify areas of improvement and shape the customer journey map.

Leverage data analytics tools to analyse customer behaviour, engagement metrics , conversion rates, and customer journey progression. This data provides a quantitative understanding of the customer journey and helps identify bottlenecks or areas of improvement.

Involving your sales and customer service teams in the B2B customer journey mapping process is important. They have valuable insights into customer interactions and can provide detailed accounts of the pain points at each journey stage. 

Additionally, this collaboration can help buoy your marketing efforts and drive quicker outcomes.

Conduct workshops involving cross-functional teams from all relevant departments. Encourage brainstorming and collaboration to gain different perspectives.

Study the customer journeys of your competitors in the B2B space. Identify areas where they excel or fall short and use that knowledge to differentiate your own customer journey mapping. 

Keep in mind that the B2B customer journey is not static, so regularly review your customer journey map. There will always be new customer insights, market trends, and changing customer expectations to incorporate down the line. This ensures your customer journey map remains accurate and relevant.

Mapping the B2B customer journey is an essential practice for businesses seeking to understand and optimise their interactions with customers. By comprehensively mapping the key stages and touchpoints, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and pain points. 

Understanding the B2B customer journey enables companies to align their efforts to deliver a seamless and satisfying experience at every touchpoint. Ultimately, an effective B2B customer journey map serves as a roadmap for success, guiding businesses towards delivering exceptional experiences.

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Omnichannel Marketing for Seamless Customer Experience

There are over 4.6 billion internet users across the globe. On average, an individual uses 3-4 digital devices, sometimes simultaneously. Consumers spend 4-5 hours on mobile apps in a single day – these numbers equivocally state that digital has become a way of life. In today’s world, digital has become one of the primary and the most critical mediums to connect, communicate and engage with the customer. With the growing number of devices customers use, from PCs to laptops to smartphones and tablets, the customer journey has also become complex.

It is no longer enough for businesses to be present in each medium; they must implement omnichannel marketing strategies to create seamless customer experiences. Often, Omnichannel gets confused with multichannel, so before we deep dive into omnichannel marketing tactics for superior customer experience, let’s look at the fundamental difference between the two.

Simply put – multichannel means business presence in multiple digital mediums, and omnichannel is going a step forward and offering customers connected experiences across these channels. Let’s understand this with the help of an example.

A customer logs into an e-commerce app to buy a product on their smartphone. The typical customer journey will be to search for the product, add it to the cart, and pay for it. But before he/she can complete the purchase, the smartphone goes low on charge and switches off. The customer immediately logs into the e-commerce portal from their laptop. Now, in the case of multichannel – the customer will have to restart from browsing the product to adding it to the cart. But, in the case of omnichannel experience – the moment the customer logs in, they will start the journey right from where they left. Omnichannel will ensure a seamless customer experience, irrespective of the number or variety of devices the customer uses to complete the transaction.

Multichannel VS Omnichannel

Image source

Omnichannel Marketing – Delivering Seamless Customer Experiences at Every Touchpoint

Businesses can no longer afford to deprioritize customer experience; rather, it has become critical to gain a competitive advantage. Omnichannel marketing has become a mandatory element to ensure a seamless customer experience, here’s how –

Integrated Customer Experience

Marketing leaders are increasingly investing in an integrated marketing strategy to connect with the customer engagingly at every point of contact – be it online or offline. This is a critical foundation of building an omnichannel marketing strategy. A study suggests that businesses using an omnichannel marketing strategy see a 91% YoY customer retention rate . Omnichannel marketing ensures customers get a seamless and consistent experience across all channels, devices, and platforms.

Personalization That Drives Customer Loyalty

Have you ever been surprised by the personalized offers that you received on your birthday/anniversary after visiting a retail store? Such tactics have become a norm across domains, and why not – such gestures go a long way in creating an emotional connection with the customer and gaining customer loyalty.  This is a perfect example of how omnichannel marketing extends beyond digital platforms to offline channels to deliver a seamless customer experience.

