Customer touchpoints - Identify and take control!

What Is Considered To Be A Customer Contact Point

Customers can come into contact with your brand via e-mail, your website, or a phone call to your customer service team… Customer contact points are established when your customer interacts with your organization. It is important that we understand how and where your customers are interacting with your brand. This will not only help control your brand, but improve the experience your customers are having. By doing so you will also acknowledge which points of contact require more attention than others, and possibly provide an experience that sets you apart from your competition.

Note that this ideology can be applied to multiple industries (B2B, B2C, etc.) that deal with a wide array of product and service related solutions.

Restaurant Example: The Plantation House

I enjoy food, scratch that, I love food! I live to eat, not eat to live… As a result I have an eagerness to try different types of foods from various cultures. The following is about an experience I had at the plantation house restaurant in Maui that just simply blew me away. While researching which restaurants to eat at in Maui, the plantation house, along with many other restaurants, quickly moved to my must visit list of top 10 restaurants to try. The process of researching various restaurants drastically increases ones expectations of that restaurant, as you read one great review after another you are creating low or high expectations. In the case of the Plantation House I thought it would be difficult for them to wow me, due to the high expectations these reviews were building in my head.

Seven Points Of Contact With The Plantation House

1) Review Based Research: While researching various websites the plantation house was represented as a well-priced (comparing quality to price) restaurant offering great food and views of Maui.

2) Plantation Website: Reviewed their website to learn more about the location, menu and contact info.

3) Reservation Process: Surprised to see that this conversation was more than just a reservation of taking my contact information, time etc… The attendant was asking me about my stay in Maui, where was I staying, confirming directions and if there was something we were celebrating (birthday, honeymoon etc…).

4) Arrival: Was seated within 5 minutes. Was provided with free champaign and a card from the restaurant congratulating me and my wife on our honeymoon. The card had a photo of the restaurant and included hand written signatures and notes from each employee working that day. 5) Ambiance: Exactly what the photos on the restaurant depicted! The food and service created a story/ambiance of going on an adventure, exercising our senses.

6) Food: Great!

7) Waitress/Waiter: A good waitress will take your order, a great waitress will help tell a story and guide you along that story. Our waitress was great, providing us with insight as to which items are popular amongst locals and visitors, newly added items and her personal favorites, while describing the tastes we can expect.

Conclusion

So if the restaurant met my expectations how did they wow me? The restaurant actually taking into consideration our honeymoon and having people congratulate us while walking into the restaurant really impressed me. Now what blew me away was the card signed by all employees! No restaurant I’ve been too was ever so detail oriented. We thought maybe this was only done for honeymooners, although those celebrating a birthday also received a card. I can say that the Plantation House has indeed found a way to differentiate themselves from local competitors by capitalizing on perfecting the experience their customers have when interacting with them.

How are your customers interacting with your organization? Let us hear about your experiences below.