Product Touchpoints: How to Connect With Customers at the Right Time

Let’s face it, 2020 was the year of the new normal.

 

With more time at home than ever before, many families opted to get a "quarantine puppy.” While exciting, this new addition also meant tons of puppy parents turning to the internet and other resources to learn more about the new member of their family.

 

Now, imagine these new pet owners, with all the milestones, puppy tendencies, and breed characteristics, had immediate support to walk them through the puppy parenting process. How convenient it would be to get a notification at the right time to spay or neuter, or increase supplements, or potty-training tips and links to local vets for the right vaccinations!

 

Real-time product touchpoints are the answer. Brands already have scores of informative content that provide the answers to questions that product owners are seeking, but lack the resources to share this content with product owners at the right time. With product touchpoints, a puppy owner can receive an alert that an impending thunderstorm may cause the furry friend to shake with nerves and recommend a thunder vest to calm their nerves.

 

For consumer goods brands, now is the time to take action and ensure customers have a direct connection to the product through shared information the brand already has at their fingertips.   

 

 

We live in a highly connected world, where the “always-on” narrative has changed every aspect of business. We can order groceries to our doorstep and adjust our home heat while on vacation. In large part because of the Internet, connectivity has begun to take an entirely new meaning in both our personal lives and our professional ones. (And the story doesn’t end there.)

 

Now, even our products can take advantage of the connective capabilities from the digital realm. IoT data is unique, however, in that it’s really only valuable to us if it’s actionable. It’s helpful to know my dog will be trembling at the thunder—but what do I do? The “not knowing” can lead to a lingering gap after the unboxing. There’s something that’s missing to connect the customer to the company in order for the product owner to take full advantage of all the capabilities.

 

Brands create a ton of content in support of their products by way of user guides, blog posts, website assets, product tutorials, and more. These content items get produced, but after the purchase, the brand has no control or insight over consumer use or engagement with the content. It can sometimes be a wasted effort despite the time it took to create the content to help the customer use their product properly.

 

 

Product touchpoints can send the customer the right content or engagement at the right time. With the content already at the brand’s fingertips, they can create specific post-sale touchpoints that can drive additional engagement with the product owner and the product. Gone are the days when a product is unboxed and the brand-customer connection is complete. These companies already know the exact actions they want their customers to take once the product is unboxed, but have never had the tools to share the touchpoint with the customer exactly when they need it.

 

Source data, like customer location, product usage, purchase date and more, can drive these post-sale product touchpoints that will help businesses optimize customer experiences. As the focus shifts to providing continual value to the customer after the sale, the product is now becoming a means of delivering that value.

 

The increasing communicative nature of the product is the basis for direct and ongoing dialogue between physical good and its user. Companies are beginning to see their product as a window into customer satisfaction, rather than relying on customers to learn about product needs and performance. The product touchpoints, connecting usage data to actionable solutions, fill that post-sale gap in the market.

 

Blustream helps companies to create these touchpoints with an end-to-end solution that can help to bring products to life. With Blustream, brands can develop amazing customer experiences which can equate to direct business benefits, including doubling revenue with opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell, increasing product retention, securing excellent customer satisfaction scores, and tripling lifetime value.

 

Want to learn more about how to develop valuable touchpoints for your customers?