2 New Ways to Think About Content

We all know that content creates the web experience. So let’s go beyond that. If you think of content as any scripted business communication, the opportunities for impacting business strategy and customer experience increase. Customers will experience your content either directly, or indirectly through your employees.

Customer/Content Touch-Points

Here are some common ways in which customers interact not just with your business, but with your content:

• Being welcomed as they enter your business (Think, “Good afternoon, welcome to Burger Bonanza where we make big beautiful burgers, my name is Nancy Natterbox, what can I get for you today?).
• Listening to customer service or sales reps go through their spiel.
• Listening to, and interacting with, voice messages or recordings.
• Filling out application or membership forms. And sometimes more forms. And more forms.
• Reading follow-up e-mails.
• Reading your service contract.
• Reading your privacy and policy statements, guarantees, and disclaimers.
• Reading reminder notices.
• Reviewing invoices and statements. 
• Reading print newsletters, brochures, or articles.
• Completing surveys.

Employee/Content Touch-Points that Impact Customer Experience

Your customer’s experience is also directly impacted by how your employees interact with the content that you provide to them. Here are some ways in which your employees interact with content that can make a massive difference to the customer experience:

• Reading from scripts.
• Going through checklists.
• Filling out print or online forms.
• Getting face-to-face training, or reading training materials.
• Searching for information on the intranet.
• Referring to policies or procedures.

Take a moment to think about all of these different content touch-points in your business. What other content touch-points do you have? Do they all work together to create a consistently great customer experience? Do they effectively convey the same core values and brand messaging? Do they provide an effective and efficient tool for both customers and employees?

If you’re like most businesses, you’ve just identified a huge opportunity to strengthen your customer experience strategy simply by improving your content. Some tools that are particularly helpful to get you started are journey mapping and content assessments. More about those later!