Using unique touchpoints as part of your brand signature makes each visit or interaction not only satisfying but distinctly memorable for your customers. You want to achieve a conversation starter and a set of talking points that encourage conversation and sharing. Touchpoints are all about investing in brand advocacy. A reason to keep on returning.
A signature touchpoint may be a small ritual, a tradition, a service offering, a moment in time, a way of interacting, a goodbye message, a take home token, a special experience, a colour or more. The best touchpoints create a point of difference or USP. They allow your brand or your venue to stand out from the crowd. Most importantly they connect your brand to your customer.
Design is critical for commercial success. And you need to know your markets, trends, your desired audience and ideal customer to translate strategic insights into good design.
At Design Clarity, we use experience safaris as the first step in this process.
Understanding customer behaviour along every step of their journey (virtual and physical) gives valuable insight to guide future design decisions. On safari we ask our collaborators to pay attention to these four main aspects:
Brand / Experience / Space / People
And of course we keep an eye out for any unique signature touchpoints!
In any experience safari stop it is important to rate venue performance against your ideal guest journey. Following a guest journey or customer physical journey on site is the best way of learning customer behaviour and gathering key insights about drivers and barriers, pain points or areas where there may be room for improvement. This can be valuable research in competitor environments or in existing spaces as part of an experience audit prior to redesign.
The customer must always be at the centre of the decision making.
Here’s one basic model of guest journey key summarised in 8 steps – this works for retail and hospitality design:
1 INTENTION – What the customer is seeking
2 ATTRACTION – Physical and digital first impression
3 WELCOME – Arrival and greetings assistance
4 ORIENTATION – Interior flow and navigation
5 INTERACTION – Inspiration and engagement
6 TRANSACTION – Operations and efficiency
7 GOODBYE – Upsell and take home message
8 ADVOCACY – The reason to return again
Each step along the journey key is analysed in terms of brand, experience, venue and people.
Remembering it’s those small, unique signature touchpoints that make the biggest impact.
Download a guest journey key to use here – FREE TOOL !
Mapping different journeys against targeted customer persona profiles helps better understand behaviour and curate a tailored experience designed to anticipate and exceed their expectations. We’ll talk more about how we use customer profiling in our next post.
