Brand experiences are omnichannel when users are able to connect with businesses on all platforms and channels of their choice. Omnichannel experiences integrate conversations on the website, in-app, phone calls, text like WhatsApp, Telegram, etc, social media like Facebook, Instagram, etc. and in-store. This allows customers to seamlessly alternate between channels, all the while receiving consistent service each time.
With today’s increasingly digital customers, brands must develop solutions that ensure connected customer journeys. The need to go omnichannel arises from dynamic user behavior. A user who finds out about your brand on Instagram, but chooses to browse through your product catalog on your website, expects similar service quality on both channels.
While several brands were multichannel before the rampant digitization, only a few were omnichannel. Now, how does a multichannel approach differ from an omnichannel customer experience?
In this blog, we will dive deep into omnichannel customer experiences, their importance, and how you can optimize them for your users.
Multichannel vs omnichannel customer experience
A multi-channel experience approach aims at boosting engagement by offering customers the freedom to connect via various independent channels. Whereas, the omnichannel strategy works on enhancing the user experience by merging data from multiple channels to ensure consistency. Multichannel helps brands build more customer touchpoints, while omnichannel user experiences are geared to augment the inherent quality of these interactions.
Optimizing omnichannel experiences with customer feedback
Today, customers have greater expectations than before. They want brands to support them as and when they need help. Their preference for channels is diverse and not unitary. In fact, a Harvard Business Review study of 46000 respondents showed that more than 7 in 10 customers prefer to shop from multiple channels.
We all know that acquiring new customers is more costly than ensuring to keep the current user pool is intact. When it comes to customer retention, omnichannel engagement strategies help businesses retain over 89% of their users on average!
Evidently, it’s crucial for brands to invest in omnichannel customer experiences. Users love consistent service, irrespective of the channel or the technology used. Today, conversational AI is helping brands curate standardized experiences for brands at scale by using customer feedback as a tool.
What is the importance of customer feedback in optimizing customer support?
Customer happiness is central to a winning brand perception. Patiently listening to what your users have to say can help you curate even more fulfilling omnichannel experiences for them. PWC’s Future of CX study of over 15000 respondents showed that just after a single bad experience, 1 in 3 users will abandon a brand they love. Whereas, a whopping 9 in 10 users will ditch spending on a business after two to three negative experiences. Moreover, Hubspot shows that for 33% of users, their experience with a brand takes a hit when they have to repeat themselves when speaking to customer support .
Identifying what your users want and pivoting your support strategy here becomes crucial. Data-intact omnichannel experiences are indeed the need of the hour. In fact, another recent survey showed the impact of channel integration on CX. In their report on retailing, PWC found that the companies investing in the omnichannel engagement approach shot up from 20% to 80% in 2020!
An omnichannel experience strategy based on customer feedback is the beacon of improvement for brands. Here’s why:
1. Identify loopholes in the existing framework
Your omnichannel customer support may look watertight to you from a second POV, but the ground reality may differ. Customer feedback helps users highlight what’s not working out for them. For example, if most of your users are reporting issues or lags at the checkout page in their feedback, it’d be pretty simple to deduce that there is an issue with your payment gateway.
2. Build brand loyalty and higher CLV
Great customer experience can be a competitive advantage for your brand. And users prefer brands that lend a listening ear. They appreciate businesses that act upon suggestions or criticism they relay. This in turn, translates to increased product stickiness and, eventually, higher customer lifetime value.
3. Sell more with higher ROI
Did you know that companies with a solid omnichannel strategy often sell 10% more than their single-channeled counterparts? It’s true. If there’s anything we’ve learned from users voicing their opinions, it’s the need for collaborative, omnichannel customer support. Inculcating customer feedback into your support system helps you sell more efficiently, to new audiences, with an investment that yields high returns.
How does omni channel customer support work
By combining various elements, omni channel customer support creates a unified and cohesive customer experience, fostering customer satisfaction and loyalty. It empowers businesses to connect with customers on their preferred channels, providing a seamless and efficient support journey. Below are the different communication channels to consider for best omnichannel experience.
1. Chatbot: It allows support agents to connect and respond to customer queries in real-time, enhancing the efficiency of customer interactions.
2. Video and Voice Call: Omni channel customer support streamlines customer interaction over mobile devices, chats, and phone calls, offering flexibility and convenience.
3. Live Chat: This feature provides quick and effective customer support through real-time messaging, ensuring timely resolution of customer queries.
4. Co-browsing: Omni channel customer support facilitates safe customer service through browse-based screen sharing, eliminating the need for downloads and enhancing collaboration.
5. Social Media Integration: Extending its reach, omni channel support integrates with social media platforms, enabling businesses to engage with customers on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
6. Email Communication: Integration with email ensures that customers can seek assistance through this traditional channel, seamlessly incorporating email queries into the overall support workflow.
7. SMS and Text Messaging: Communication through SMS and text messages allows businesses to send quick updates, notifications, and resolve simple queries through a widely-used communication channel.
8. Knowledge Base Integration: Businesses leverage an omnichannel approach by integrating a comprehensive knowledge base, empowering customers with self-help resources and reducing the need for direct support interactions.
9. Ticketing System: Omni channel support includes a ticketing system to track and manage customer issues systematically, ensuring efficient resolution and documentation.
