Customers come into contact with a brand via Indirect or Physical ways.
Indirect Contact refers to contact or exposure through advertising/digital media, news articles, website, word-of-mouth, etc. Whereas Physical Contact covers telephone calls, visits to showrooms, service centers, retail shops, exhibitions, events etc. where a representative of the brand can interact with Customers.
All these are known as Customer Touchpoints – the planning and management of these touchpoints all fall under Contact Management.
The primary objective of Contact Management is to ensure that a positive Customer Experience is provided for Physical touchpoints, and this can be both Pro-active or Reactive. Apart from digital media, it is generally difficult to manage Indirect Touchpoints.