Using an Omnichannel Approach for Exceptional Customer Experience

Introduction

According to Smart Insights, 63% of customers expect companies to provide customer service across all their social media channels and to use social networks to connect with brands.

42% of customers expect a response to their posts or messages within one hour. Businesses can invite customers to join them in a safer, cheaper channel, one with richer experiences and one that is convenient for users by publishing links that call for action and conversations.   

By adopting a multi-channel approach to marketing, sales, and customer service, businesses can create an integrated and coherent customer experience wherever they go.

You can use built-in text, voice, social and instant messaging channels to provide customers with a seamless experience. For example, customers can move from their desktop or phone to a physical store to experience similar services, but the ultimate goal of omnichannel customer service is to integrate all public relations methods into a board, thereby avoiding tacit engagement. 

Why Adopt an Omnichannel Approach? What are the Benefits?

With an omnichannel approach, companies can operate across a single channel and deliver a high-quality customer experience across all touchpoints. Simply put, it allows customers to start their brand experience on one channel and continue across all channels.    

An omnichannel customer experience means that your customers interact with your business through multiple channels such as knowledge base software; it also plays a part in a seamless customer journey.

Omnichannel means going one step further and delivering your customers with a consistent communication journey, with a conversation history and context that moves with them from channel to channel.

The purpose of an Omnichannel experience is to enable your customers with ease and fluidity to interact directly with your brand by switching channels at their own will. 

When companies use an omnichannel approach to customer experience, they end up with a silent conversation that combines all channels and the customer context that comes from all channels into a single source of truth.

For customer service staff, this little thing called ''Omnichannel customer experience'' enables them to support the same customer no matter what channel or mix they use.     

Businesses can retrieve user data from their various channels (websites, social media, email, sales channels) to take their customer service to the next level. Based on these insights, you can create a process for providing support across all the right customer service channels: self-service portals, chatbots, live chats, visual engagement tools, etc.

Creating a Sturdy Omnichannel Strategy

To ensure great omnichannel customer service, companies need to train their customer-focused teams to understand different customer data points and interactions.

A well-designed omnichannel strategy ensures that your team can deliver personalized and consistent service across all channels, with the company-wide goal of increasing customer satisfaction.

The customer service software you use to build your omnichannel experience lets you know which areas are performing well and which require improvement. 

Omnichannel Customer Experience is the way that customers interact with your brand through the channels of their choice, also known as Omnichannel Experience or Omnichannel Customer Service.

It is one of the most consistent brand channels in all phases of the customer journey - including advertising - search engine results - social brand presence - website - the shopping experience itself, email verification - order confirmation - product shipment - receipt - support - products and customer service.

Omnichannel customer service integrates text, social media, email, and instant messaging to provide a unified brand experience where customers can switch between multiple channels and experience quality service. On the other hand, the Omnichannel experience involves a multi-channel approach to sales, customer service, and marketing.

Social media channels for omnichannel customer experiences include your website, lead flow, sales process, and customer service.

What the best omnichannel experiences have in common is that they create a coherent journey for the customer while they cycle through the channels.

Whether the customer calls, sends an email or SMS, or communicates with others via incoming digital channels, the agent can see the entire business trip and react quickly and effectively to solve problems.

Omni-channel service interactions are effortless and lead to better customer experience, higher customer ratings, and a stronger brand reputation by following customers from channel to channel and collecting data on the go.

Multi-channel services can be taken to the next level with an omnichannel solution that is integrated across channels to provide a consistent customer experience.

If you look at Accenture's statistics, which show that 89% of consumers are frustrated when they have to repeat their questions to multiple customer service representatives, you can see the value of perfect omnichannel integration.

Omni-Customer Service defines a synchronized operating model in which all communication channels are aligned to provide consistent support. 

Conclusion

It requires a company to define an omnichannel customer service strategy that creates a better experience for customers, agents, and other teams within the company.

The omnichannel solution includes personal and online reviews as well as phone, mobile and social media engagement with your customers to give you a holistic view of customer experience, ensure consistency across all your channels and provide guidance to improve your omnichannel strategy.  

It means businesses are changing with technology and starting to deliver more omnichannel customer service experiences. Companies that create omnichannel customer experiences use a multi-channel approach that combines sales, marketing, and customer service platforms.

Bank of America is taking a similar approach to an omnichannel experience, while Walgreens is giving customers access to its services through multiple devices in their own time. 

Whether we're thinking about desktop experiences, mobile experiences, tablet experiences, or Apple Watch experiences, we need to take a holistic approach to omnichannel experiences so that customers can use what they want.