Every Customer Touchpoint Is A Way To Build Fans (Or Not)

Marketing is much more than generating attention. Every single interaction an organization has with an existing or potential customer is important. The way the telephone is answered (or routed into phone tree hell), the ease of making a payment (or not knowing what a bill is for), and the way a product or service performs (or breaks) all add up.

Every touchpoint is a way to build fans or turn people off.

An insurance company sent me an invoice for $400 with zero explanation for what the charge was for. I didn’t recognize the name of the company nor the logo on the invoice. All that was included was the account number and policy number.

The field for "your agent" was blank.

This is not how to build fans of a business!

In fact, it’s the opposite – pushing people away from wanting to do business with you.

Because I use an insurance broker both for both my personal and business insurance, I don’t work directly with carriers. I know my homeowner policy is with another company, so it didn’t have anything at all to do with my fire insurance coverage. But the bill was from a fire insurance company.

Weirdly, the logo next to the company name was completely random and not the initials of the name of the company - USLI – what the heck is that?

It's amazing to me how terrible this insurance company’s invoice is.

I thought the invoice was a scam of some kind and was about to toss it into the recycle bin. However, I decided to take my valuable time to make a copy of the invoice and send it to my insurance broker. She also was perplexed, and she also had to take her valuable time to dig into it.

Turns out it was legit, and I paid the bill.

But what a hassle for both me and the agent!

Every time you interact with a customer you have an opportunity to win their business again.  You constantly have an opportunity to build the kinds of fans that eagerly share how passionate they are about what you do.

Or you can frustrate and annoy people.

It’s your choice.