Customer Segmentation to Drive ROI

In today’s world, customers seek customization with every communication. An Omnichannel marketing strategy allows marketers to use data to understand customer behavior, demographics, psychographics and segment them according to their needs or pain points. This categorization becomes critical to ensure that marketing spending yields results in the form of getting high-quality leads, completed sales, website/app visits, etc.

From Cold Calls to Conversions

Omnichannel marketing can go a long way in ensuring a higher number of conversions. Why? Because when businesses deliver seamless, personalized, and engaging customer experiences at every touchpoint – it can boost the chances of conversions. It also helps businesses offer services or products that are more likely to gain customer interest and therefore have a higher chance of getting purchased.

Customer Retention

In today’s world, where customers are spoiled for choices, customer retention has become a major challenge for businesses. An omnichannel strategy can help retain customers longer. How? One of the critical components of omnichannel marketing is using data from every channel to gain insights into customer behavior at every touchpoint. This allows businesses to gauge customer dissatisfaction and bridge the gaps proactively. A study reveals that businesses that deploy a cross channel or omnichannel strategy see a 13% YoY improvement in customer retention rates.

Optimizing – End-to-End Customer Journey

Presence on multiple digital channels has become a bare minimum requirement for businesses across domains. But often, businesses are tempted to optimize only a part of the customer journey or just optimize experiences on a channel that has higher visibility. This can be counterproductive. For instance, if a fabulous (offline) fashion store has an unimpressive online presence, it would lower its chance of getting newer customers, as the first step of brand visibility nowadays is through the digital medium.

Similarly, a business with a great online presence with a below-standard physical or offline presence will lead to customers dropping off at the moment of truth. Therefore, optimizing the end-to-end customer journey is critical, and an omnichannel marketing strategy helps in ensuring that.

In Conclusion

As customer experience becomes the center of business strategies, Omnichannel marketing is no longer an option. The saying ‘ Customer is the King (and Queen)’ has never been truer as it is today. With advancements in technology and devices, shifting to an omnichannel marketing strategy has become imperative for businesses of every scale. With the increasing number of digital channels, the end-to-end experience that a business offers is critical to acquiring and retaining customers. It is also an important factor that will give a competitive advantage to the businesses. It is about time businesses shake off the siloed marketing approach towards individual touchpoints and connect with strategic partners to adopt omnichannel marketing for a seamless and personalized customer experience across platforms.

To know how Airtel iQ, an omni-channel cloud communication and customer experience management platform, is transforming the customer engagement, click here

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Understanding customer journey touchpoints.

9 min read When you’re looking to improve sales and build your brand, it’s important to think like your customer: to understand and be mindful of them at every step of their journey with you. Here’s how to get a better understanding with customer journey mapping.

What is a customer touchpoint?

Customer touchpoints are the various moments at which a customer will directly, or indirectly, come into contact with your brand. These touchpoints make up the  customer journey , and are key to influencing the  customer experience .

What is a customer journey?

A customer journey describes all the customer touchpoints a potential customer has before, during, and after their purchase.

They include those aspects of the journey directly influenced by your organisation as well as those influenced or controlled by third parties. This is an important distinction as, while you may not be responsible for a particular part of the journey, it still affects the experience your customer has.

Why is understanding customer touchpoints important?

It’s impossible to improve the customer experience if you don’t know the moments that they go through to make that experience. These moments – the touchpoints in which the customer interacts with the brand – define the experience that customers have.

Multiple touchpoints create a journey. If brands are to successfully influence the customer – to buy, renew or recommend to a family, friend or coworker – then the experience in the moments that matter needs to meet their needs.

By knowing and understanding how customers feel during these touchpoints, brands can focus on improving certain, and often small, aspects to the experience, rather than having to rethink the journey as a whole.

This helps brands to create a tailored approach, instead of having to adopt a one-size-fits-all mindset.

See how Qualtrics can help you optimise the customer journey

Identifying your customer touchpoints

Before  – how did they find out about you? Your customer may find out about you through adverts, billboards, social media, online reviews, or good old-fashioned word of mouth.

During  – which channels and what did they do? This is your point of sale (POS). It could be your website, branch, store, or delivery. Customers may interact with sales assistants and call centres.

