What does "SPoC" actually mean?

Everyone is clamoring for it, but no one wants to play the part. What was commonplace in the mid-1960s is suddenly in again. No, not the character from "Star Trek," but the "Single Point of Contact," for which the four letters actually stand and whose meaning in marketing lingo can just be described as a high flyer. In German: Single Point of Contact. And that's exactly what we're longing for in the age of the infinite number of touchpoints, digital or analog, that are available to get in touch with customers or a brand. But please only if this SPoC doesn't end in an endless loop with Muzak or someone completely incompetent but powerfully self-confident tells you anything of the long and wide, but just doesn't answer the question you asked.

Actor Leonard Nimoy, blessedly, who as Mr. Spock, first officer of the starship Enterprise in "Star Trek," has a worldwide following to this day, was more taciturn. And he would certainly be happy to see the acronym in all those meetings and PowerPoint presentations.

Live long and in peace - SPoC

How simple it used to be. When the cult series premiered on NBC on September 8, 1966, there was really only one point of contact for customers of any kind in many places. A store counter, for example, a bank counter, a high shelf, a car garage or a travel agency to which everyone who wanted something had to or was allowed to physically go.

Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the series, called Mr. Spock "the conscience of 'Star Trek'" and thus unintentionally, but all the more accurately described today's namesake SPoC.

Anyone who has to serve as a single point of contact today does not need to be a pointy-eared Vulcan, but must be available at all times and preferably omniscient. Every agency is familiar with the phenomenon that customers demand an SPoC, who should always know everything, and they would prefer to have one on the customer side as well. And all customers can tell you a thing or two about the fact that the person in charge is constantly changing at the agency, because staff turnover there is record-breaking and the competencies feel increasingly subterranean.

In the end, both sides complain, instead of perhaps following the Vulcans and first spreading the fingers between the ring and middle fingers to form a "V", and greeting the SPoC with a characteristic "Live long and prosper" (from the Vulcan "Dif-tor heh smusma") and looking together for solutions to the problems.

So no matter which side of the Customer Journey we are on, it helps, according to Vulcan logic, to show no emotion whatsoever when we cry out for SPoC or Spock again and feel like beaming away because of the long wait and lack of competence.

* Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He has been eavesdropping on the industry for over 30 years, discovering words and terms for us that can either be used for small talk, pomposity, excitement, playing Scrabble, or just because.