Companies that are well poised for the future have an effective network of TouchPoints! TouchPoints? Yes, those are the many ways that people can interact with a company. A commonly used TouchPoint is a Phone line, commonly used to “get in touch” with a company.
From a company’s perspective, TouchPoints are all of the different mediums used to interact with customers and for customers to interact with the company. Interaction could be in the form of a conversation, a purchase, a shared publication, a printed brochure, a reply, a comment, etc. There are a multitude of TouchPoints and with the rapidly changing digital environment, more and more TouchPoint medium are available.
| Touch Point Medium | Advantage / Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| Advertising | Costly to produce, potentially high viewer reach, impersonal, potential customer unidentifiable, visuals enhance a company’s brand. |
| E-Mail Marketing | Somewhat costly to produce effective content on a consistent basis, message aimed at a specific audience, potential customer identifiable, action-taken analytics available, may provide feedback |
| Personal Interaction | Face-to-face interaction is often the most costly interaction but it is linked to higher "action-taken" results. One-to-one conversations have good conversion rates. |
| Social Media Sites | Somewhat costly to effectively maintain on an on-going-basis (although almost free to set-up). User identifiable (but may or may not be as identified), option for one-to-one conversations, potential for easily building business relationships. Over time, build customer loyalty to brand. |
| Social Events | Attracts your intended audience, Potential attendee may or may not be indentified, Opportunity for one-to-one conversations, ideal venue to deliver new message, builds customer loyalty, costly to organize and host, Good action conversion rates. |
| Snail Mail | Costly to produce, to distribute, Reaches an identifiable potential customer, fairly costly follow-up re. action, good to generate interest in products / services |
| Land / Mobile Phones | Easy access, Fairly inexpensive, high user base, one-to-one communication, customer not always identifiable, reliable medium. |