10. Mobile App Support: Support for mobile apps allows customers to seek assistance directly within the app, enhancing user experience and accessibility.
11. Analytics and Reporting: Omni channel support solutions often include analytics tools to track and analyze customer interactions, providing businesses with valuable insights to improve their support strategies.
How to use customer feedback to optimize omnichannel experiences?
When it comes to improving your omnichannel experiences, first-hand accounts from customers are your best bet. While this plethora of data can be helpful, you can only leverage it with the right tools. Here’s how you can use customer feedback to optimize your omnichannel experiences:
1. Build a single-panel customer view
Your users constantly change their habits, behavior’s, likes, and preferences. And they are always telling you about them through various platforms and channels. This treasure trove of data is scattered across multiple intended actions – ad clicks, product page visits, newsletter subscriptions, etc.
Independently viewed, all of this data may not be illuminating. However, having a systematic panel view of consumer data collated from all channels can be. It’s essential for you to have a single analytical idea of this data from all these touchpoints to understand your target user’s typical behavior.
2. Identify high-yield touchpoints
Mapping out all of your customer journeys does not require equal attention. It’s important for a brand to filter out journeys that have the maximum business impact.
Let’s take an example. Assume you have a new product in the launch phase for which you’re trying to get pre-bookings. Before it hits the floors, you run a marketing campaign on social media and email. You compare the data from both channels and find that most of your CTA clicks are from social ads. Most ad impressions and interactions begin from your social channels.
This would mean that your users want and prefer your service through social fronts rather than email. This cohesive, omnichannel data (in this case, from social and email) can help you narrow down your best-performing journeys.
3. Deploy real-time tracking and analytics to stay on top
Personalization is a big part of the user psyche today. Users expect brands to deliver personalized offerings built on their omnichannel experiences with brands. These expectations are not limited to their most recent touchpoints.
Customer analytics based on real-time feedback helps you identify users most prone to getting churned. This can help you troubleshoot any persistent issues users may face proactively. By reading into the behavioral patterns of users, you can deliver personalized offers or escalated support to avoid losing them.
Omnichannel customer experience examples: Real-life action from brands excelling at holistic CX
We now know how an omnichannel customer experience strategy can benefit your business. We also know how you can go about building one. Now, it’s time to talk about brands that are doing it right. The pandemic has propelled most small or big businesses into the digital space. This required them to quickly adapt to the change to ensure happy online user experiences and a seamless offline-to-online switch.
Let’s dive into our top picks of examples of omnichannel customer experience from brands.
Target
As a big box department store chain, all of Target’s footfall was offline. So, when the pandemic hit, the store had to ensure intact customer journeys for its online users.
Target’s program, Buy Online Pickup In-Store (BOPIS), saw a 400% jump since 2019 , reported Brian Cornell, the brand’s CEO. This program seamlessly merged Target’s offline and online touchpoints as it allowed users to place orders on the mobile app, which would be ready to be picked up from a Target associate at the store’s curbside.
Not only did Target help merge the gap between offline and online grocery shopping, their mobile app also comes equipped with in-store maps to navigate the sizeable offline premise.
IKEA
IKEA is known for its confusing store layouts that are grouped and staged to mimic different spaces in a home. From complete kitchen setups to DIY baby nurseries, IKEA has simplified furniture shopping for everyone.
IKEA has worked to merge its offline, website, and mobile experiences into a straightforward journey. Customers can curate their personalized shopping lists on the app, which can then instruct the user to the location to find the items in the store.
IKEA even launched an app called “IKEA Place” which allows users to imagine how well a piece of furniture would settle in their homes by virtually placing them in the app. The company made this possible by using augmented reality, which helped users accurately assess the look in a true-to-size 3D format.
Sephora
Sephora is probably the first name that comes to our minds when we talk about the beauty retail Mecca. Sephora’s in-store experience uses technology just the right way to ensure integrated omnichannel experiences. Users can use the mobile app to know about the in-store product catalogue and ongoing deals. They can filter and view products and try them virtually on the app with the help of AR to find their best fit.
Sephora also propagates organic community building. With their “Beauty Insider” program, Sephora helps beauty-savvy users share beauty tips, product reviews, doubts, and questions with each other. It also provides a live chat feature to help them connect with other users in real-time. All in all, Sephora’s tech stack ensures a seamless omnichannel customer experience for users online and offline.
Conclusion
Building omnichannel customer experiences is no longer just a choice for brands that want to exceed user expectations. Ensuring consistent user support, no matter the time or platform should be the top priority for today’s brands. This is only possible by merging disconnected touchpoints with an engagement tool built to serve your users.
Chat360 is an enterprise-grade conversational AI solution that can help to build omnichannel customer experiences across your digital presence. Design and deploy your very own chatbot on all your social channels, your app, and even your website!
Chat360, a leading provider of versatile chatbot solutions for businesses. Seamlessly connect with customers across diverse platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, websites, and more. Elevate your customer engagement by integrating Chat360 with popular CRM platforms, ensuring a unified and streamlined communication experience.
Experience the ease of managing interactions, consolidating data, and fostering meaningful connections with clients. With Chat360’s cutting-edge technology, businesses can effortlessly navigate the digital landscape, delivering consistent and personalised experiences. Choose Chat360 for unparalleled Omnichannel Integration and stay ahead in the dynamic world of customer communication.
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