Creating Seamless Customer Journeys With Omnichannel Reach

--By Barkha Jaiswal--

With the advent of technology, customers have benefitted by getting many channels to reach out to service providers, make buying decisions, and recommend or not recommend a product or service on their social media profiles. An increase in channels has led to an increase in factors that influence/govern buying decisions and loyalty which essentially has made it of utmost importance for providers to ensure consistent brand experience across channels and seamless handover of the interactions.

Availability of products at a lower price from one channel to other would result in seeding the thoughts of product quality in the minds of prospective customers. According to a survey conducted by Google, approximately 71% use smartphones for online research. In this research, 42% of shoppers searched for information on a product while they were in the store. Businesses may face a chance of losing those people if the in-store marketing doesn’t match the mobile and online versions.

Another example is the non-availability of reference to discussion from one contact center channel to another which invites frustration in the interaction. Universally, as per human behavior, we tend to share bad experiences more than good ones. With the power of social media, the ability to share has increased exponentially. Brands have to be on constant watch to monitor negative sentiments.

All of the above, converge to an immediate need to revisit the Omnichannel customer experience. Organizations need to develop Omnichannel Effectiveness Framework, the framework will be different for every organization and every industry, it cannot be one size fit all, however, it will have some common datasets for measurement e.g. Conversion, customer effort, engagement, and loyalty. This calls for a 3-point approach to develop the model/framework to be followed to maintain customer experience with advances in technology and the introduction of new channels of interactions at the pace we all are witnessing.

Define your Omnichannel Strategy

Defining essentially would mean jotting down the

•    Objective of a channel in the system.

•    Where would I want a consistent experience and where I would like to differentiate?

•    Detail the scores you want out of the Omnichannel Reach

Regular checks

Defining the strategy is not enough, it calls for implementation and check. And this has to be regular and should be monitored closely for all customer journeys.

Improve and enhance

Last but not least would be to improve and enhance the strategy to bring in the desired results.

It’s been projected that CX will drive customer retention and loyalty more than a product in the near future. It’s time to get the future-ready with the best CX practices one of which is Omnichannel Experience.