The Touchpoint Tax

The Touchpoint Tax

“Just checking in” is the most expensive phrase in customer success. Every time a CSM sends that email, they’re spending relational capital they can’t get back. The customer reads it and hears one thing. I have nothing useful to say, but my playbook told me to contact you.

That’s not proactive. That’s a Negative Touchpoint, an interaction where the cost to the customer runs higher than the value they get. Most CS teams are drowning in them and don’t see it.

They take a few shapes. You ask a question you should already know the answer to, when the dashboard has it sitting right there. You book a meeting with no clear reason, the 30 minutes to see how things are going that never says where it’s going or what it’s about. You send a recap that recaps nothing the customer didn’t already live. You push a product update nobody asked for and nobody will use.

I call it the Touchpoint Tax. The average CSM spends 135 hours a year on empty check-ins. Add loaded labor cost and the cost of the work those hours should have gone to, and it’s about $17K per CSM per year, spent on outreach that makes customers trust you less.

The fix isn’t a better check-in. The fix is killing the check-in and replacing it with outreach that leads with insight. Every interaction should pass one test. Would this customer pay for this conversation? If the answer is no, don’t have it.