5 Important Post-Purchase Touchpoints on the Guest Experience Journey

Think the customer journey ends with a purchase? That doesn’t have to be the case.

Every interaction your brand has with your customers represents a “touchpoint” on the customer journey. Touchpoints “significantly influence” customer experience and brand perception, according to inbound marketing specialist HubSpot.

“By using customer touchpoints, you can play a role at every step of the customer journey. Nothing is left up to chance,” says HubSpot. “Instead, you provide targeted information at just the right time.

“Whether you’re a one-person business or an enterprise-level team, you should use touchpoints to enhance the customer experience, empowering you to retain more customers and grow better.”

Customer journey touchpoints may not all be exactly the same for every brand or business. But generally, the customer experience journey has three categories:

• Before the purchase
• During the purchase
• After the purchase

Once you’ve captured the interest of potential customers and they’ve ordered your products or services, here are five steps your brand can take after the purchase to provide a better customer experience, according to HubSpot.

1. Thank you letters

Want to build customer rapport? Send customers a thank you note, email or handwritten note to thank them for their business. “It’s a great way to show customers you care and develop a long-term relationship with them,” says HubSpot.

2. Product feedback surveys

HubSpot recommends sending product feedback surveys to customers after their purchase, asking them to evaluate or rank your brand’s product or service.

“If the customer leaves a negative review, the company can reach out to learn more about the issue,” says HubSpot. “They [can] then relay this information to the product development team, [which] makes enhancements on the next version of the product.”

3. Upselling and cross-selling emails

Once a customer purchases your product, they may want to upgrade, buy attachments or add other products that enhance the product they originally purchased. By sending post-purchase emails, you can inform customers about your product line, prompting future purchases.

4. Actions related to billing

Billing is often an overlooked customer touchpoint, since the billing process takes place after the purchase so it doesn’t directly influence the customer to buy the product, says HubSpot.

“However, it’s still a vital step in the customer’s journey because a negative experience can result in an immediate instance of churn if not addressed properly,” says HubSpot.

5. Make renewing subscriptions easy

“If you’re a subscription-based business, renewals are crucial to your revenue model. You need customers to renew their subscriptions to maintain steady growth for your business,” says HubSpot.

“This makes it important that you remove as much friction as possible from your renewal process. After all, it should be effortless for an existing customer to stay a customer after their contract is up.”