Not all forms of engagement are alike. Some conversations you start because you want to connect with the subject on a deeper level, while others fulfil a formality. In dealing with leads and prospects, it’s important to separate transactional from meaningful interactions – and that’s where touchpoints come in. With touchpoints, you have the power to signal certain interactions that you wish to trace later on so that they’re not lost among the chaff. 🌽

➜ What's a touchpoint?

➜ How can I trace interactions that have been marked as touchpoints?

➜ What should I use touchpoints for and what's considered a meaningful interaction?

➜ How do I delete or edit a touchpoint, or even mark something as a touchpoint after I posted it?

Touchpoints can mean different things for different schools, but, as a rule of thumb, a touchpoint is every occasion that you have a meaningful or notable enough interaction with a person (e.g., an applicant) and it's posted on their profile Latest activity tab for future reference, like so:

Recording an interaction and marking it as a touchpoint is easy:

1) Select the type of interaction in the top-left panel: Call, Voicemail, Chat, Email, Follow up, Lunch, Meeting, or, if none of the former apply, Note

2) Write a brief description of what happened and other relevant details in the text box

3) Check Touchpoint - had contact with

4) Define the visibility of the interaction, i.e., whether it should be visible to All teams, My teams (only staff users with the same role as you) or be Private

5) Press Post

In addition, it's also possible to configure your instance to automatically mark emails as touchpoints, provided there's IMAP integration. Touchpoints can’t be added to system-generated profile notifications (e.g., state transitions, started applications, etc.).

Once a touchpoint is posted, it'll look like this on the profile's activity feed:

As you can see, the post is clearly identified with a TOUCHPOINT stamp, but that's not all.

Aside from visiting someone's profile and manually scrolling through their Latest activity, you can create a segment with a Last touchpoint-based rule as well. A Last touchpoint-based rule retrieves every profile where a touchpoint was marked within a specified timeframe.

Suppose you're nurturing a group of prospects to apply to your school, for instance. That being the case, you could build a segment with the rule: "Last touchpoint ⇢ before or on ⇢ 2 Week(s) ago" to identify which users haven't heard from you (nor you from them) in the past 2 weeks, and then send them a targeted email campaign.

You can combine Last touchpoint with several Field-related rules, particularly if they pertain to time, such as exists, does not exist, is equal to, is not equal to, before or on and after or on.

Last touchpoint is also available for display as a column in lists of profiles:

As the name suggests, it will return the date that a touchpoint was last logged, like so:

Please keep in mind that interactions are only recognized as touchpoints if duly set up with the Touchpoint - had contact with marker; otherwise, they'll be regarded as simple notes.

The million-dollar question! 💰 In short, touchpoints are useful to mark key communications that represent important steps or milestones in the lead management or admissions process. That's because they make it easy to track engagement with people, not only for the specific staff user who’s continuously following the candidate, but also for other staff members who want to take stock of the situation, including higher-ups in Management or other supervisory positions who might need to confirm if leads and applicants are being properly nourished and followed up on.

Accordingly, FULL FABRIC's original concept of a touchpoint is that which signifies a real degree of proximity with a given recipient through direct and personalized dialogue, in opposition to generic and mass-produced communication. For instance: suppose there’s a form submission to request a brochure, to which you reply with a shared template – by its very nature, that’s a generic reply to a generic request (not that there's anything wrong with it, as all means of communication have a time and a place). However, telephoning an applicant to introduce yourself and get to know them, reaching out on WhatsApp to catch-up, or emailing something uniquely written for a specific recipient as part of an ongoing conversation – those are all examples of substantial, meaty exchanges, all the more because they imply that there's a more advanced stage of an evolving relationship.

As mentioned before, profile lists let you visualise the most recent touchpoints recorded within a stipulated period, so by reserving touchpoints for meaningful interactions, you get an accurate overview of where you last left off and how to move forward to further develop the relationship in the right direction.

TIP: Conjugate Last touchpoint-based rules with the Potential rate of a prospect and the Completion rate of his or hers application to create truly powerful reports and campaign audiences.

Under the perspective above, setting everything as a touchpoint renders touchpoints redundant, as staff teams lose visibility upon the breadth and quality of the many different interactions they've have had with leads and candidates. That said, we’re open to different interpretations and methodologies of the tool, depending on what suits your school's needs, which is why it's possible to automatically mark sent emails as touchpoints instead of manually doing it, inevitably including things like brochures and other copy-and-paste messages. It essentially boils down to your school’s modus operandi, such as the way you use emails.

Hovering your mouse cursor over a post will reveal three controls on the top right-hand corner: the privacy panel (again, to toggle between All teams, My teams or Private), a touchpoint button to mark and unmark the post, and X to permanently delete it, in that order.

You can't change the text nor the type of interaction selected, nor edit posts from other staff users.

Thanks for reading this article! If you have any questions or comments on the topic at hand, or if you enjoy reads like this and have article requests, feel free to start a chat or email us at support@fullfabric.com. Also, please leave a rating below. Your feedback is highly appreciated! 💖

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​PUBLISHED: June 1, 2020
​LAST UPDATED: June 1, 2020 at 1:38 p.m.