Jim Gilbert's Return on Intelligence: Connecting the Dots of Your Customer Touchpoints, Part 1

Retailers encounter moments of truth that make or break their sales and marketing effectiveness multiple times each day. How they interact with customers, prospects — essentially all consumers — is critical to their success.

Retailers touch consumers in both traditional (call center, website) and nontraditional ways (mobile, social media). Reputation management is everywhere.

Marketing in the 21st century, with the internet and social media in play, has become even more of a challenge as retailers aren't fully in control of all of the messaging that's communicated to (and between) consumers regarding their brands. This is why today's brands need to make sure that all client-facing activities are buttoned up, in sync and consistent across all channels.

Well, at least that's the goal to shoot for!

Over the coming weeks, I'll be writing a multipart series on how to maximize results in all selling channels and at all consumer touchpoints — from your call center to your website to your Facebook page.

But before I get started, I want to offer you a challenge. I have some questions for you to ask yourself. I want you to become a detective in your own organization. And I don’t care if you're the CEO or a customer service representative in a call center. Try the following:

1. List all of the points of contact your customers and prospects interact with you in. The more specific, the better. For example, if you use landing pages for marketing campaigns, list them.
2. Get out of your office. Go to your call center and listen to multiple customer service and sales-oriented calls. Do searches on your company name and/or products to see what your reputation is in the social mediasphere.
3. Do a complete audit of all of the places your brand touches consumers. Note the good and the bad.
4. Get others in your organization involved. My best suggestion to you is to get your CEO to put together a customer experience team to investigate the above. It should meet weekly to discuss its findings. Then build a plan to ensure your touchpoints are doing exactly what you want them to do — i.e., driving sales and engagement.

Speak to you in two weeks, when I'll continue with part two of this series. But in the meantime, go ahead and post your comments, suggestions and even fact findings below.