Glossary · Customer Satisfaction
Touchpoint
Any point of contact between customer and company. There are no neutral touchpoints.
Touchpoints in Practice
Categories of Touchpoints
Pre-purchase touchpoints:
- Search ad / social media ad
- Website / landing page
- Organic search result
- Word-of-mouth / recommendation
- Trustpilot / review platform
Purchase touchpoints:
- Product page and pricing page
- Checkout flow
- Payment receipt
- Order confirmation email
Post-purchase touchpoints:
- Delivery / unboxing
- Welcome email / onboarding flow
- Customer service interactions
- Invoices and payment reminders
- Product updates / release notes
- Loyalty program
Touchpoint Mapping
- List all known touchpoints in your customer journey
- Evaluate each touchpoint on: Frequency (how often is it experienced?) and Impact (what is the effect on NPS/CSAT?)
- Prioritize touchpoints with high frequency AND high impact
- Connect VoC measurements to the most important touchpoints
Touchpoints and VoC Measurement
Measure CSAT or CES directly after the most important touchpoints. This gives a precise picture of which contact points drive satisfaction. An overall NPS tells you there is a problem. Touchpoint measurements tell you where the problem is.
Frequently Asked Questions
This varies significantly by business model and industry. A simple e-commerce customer journey may have 8-15 touchpoints from advertisement to delivery. A B2B enterprise customer relationship can have hundreds over the contract's lifetime. The most important thing is to identify the critical touchpoints, typically 5-8, that have the greatest impact on the customer's experience.
All 'moments of truth' are touchpoints, but not all touchpoints are 'moments of truth.' A moment of truth is a touchpoint with a disproportionately large emotional and loyalty-related significance, typically situations where the customer tests whether the company lives up to its promise. Examples: the first complaint, the first invoice, the onboarding experience.
Want to measure Touchpoint?