4R on TXM

Touchpoint is the basis of communication, and experience affects the effectiveness of communication. Effective communciation promotes positive relationship, and ineffective demotes. In today's market where there is a never ending array of competitors and homogeneous products, positive relationship rules.

If everything is rooted in touchpoint, then the first touchpoint is the foundation of basically everything.

"Well begun, half done."

Creating the first touchpoint becomes the first and most important step to success. This first step is also known as the commonly known "first impression". A positive first touchpoint does not guarantee the next. In fact, nothing really guarantees anything. Losers are those who still blindly take everything for granted. The next critical step is then to ensure that there will be no discontinuity in the touchpoint chain.

AIDA, short for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action, does not really tell how to develop the first touchpoint, which is the root of everything. AIDA is just a simple 4-step model rehashing what's already obvious.

In order to build the first touchpoint, and the subsequent touchpoints that are yet to follow, an enterprise needs to focus on the 4Rs.

R - Relevance
R - Recurrence
R - Risk
R - Return

Relevance - The basic requirement for sender and receiver to establish relationship is to make PID relevant. Every critical success factor has to be relevant in order for both parties to develop common interest for possible bonding. (PID is an acronym for People, Information, and Deliverables.)

Recurrence - If the receiver listens to what the sender requests or suggests, what will the possible consequence be? Is the deliverable a one-off deal? Or will there be a lot of follow-up work? The idea is similar to Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Risk - This is the "cost" function of cost-benefit analysis (CBA). If the touchpoint is to be continued, what will be the risk involved? If short-term loss comes before long-term gain, how long is it going to take?

Return - This is the "benefit" function of CBA. After all, neither party would be interested to pursue the relationship further if there is no return from the first touchpoint and subsequent touchpoints, if any.