Consumer Reliance on Alternative Digital Touchpoints

Literature Review

Digital Touchpoints and Channels

Technological innovation and advancement have given rise to multiple digital channels, all of which represent technology-based ways of interaction between brands and customers. In their more specific form, individual opportunities of interaction with use of digital technology have been referred to as digital touchpoints. These touchpoints are often initiated by individuals and involve numerous digital marketing tools, such as websites, podcasts, mobile applications, search engines, email and social media.

Conceptualized as interactions which prompt a dialogue between brands and consumers with use of traditional and digital media, touchpoints have been considered of critical importance to the formulation of brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Within a consumer's journey, touchpoints can provide positive or negative moments of truth about the product or the brand, and ultimately shape consumer responses. In essence, individual touchpoints initiated by consumers during their purchase journeys determine engagement with the brand and formulate customer experiences. In view of the critical role of touchpoints in consumers' experiences with the brand, marketers are required to identify positive and negative consumer interactions, and subsequently, place emphasis on the former while attempting to remedy the latter.

Past research has produced categories of digital touchpoints that share common properties. The resulting groups of touchpoints are often referred to as digital channels, and existing classifications have been based on aspects such as source of channel control, source of channel activity and channel purpose. For instance, the typology of Straker et al. suggests that digital touchpoints can be grouped into functional, social, community and corporate channels. According to the authors, functional touchpoints are mainly characterized by one-way communications and often aim at providing general brand information, reminding customers about their online purchases, providing incentives to interact with the brand and driving traffic to the website. Social touchpoints are characterized by two-way interactions, provision of information and promotional material, and aim at cultivating customer engagement and generating interest. Community touchpoints rely on groups of digital users and facilitate the exchange of content, provide more in-depth information, encourage consumer involvement and allow companies to form connections with prospective customers. Lastly, corporate touchpoints are characterized by one-way interactions and aim at gaining customer feedback, providing customer support, encouraging loyalty and providing in-depth company information.

Although existing typologies of touchpoints result into diverse categorizations, they are all based on the fact that touchpoints have different characteristics and are arguably better suited to achieve specific outcomes. Hence, brand reliance on individual touchpoints is expected to vary according to consumers' circumstances, preferences and individual characteristics.

Consumer Buying Process

Consumer behaviour theory suggests that the consumer buying process consists of a series of discrete steps. The terms 'decision-making', 'buying process', 'journey' and 'purchase funnel' are often used interchangeably to denote the sequence of stages consumers go through to satisfy their needs and wants. The most prevalent conceptualizations of the buying process are based on the Engel, Kollatt, and Blackwell (EKB) consumer decision-making model, which proposes that consumer purchase decisions consist of five stages: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation.

The buying process begins when consumers recognize a problem or need, triggered by internal and/or external stimuli, that cause shifts in the actual or ideal states of individuals. Consumers then proceed to seek information relating to their need from personal, commercial, public and/or experiential sources. Before deciding about a purchase, consumers are required to narrow down and evaluate alternative options based on logical thinking, impulse and/or intuition. Finally, despite the fact that purchase decisions may be hindered by peer pressure or situational factors, consumers also engage in post-purchase evaluations of their satisfaction with product or brand selection. Other authors suggest that the customer journey entails three broad stages. Similar to the sequential process of the EKB model, these conceptualizations indicate that the entire customer experience consists of customer interactions with the brand before a purchase transaction (pre-purchase stage), during the purchase event (purchase stage) and following the actual purchase (post-purchase stage).

Irrespective of the exact number of stages attributed to the buying process, brands are required to determine the critical points of interaction that are responsible for consumer progression to subsequent steps of the purchase journey. Despite existing criticisms and the emergence of digital technology, the fundamental EKB model of consumer decision-making remains relevant to contemporary marketing. This is not to say that disruptive innovations, such as social media and the resulting participatory digital culture, have not affected aspects of consumer decision-making. For instance, while social media are hypothesized to allow for a quicker and more efficient evaluation of alternatives, post-purchase evaluation of customer satisfaction may be prolonged and more finely recorded. Lastly, the exact process of product evaluation and selection is often seemingly irrational and like most generalizations in marketing, consumer decision-making is contingent upon aspects of the decision (e.g., perceived risk and number of available options) and personal characteristics (e.g., demographics).