this is why people choose one café over another | customer touchpoints explained
- Darcie Moore
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
I wouldn't label myself a complete food snob.
I like good food, but I'm not out here chasing oysters and caviar served on bed of pearls with diamond encrusted cutlery.
And yet, if I'm walking past a café and their menu is 3 pages long and written in comic sans… I'm probably gonna keep walking.
Now, if I were in Europe, I’d probably relax a bit.
Over there, family-run places that ignore every branding rule are usually the best.
Some Nonna who couldn’t care less about Instagram usually makes the best meal of your life.
But in Aus, things are different.
The way a café looks — its branding, its menu, its space — shapes how good you expect the food to be before you even order.
Which I know sounds dramatic, because the fk has font got to do with food?
Because it’s not really about the font. It’s about the impression.
If something looks rushed, thrown together, or outdated, you assume the rest of it is too. If the details don’t feel considered, the food doesn’t feel like it will be either.
There’s a name for this stuff.
Customer touchpoints.
Every interaction someone has with you and your brand – that’s a touchpoint.
And all of those influence the entire journey they take with you.
A journey that starts the moment they become aware of your brand and one that continues even after they've done business with you.
Get it right, and they’ll come back for seconds, thirds, annnd hopefully forever.
That's why it's super important to have your touchpoints mapped out. It can turn a first-time visitor into a cult-level fan.
To do that, you need to understand exactly what these touchpoints are for your business/brand.
The Three Stages:
Pre-purchase touchpoints.
The interactions a customer has with your brand BEFORE purchasing from you. Eg.
☆ Advertisements (TV, Radio, Billboards)
☆ Social Media Content
☆ Word-of-mouth
Purchase touchpoints
The interactions a customer has with your brand during the purchase process. E.g.
☆ Storefront: digital or physical
☆ Customer service
☆ Discovery calls and consultations
☆ Quotes/Invoices
Post purchase touchpoints
The interactions a customer has with your brand after the purchase. E.g.
☆ Follow up calls
☆ Emails / SMS
☆ Loyalty programs
On their own, they don’t seem like much.
Together, they’re the whole experience.
A good experience is how you leave your mark. It’s how you get people talking to their friends about you over a glass of wine at a dinner party. That’s when you’ve made it, duh.
So just to stay on theme, let’s use a dinner as a customer experience story to give you an idea of how touchpoints are used in real life.
DINNER PARTY W THE GALS
It’s only Wednesday. You’re already frothing at the mouth for the weekend.
What’s on the agenda?
A load or five of washing. And you still need to put that shelf up in your room that’s been sitting on the floor for 3 months.
Or…
A dinner date with friends? Yep. A cocktail? Fuck yes.
You deserve it after surviving the work week.
Buuuut. You want to try somewhere new.
*Initiate thorough research stage
Once you fiiinally remember the name of the new restaurant you saw on a YouTube Ad, you hit it in the search bar on the worlds most trusted site: Instagram.
You scroll through their feed and yep, there it is – the pan-fried dumplings in garlic chilli oil you saw. And the aesthetic stainless-steel interior. Great for pics.
Next stop: website. Let’s find out what else they’re cooking up.
Menu’s solid. Prices are decent. Cocktails look slightly dangerous.
Perfect, they have an online booking system.
Don’t have to speak to anyone on the phone.
Booked.
After just barely surviving a few more days of insufferable people at work, Saturday rolls around and you’re SO ready for a feed with the gals.
The moment you walk in, you’re greeted by a waitress with a big smile. She takes you to your table and gives you the lowdown of the menu and you pretend like you haven’t already studied it.
The lights are down and moody, there’s a song you recognise playing in the background, and the corner booth feels like you’ve got your very own section.
The waitress comes back around, and your order’s taken within moments.
Drinks appear.
Then shortly after — the dumplings you’ve been dreaming about. You physically restrain yourself for another minute cause... phone eats first.
Then the other dishes come along and your tables full to the brim.
After hours of yapping and chomping, it’s time to roll out of there.
Quite literally cause you’re so stuffed. In the best way possible.
Jean zips are down. Shirts are hanging over, covering the evidence.
You pay without even looking at the cost cause that was worth every last cent.
As you’re walking out, your phone buzzes and you get your email receipt along with a lil surprise 10% off your next meal.
Life is good.
You wonder if they have any bookings left for tomorrow?
To be continued… forever, cause it’s your new go-to.
Aaaand scene.
So, did you spot the touchpoints?
Like the YouTube Ad, the Insta content or the website booking form? Or even the nice waitress and the first-timers discount?
Take one out and it changes everything.
No ad? You never find it.
Bad service? You don’t come back.
No follow-up? You forget it.
It’s never just the food. It’s everything around it that makes people decide it’s worth it.
Anyway, you get the point (so many points).
Main one:
Touchpoints = IMPORTANT! ;-)
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