Solid foundations for helping clients & attendees get and keep more customers

-Peter Drucker

Maximizing ability to get and keep desired customers requires two foundational strategies:

Operation Strategy: Your Operation Strategy is typically originated in a business plan and continued in strategic plans. From these documents, the Operation Strategy defines products and services, pricing, distribution/location, etc.  This creates factors, such as price and location, for customers to consider as they develop perceptions and make decisions.

Experience Strategy: Your Experience Strategy purposely positions both customer service policies and customer Touchpoint execution relative to competition. Your Experience Strategy must complement your Operation Strategy to maximize the ability to get and keep desired customers and employees.

Applying your strategy to improving your Customer Journeys, Touchpoint by Touchpoint

Key to applying your Experience Strategy is understanding customer journies.

The Hierarchy of Customer Journeys

Customer Relationship Journey: The macro journey consisting of the universal stages of: Awareness, Knowledge, Consideration, Selection, Satisfaction/dissatisfaction, Loyalty, and Advocacy.  Customer can advance to, stay in, or return to any or all of the stages of the Relationship Journey.

Customer Transactional Journey: The Transactional Journey is a subset of the Relationship Journey and can happen once or repeatedly within the Relationship Journey.  This is the Journey the customer takes each time to understand, select and pay for a product or service.

The stages of a Transactional Journey are specific to the organization and its customers. A typical B2B Transaction Journey could cover: marketing, sales, ordering, fulfillment, billing and payment.  A typical B2C Transactional Journey could cover the stages of: marketing, purchase and use.

Customer Value-Add Journey: This is a Journey a customer takes that adds value beyond or in addition to a product or service. Examples include engaging in organization provided social networking or other means of community interaction, obtaining education or training, attending a special event like a holiday party, etc.

What makes up journeys?

Journeys are made up of experiences, which are made up of Touchpoints and influenced by factors.

Experiences: A series of Touchpoints that combine to make up a step or component of one of the three Customer Journeys.

Touchpoints: Each physical, communication, human and sensory interaction with, or within, your organization.

Factors: Customer considerations that are not interactions. Examples of factors include price, location, image, product performance, etc.

To your customers, you are your Touchpionts.  Hank Brigman

A story that highlights the problem that MUST be solved

When engaged to improve the customer-centricity of the financial services division of a Fortune Five conglomerate, W. H. "Hank" Brigman asked each employee to detail their customer service best practices – what did they do that was especially customer-centric?

Am I waiting two hours or two days?

Many replied with how quickly they returned customer phone calls. Sally offered up that she returned all calls within two hours. Sam offered that his customer service best practice was to return all customer calls within two days!

Inconsistency is the problem

A customer could receive a call from Sally in 1 1/2 hours and from Sam in 47 hours. A very inconsistent experience for the customer, yet both employees think that they are delivering a best practice!

Consistency is the differentiator

While many organizations can and do a good job with some of their customer experiences and Touchpoints, only those who consistently deliver Valued Touchpoints(tm) achieve true customer-centricity.

Converting inconsistent to Valued Touchpoints is the task

Valued Touchpoints are interactions that are consistently customer-centric while advancing the organization’s strategy, goals and identity.  Valued Touchpoints are one of the outputs of the Touchpoint Principle Implementation Model and the result of living the:

Touchpoint Principle: The ability to get and keep desired customers and employees is enhanced by consistently delivering Valued Touchpoints™.

Visit Frequently Asked Questions for more insights into the Touchpoint Guru's principles.

Contact Hank Brigman today at 415.515.6391 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to better understand how he can help you:

• Establish your Experience Strategy
• Turn inconsistent into Valued Touchpoints through his powerful and original implementation methodology
• Measure success

Through consulting, coaching and speaking, Hank Brigman guarantees satisfaction.

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