Businesses know it’s a buyer’s market. And with every buying interaction, consumers expect anytime, anywhere access—all in a seamless experience. When companies are unable to meet this expectation, consumers will go elsewhere to find it.
Similar to a relay team—which is only as good as its slowest runner—your company’s brand is only as good as the customer’s last experience with you. Provided your strategy is on point, establishing a formal omnichannel strategy can help make sure the messaging you provide across each individual customer touchpoint is delivering on your brand promise.
So, it’s time to get onboard with an omnichannel experience for your customers. Here are four steps to making it happen.
1. Leverage customer data
By knowing your customers, every piece of your business benefits, including your omnichannel strategy. The more you understand your customers, the more you can customize your interaction points to support their journey and address needs and preferences. Harvesting and utilizing data from your sales and marketing teams, as well as your contact center, improves your existing channels.
2. Create Shared Experiences
After identifying a particular positive trait in one of your company’s channels, incorporate it into the other channels. For example, when customers are online shopping, you can use the customer data to create more personalized experiences that mirror in-person customer service. You can also carry over the smart graphics of your website to your mobile application. The more you can foster positive, familiar experiences across all your channels, the better chance you have to improve your customer interactions.
3. Join forces
In addition to sharing positive functions, your platforms should also share a common strategy. Web and mobile should work together to help the customer no matter which platform they choose, and your online FAQ should be an extension of your contact center. Provide options that give customers the choice between a quick chat or a deeper dive into a more complex problem; these expanded options will also make the most of your resource investments.
4. Live and learn
The most effective omnichannel strategy changes with the times. However, running analytics on past customer interactions can uncover tremendous insights to be shared throughout your organization. Optimize your omnichannel responses by learning from them—then rinse and repeat.
The number of ways customers can reach your business is not shrinking anytime soon. Adapting to these changes and understanding how to best respond will only benefit your business in the long run. Take a look at our webinar, How to Optimize Multichannel Support to learn even more.
