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The Top 4 Customer Touchpoints You Need To Nail

Customer touchpoints are any interactions that affect how customers feel about your business. A touchpoint could crop up on any channel at your disposal and be almost any representation of your brand. Not all touchpoints are created equal, so below I’ve listed the four top ones your business needs to nail.

Recommended reading: Customer Reviews and Social Proof

Social media – show your brand’s human side

Nearly 100% of adults have at least one social media account and the average person has seven. This is why social media remains your customers’ biggest touchpoint. But with so many companies offering the same products for similar prices, you need to convince your customers to buy from your business.

Showing your brand’s human side on social media is the perfect way to connect with your customers and show you get them. Wendy’s is a great example of a brand that has a personal connection with their customers. See them in action below:

Credit: Twitter

Wendy’s roasts are the stuff of social media legend. They’re daring but they raise the profile of the brand and they really work – both their profits and followers increased because of their approach. Wendy’s prickly and snippy style might not but right for your brand, but that’s fine. Decide how to show your human side and reveal it, doing so will help you nail social media.

Influencer marketing – tap into their engaged audiences

Whether they’re macro, micro, or virtual, influencers hold tremendous sway. 70% of millennials are influenced by what their peers recommend. The genius of influencer marketing is that influencers are peers, only with a much larger audience. This makes influencer marketing on of the key customer touchpoints for your business.

To nail influencer marketing you need to know which type to use. Macro influencers have over 100,000 followers. Micro influencers have between 2,000 and 100,000 followers. But don’t be taken in by numbers alone. While macro influencers have a broader audience, macro influencers have more engaged followers. Watch the video below to help decide which one is best for your business:

Now you know whether you’re going micro or macro, you have to find the ideal influencer for your brand. There are many listings, sites, tools, and platforms to help you do this. BrandBacker is one of the longest-running platforms. Elsewhere, Influenster is backed by over 1.5 million influencers.

Spend time finding the influencer that’s right for your brand, because you can be sure that a significant number of your customers will be swayed by them.

Chatbots – multifaceted customer touchpoints

The importance of AI continues to grow exponentially. Ecommerce brands use it to create personalized product recommendations, while charities employ it to help them achieve social missions. Brands can even take details from your friends on social media and merge this data in order to create a tailored marketing pitch. Chatbots are an AI tool that connect with your customers in various ways, and are an essential customer touchpoint for 2019.

Here are some examples of how chatbots work as customer touchpoints:

• Marketing: Chatbots can qualify your leads, personalize your user experience, integrate with social media messaging platforms, and more
• Onsite customer service: They answer customer questions
• Sales funnel: Give these tools the power and they can offer assistance throughout the buying process

Hipmunk is one of the best brands for employing chatbots as a customer touchpoint. It’s a platform built to make it easy for people to find travel deals. Customers use it to book rental cars, hotels, package holidays, or flights. Hipmunk’s Hello Hipmunk chatbot integrates with Skype, Slack, and Facebook messenger. After a platform for integration is selected, Hello Hipmunk takes the users location and sends deals relevant to that area. Look below to see it in practice:

Credit: Medium

There are three types of chatbot: scripted, intelligent, application. Each fills a different role and can benefit your business in their own way:

1. An intelligent chatbot is ideal if you want as minimize the day-to-day management of your company. This is perfect if you’re buying websites or building businesses to use as a source of passive income.
2. A scripted chatbot is the best option if you’ve built your company from the ground up and want to tightly manage your brand.
3. Application chatbot: This can be either an intelligent or scripted chatbot. What’s important for an application bot is that it communicates via graphical user interface. This means icons, menus, or windows are used to display your chatbot. This makes them ideal for giving your customers a more interactive experience.

Customer testimonials – inspire trust in your brand

Your social media accounts, relationships with influencers, and use of chatbots are all crucial customer touchpoints. However, they aren’t your most valuable advocates. Your customers trust the opinions of their peers as much as those of their family and friends. This makes customer testimonials and reviews the most vital touchpoint to nail.

Don’t believe me? Trust the stats:

• 90% of customers look at online reviews before they even visit your website
• 84% of shoppers value reviews as much as family recommendations
• 74% of customers are more likely to trust your brand if you have positive reviews

I said earlier that you need to convince your customers to buy from your business. This is why inspiring trust in your brand with customer reviews is such a crucial touchpoint. Luckily, it’s simple to increase the number and improve the quality of your reviews. Here’s how:

• Enable reviews on your website (and all other channels): It’s a no-brainer – if your customers can’t leave a review you can’t get any. Enable reviews on your website, Google Maps, and everywhere else they can be uploaded
• Ask you customers to leave a review: While it’s frowned on by Google, asking your customers has a great ROI. Give your customers an incentive with an offer, discount, or voucher and you’ll increase your success rate further
• Respond to as many reviews/comments as you can: Like your social media channels, engagement is key with customer reviews. So replying to the reviews you get you improves your chances of getting more

Customer touchpoints might sound abstract but its importance couldn’t be clearer. At every point your customer can interact with your brand you must leave a good impression. While these are the top four customer touchpoints you need to nail they aren’t the only ones. So make sure you engage with your customers positively throughout all your channels.

This blog was written by Patrick Claus and eCommerceTips.org. Patrick has written for Forbes, Digital Marketing Magazine, and Google’s Startup Grind.