What is a touchpoint?

The short version is that a touchpoint is "any point of contact between a buyer and a seller".

Wikipedia elaborates: "A touchpoint is the interface of a product, a service or a brand with customers, non-customers, employees and other stakeholders ­ before, during and after a transaction/purchase."

Apparently there is even something called "Touchpoint Management" which deals with getting a 360 degree view instead of the traditional specialized view of the department in charge of separate parts of the service.

Servicedesign.org has this definition: "Service touchpoints are the tangibles that make up the total experience of using a service. Touchpoints can take many forms, from advertising to personal cards, web- mobile phone- and PC interfaces, bills, retail shops, call centres and customer representatives".

The blog designforservice (http://tinyurl.com/59g8z5) has lots of insight on this.