Documenting your customer interactions with a transaction taxonomy

My new book, “Mastering the Customer Experience,” explores the crucial discovery process I developed and implemented for dozens of companies over decades of work in CX. In this second in a series of LinkedIn articles, we’ll dig deeper into the types and points of customer interactions.?

The CX transformation journey begins with an exploration of the five CX touchpoints. As we continue through the process, we delve into what I like to call the transaction taxonomy. Here, we aim to gain insight into the intricacies and extent of customer engagement across various channels and modes. This includes engagements via phone, in person, chat, and other platforms. By compiling all this data in the transaction taxonomy, we gain a deeper comprehension and enhance our ability to visualize use cases with greater clarity and effectiveness. This enables us to better serve our customers and meet their needs with precision and foresight.?

These transaction taxonomies align with the crucial CX touchpoints we explored previously: educate, deal, onboard, sustain, and upsell. Each customer interaction is unique and significant, for instance:? ?

• Phone calls from landlines or cell phones?
• In-app functions and transactions from smartphones?

• Digital transactions like social, SMS, chat, email?

• In-car telemetry functions?

• Brick-and-mortar kiosks or face-to-face dialog?

For example, think about all the services a retail bank offers, from checking accounts to mortgages, credit cards, and auto loans. To truly understand the full scope of customer experience, we scrutinize the details of how these services interact with customers at every touchpoint. For instance, we will analyze the number and complexity of voice calls related to credit cards each day. By doing so, we can gain valuable insights into enhancing customer experiences at every step of the journey.?

The idea here is to explore various forms of interaction across all five of the essential CX touchpoints. When it comes to transaction volume, consistency takes precedence over specifying the time frame, whether it's a day or a month. ??

For instance, let's consider the CX touchpoint of "deal," which could be a website conversion or a sale made over the phone. In the digital space, customers might land on a specific page and proceed to a shopping cart, or they may fill out a form to sign up for a service. Alternatively, they could simply call after seeing an advertisement. It's important to document the following four elements in a spreadsheet or similar document:?

• Modality / use case (e.g., inbound sales-oriented phone call)?

• Engagement type (e.g., “deal”)?

• Transaction volume (e.g., 1,200 calls per day)?

• Complexity (low, medium, or high complexity)?

Once you’re compiled all the data and completed your transaction taxonomy documentation, review the results thoroughly with your colleagues to ensure everyone agrees.??

In the next step of the discovery process, we will examine the maturity model and how it intersects with these use cases. If you are ready to delve into the complete end-to-end discovery process, learn more about the book: “Mastering the Customer Experience.”?