High-Touch VS. Low-Touch CX
Welcome to ABC’s blog series, where we share our bite-sized, quickly consumable perspectives on trending or highly-discussed topics in the CX, digital platforms, and marketing world—breaking down the buzzword to its most foundational forms, and sharing how to apply it to your business. As simple as ABC.
You may have heard the following from your analytics teams, when it comes to looking at data: “there are multiple ways to slice and dice the data, based on what insights you need.” For example, creating a report that maps the attribute “campaign name” to the metric “website visit” (if you need to understand which one of your campaigns is resulting in the most website traffic).
Similarly, when it comes to your customers, there are multiple ways to build your personas and segments.
Whether it’s filtering your segments by geography, job level, or lead score, creating these divisions in your database allow you to develop the best experiences tailored specifically for them and their needs.
In CX: you can create segments based off “engagement model,” where you separate contacts between those who are “high-touch” vs. “low-touch,” with the answer dictating the type of experience that customer receives from your company. For example, you can use this field to determine whether your customer receives a phone call from their account manager when a new product feature is released, or just an email with a link to their customer portal.
To delve into this concept a little deeper:
In the high-touch model:
You’ve identified that your customer falls into the audience segment that requires a high volume of one-on-one interactions and “touches” from your company, via an Account Manager (AM) or Customer Success Manager (CSM).
This is typical of large customer accounts with a dedicated support model, as defined in their agreement with your company.
The customer’s CSM should have full visibility into their needs, reaching out and providing helpful resources (or 1:1 training)—tracking the customer’s adoption of their product and ensuring they are getting the most out of their contract with your company.
In the low-touch model:
There is minimal (or no) one-on-one communication from your company—in this scenario, the interactions are augmented by leveraging technology, like Marketing Automation or CRM software.
Being low-touch doesn’t always mean the customer is small in revenue or contract size; it might actually be that the customer prefers digital communications for themselves/their team, rather than the regular human touchpoints.
There should be digital strategies in place to send helpful resources automatically, plenty of knowledge-based content the customer can easily find/use, and an avenue for them to engage their CSM or AM if needed. The “low-touch” engagement model is sometimes also referred to as the “tech touch” due to the nature of its primary communication channel with the customer (digital/tech, vs. in person or via phone call).
Note that whether they’re in your high-touch or low-touch segment, your customer should always be receiving the best CX possible from your company.
And that’s it! As easy as ABC. As always, reach out to us if you have any questions or help implementing these strategies at your company.