Tag: touchpoint

Leveraging Customer Touchpoints to Increase Sales

What is a Touchpoint?

A touchpoint is a point of contact between a customer and your product, service, or brand. Whether before, during, or after an actual sale has taken place, any interaction a customer has with your business is considered a touchpoint and potential for your business to increase their customer’s perception of your brand. Touchpoints span the whole value chain, but dealing specifically with the franchise industry and the major customer touchpoints franchises have to manage in relation to customers, there are five: direct mail marketing, in-store advertising, point-of-sale advertising, social media marketing, and mobile initiatives.

Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail is one of the most heavily used forms of advertisement with multiple coupons for different brands hitting mail boxes every day. The direct marketing association pegs the response rate at “Letter-sized envelopes, for instance, had a response rate this year of 3.42 percent for a house list and 1.38 percent for a prospect list.” This shotgun approach has been a consistent marketer’s tool , but with the low response rate, and even lower conversion rate, marketer’s are seeking other channels and touchpoints to reach customers. Continue reading Leveraging Customer Touchpoints to Increase Sales

Guests, Not Customers

I recently came back from a conference, the Franchise Consumer Marketing Conference, and at the conference listened to a panel of franchise marketing executives speak on successful marketing and customer loyalty tactics. One of the panelists, a CMO of a Fortune 1000 company addressed the importance of customer experience and brought up the notion of treating your customers as guests. Whether this means literally addressing your customers as guests or maintaining the underlying philosophy throughout your company culture, the bottom-line is understanding this mentality and championing it throughout your entire organization in the direction of building a better brand, increased customer loyalty, and ultimately a better customer experience.

The Disney Customer

Walt Disney made this famous with Disneyland’s iconic customer service and transformable customer experience. Disney called all the employees “cast members” and called all customers/visitor “guests.” Walt Disney may epitomize this philosophy and have taken it to an extreme extent, but if applied to a fraction of the degree as Disneyland, your customer service and experience will translate to a better interaction with your brand for your guests. This is not to say you need to turn your franchise or business into Disneyland, but understand that details matter and every single customer’s experience may be a new one. Continue reading Guests, Not Customers