After  – what happens after the sale? These include invoicing, queries, returns, product support, product or service lifetime, newsletters, and  customer feedback surveys

Once you understand and map every touchpoint in your customer journey and collect feedback from each, you will be able to spot ‘pain points’ along the way or areas that need improving.

Examples of customer touchpoints

Customer touchpoints, as mentioned above, are the moments in which a customer will come into contact, or engage, with a brand. This might be before, during, or after completing a purchase or using a service.

These examples include direct contact – where the brand is involved in this interaction, and indirect – where it involves third parties.

Examples include :

• Advertising (inc. digital, out of home, print)
• Social media
• Welcome/thank you emails
• Physical stores
• Customer service (cashier, contact center, sales rep)
• Product reviews
• Subscription renewals
• Influencer recommendations
• Peer reviews
• Point of sale
• Customer onboarding
• Physical and digital events

How customer touchpoints work

Let’s take an example here – a customer looking to take out a mortgage. The customer touchpoints in our example below.

• Your customer has seen an advert for an attractive interest rate and their brother recommended your mortgage.Your online mortgage calculator said the repayments were affordable, so the customer has a helpful face-to-face meeting in a branch, and goes home to fill out the online application form.
• They instantly receive an email with a decision in principle, telling them it has been accepted, inviting them to complete the full application.
• The customer takes a few days to fill out the application and receives an ‘application received’ message.
• Some of the information was missing, so a contact center agent calls them to explain what information they need to provide.
• Finally, the mortgage is agreed and the customer receives a letter with a binding mortgage offer.
• Once the customer has then gone through the house buying process, had their surveys carried out and confirmed their exchange date, they receive final confirmation of the mortgage including direct debit details, terms and conditions, etc. The process is now complete.

So that’s a total of 11 touchpoints – and for many home buyers there will be much more back and forth too – up to the point of purchase.

Following completion, there may be more, like annual or monthly statements or interactions with the customer if they want to increase or decrease how much they pay each month.

Turning your touchpoints into a journey

Customer touchpoints, together, form a journey. This is the process, or order, in which a customer might directly or indirectly interact with your brand. Customers take multiple different journeys with a brand, influenced in different ways.

There is not a single linear journey that every customer will take.

After all, this is why integrated marketing campaigns exist, to meet the needs of different  target audiences . However, understanding these different journeys is important in order to be able to improve the experience of each journey, and of each target audience.

This is called customer journey mapping. It provides an overview of every way in which a customer might interact with your brand. It covers how they:

• Research the product/service/brand
• Use the product
• Seek customer service support
• Express their displeasure
• Recommend the product

Then, when something isn’t working or could be improved then it’s possible to look at the process visually and come up with solutions to make it better for customers.

What to fix and where?

On the face of it, you might have a  satisfied customer . They may give high  NPS  or  CSAT  scores as they now have their mortgage and a lovely new home.

But how many other customers started the application form, gave up filling it in because it was too complicated and went to another provider? Or received a mortgage in principle only for the full application to be rejected?

This is where journey mapping is essential. By gathering feedback at each touchpoint, you can start to understand how each one contributes to the overall experience. Was there a stage that was particularly difficult? Where did the service they received fail to match up to their expectations?

Being able to pinpoint specific pain points along the customer journey means that you can step in and make improvements at the moments that matter.

Using customer experience data and mapping it back to specific touchpoints is how you start to understand the key moments that influence customer behavior.

By analysing this feedback side by side with your core CX metrics , you’re able to identify the improvements that will have the biggest impact on your customers and their overall experience as well as the impact on organisation metrics like win rates, sales, and customer lifetime value .

An action-orientated approach to customer touchpoints

Understanding how your customers interact with your brand throughout the customer journey is vital, but it will only prove effective if you take action on the insights that you uncover. For example, if it becomes clear that the onboarding process is damaging the customer experience, then action needs to be taken to rectify that.

Related resources

Customer Journey

Customer Journey Mapping Workshop 3 min read

Customer journey mapping tools 14 min read, customer journey mapping 14 min read, the complete guide to customer journey management 14 min read, customer journey stages 12 min read, buyer’s journey 16 min read, customer journey analytics 13 min read, request demo.

