Touchpoint eXperience Management (TXM)
TXM is about managing touchpoint experience. A touchpoint is every point of interaction, internal and external, seen and unseen. An experience is a subjective feeling about the interactions of one individual with an event and/or with other individual. Touchpoint eXperience is therefore the result of interaction of one person with other person, information, and deliverable through feeling (see, hear, touch, taste, smell), thinking, and hiring.
There are 2 environments – Internal Organization (i) and External Market (e). In each environment, there are 3 types of touchpoint – People, Information and Deliverables (PID). Each type of touchpoint produces 3 kinds of experience – Positive, Neutral and Negative.
[i = e] PID is about People [produce = hire] Deliverables based on Information available,
where P / I / D are the key factors affecting touchpoint experience.
Without touchpoint, there is no opportunity for anyone to experience the experience. Without experience, it is impossible to determine whether subsequent touchpoint is possible. Touchpoint is therefore the foundation of basically everything, and it is necessary to ensure that once a relationship is formed, there is no discontinuity in the chain. Maintaining touchpoint chain will either strengthen or weaken the relationship, depending on the experience.
TXM is about turning every touchpoint in terms of People, Information and Deliverables from negative experience into positive in order to achieve win-win outcome internally and externally.
If relationship is important, then touchpoint is more important.
+R = Summation +TX
where
+ = Positive
R = Relationship
T = Touchpoint
X = eXperience
If each touchpoint experience along the touchpoint chain is positive, then the relationship will be positive. First impression is important. If first impression is positive, then it is likely that the tolerance level of subsequent negative touchpoint experience will be higher. If the first impression is negative, then it is difficult to build rapport thereafter. Even if positive touchpoint chain can be rebuilt, enormous efforts are expected.
Sales cycle is touchpoint chain from the seller perspective, where buying cycle from the buyer. Value chain consists of infinite number of touchpoints. Everything can be expressed in terms of touchpoint, and everything comes down to touchpoint.
See Part V.
Daryl
This is all rather confusing. And elicits a number of questions:
Q1. Does a person need to feel, think AND hire a touchpoint for it to add to the overall experience?
Q2. Are there really only two environments? What about boundary spanning environments e.g. customer self-service or customer communities, which are a combination of both?
Q3. Are there really only three types of touchpoint? What about the effects of time and the process carried out? And what about combinations of all of these, e.g. if you go shopping for a new mobile phone, you want help about the phones on offer (information and people), someone to help you wade through all the options to find the right combination (people and process), to be able walk away with the right phone when you have made your chpoice (outcome) and to be able to return it if you have second thoughts (outcome, process and time).
Q4. How does this differ in long drawn-out experiences like intercontinental airline travel versus short experiences like choosing a mobile phone?
Q5. Will two different people experiencing the same identical touchpoint have a different perception of the touchpoint?
Q6. What sets the expectations that a customer will have of a touchpoint, particularly when they experience it for the first time and have no experience of their own?
I look forward to understanding your thinking with more clarity.
Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager
Graham
Thank you for reading my blogs and raising all the good questions.
I’m sorry for confusing you, but if you’d try to understand my definition of touchpoint, it would definitely help clear up some confusion.
In his book Overpromise and Overdeliver, Rick Barrera identifies three types of touchpoints: Product, System and Human. It is similar to my three types, but if touchpoint is defined as every point of interaction, then it should also cover internal environment.
What I’ve been trying to do is to redefine touchpoint, and factor experience and internal ingredients into the model.
Daryl Choy, the founder of Touchpoint eXperience Management, helps firms make a difference at every touchpoint. Choy can be reached at wisdomboom.blogspot.com.
A person has to at least feel, think AND hire in order to experience the overall experience. OR will only provide the person the basic experience. However, the hiring decision can be made without experiencing the total experience, meaning the basic experience is sometimes good enough to convince the person to make the hiring decision.
Daryl Choy, the founder of Touchpoint eXperience Management, helps firms make a difference at every touchpoint. Choy can be reached at wisdomboom.blogspot.com.
Customer self-service and customer communities are external environment. Any environment which involves customers is external environment. Simply put, in the SIPOC model, anything to the left of C is external environment.
There is of course interaction between internal and external, and even interaction within the same environment. When internal intersects with external, it does not become one environment. Similar to demand and supply, even when they intersect, it is called equilibrium, but they don’t form a new market.
Daryl Choy
Make Little Things Count
wisdomboom.blogspot.com
Touchpoint is composed of 2 simple words: touch and point. Simply put, touchpoint is an interaction, or a point (what/who) that is touched via any channel (where/how) for a purpose (why).
Time is not a touchpoint, but a resource. Nobody can “touch” time.
Process is not a touchpoint. People deliver process. If the process is not right, it is because of the people who develop the process. Process can be one of the deliverables.
If you go shopping for a new mobile phone, you want help about the phones on offer (information and people), someone to help you wade through all the options to find the right combination (people and process versus people and information), to be able walk away with the right phone when you have made your choice (outcome versus deliverables) and to be able to return it if you have second thoughts (outcome, process and time versus deliverables).
This is a perfect example of how all three touchpoints (people, information, and deliverables) integrate together to form a holistic experience. Outcome is just another way to define deliverables.
Daryl Choy
Make Little Things Count
wisdomboom.blogspot.com