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Amoga, the Most Agile Low-Code Platform, Supercharges Sukham's Operations and Personalised Customer Journey, Accelerating Time to Market by 10x

Bangalore (Karnataka) [India], April 11: Amoga, a leading provider of Low-Code development platforms, today announced that Sukham , a men's wellness company renowned for its unwavering commitment to customer experience, has successfully harnessed Amoga's platform to unleash internal agility, accelerated time to market by 10x, and craft personalised customer journeys compared to traditional coding methods.

Facing hurdles with manual processes and limited IT resources, Sukham sought a solution to accelerate development cycles, enhance operational efficiency, and prioritise a customer-centric approach. Amoga's intuitive drag-and-drop interface and pre-built components enabled Sukham 's citizen developers to unleash their potential and build custom applications tailored to their diverse customer segments and individual needs.

Sukham 's Project: Streamlined Lead and Order Management with personalized customer journeys

Leveraging Amoga's platform, Sukham successfully implemented an integrated Lead and Order Management System , achieving significant improvements in their business processes and elevating the customer experience.

Key functionalities of the system include:

* Lead Management System : Acts as a central hub for managing leads from all channels (omnichannel), providing a holistic view and facilitating efficient lead nurturing, personalised based on customer segment and behaviour.

* Order Management System : Seamlessly generates orders based on the status changes of leads in the lead management system, ensuring a smooth transition from lead to customer, while accounting for individual customer preferences.

Amoga's platform empowered Sukham to benefit from the following features:

* Order tracking and fulfilment: Track orders in real-time, ensuring timely deliveries and enhancing customer satisfaction.

* 5+ integrations with various platforms: Seamlessly integrate with Shopify, marketplaces, logistics and warehouse management systems, and accounting software, streamlining workflows and centralizing data.

* 360° management dashboard: Gain a holistic view of leads, orders, customers, and key metrics in a single, intuitive dashboard.

* Integration with WhatsApp and dialer: Enhance communication and collaboration with customers through their preferred channels, including WhatsApp and phone calls.

* Productivity tracking for a call-center: Track and analyse call center performance, identify areas for improvement and optimize agent efficiency.

Benefits achieved by Sukham :

* Reduced time to market by 90%: Delivered mission-critical applications in record time, going from months to weeks.

* Real-time status tracking and monitoring: Enabled through system integrations, providing improved visibility into leads, orders, and deliveries.

* Custom role-wise dashboards: Created for improved user experience and access control, catering to the specific needs of different user roles.

* Increased productivity and cost savings: Streamlined workflows and automated tasks lead to operational efficiency gains.

* Seamless scalability: Amoga's platform adapts effortlessly to accommodate Sukham 's growing needs and future application development.

"Amoga has helped us to accelerate development cycles, enhance operational efficiency, and prioritise a customer-centric approach," said Vivek Krishna, CEO & Co-founder at Sukham . "Amoga's intuitive drag-and-drop interface and pre-built components enabled our developers to quickly build customer-centric web apps tailored to our business needs and seamlessly integrate with our current suite of apps."

"Businesses today need super-agile and affordable digital solutions to truly leverage the power of digital transformation," said Bishal Lachhiramka , CEO of Amoga. "Amoga is here to disrupt the business software landscape by empowering businesses like Sukham to build no-compromise enterprise applications faster and easier than ever before while keeping the customer at the heart of every interaction."

Sukham is a holistic men's wellness brand. They are committed to providing products & solutions based on Vajikarana that are consistent with modern medical science. They promise to be an open and non-judgmental platform that seeks to assist men via quality supplements, personalised counselling and holistic wellness regimes. They are renowned for their unwavering commitment to customer experience, constantly seeking ways to personalise the customer journey across all touchpoints.

Amoga is a leading provider of Low-Code development platforms that fuel businesses to build custom applications faster and easier than ever before. With its intuitive visual interface and pre-built components, Amoga unlocks the potential of both technical and non-technical users to create powerful applications without writing code. Amoga's platform is trusted by companies of all sizes across various industries to streamline operations, boost efficiency, and achieve their digital transformation goals.

For more information, please visit www.amoga.io.

(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir . ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)