Stand out from the rest with an effective and efficient omnichannel customer experience.
It’s no secret that today’s customers seek experiences that make them feel valued. In fact, 80% of customers are more likely to buy from a brand that provides personalised experiences. From our perspective, that’s a number that is simply too large to ignore and could make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful business. Keeping your audience connected via their customer experience is imperative in ensuring customer retention.
In order to explore what makes a great omnichannel experience, it’s important to understand exactly what omnichannel means. Omnichannel is an approach that gives organisations the ability to meet customers at their level by sending the right messages to the right place and at the right time. This type of marketing strategy leads to a seamless, customer-focused experience – an experience that almost 70% of customers want. Today's buyers are looking for a buying journey that is personalised, efficient, and user-friendly.
What Makes a Great Omnichannel Experience?
Outstanding content management across a variety of platforms can do wonders for your business. Sleek visuals are important, but you need to make sure that your operational efficiency has strong foundations to live up to the promise that your visuals create.
To provide an excellent omnichannel customer experience, there are a few things to consider:
Place the focus on the customer by gathering sufficient data to provide a personalised experience. Not just a name on an email, but valuable personalisation based on the customers’ existing policies or on current and even future life events.
Create a seamless customer experience that spans multiple touchpoints. Over 60% of customers start their transactions online, a number that should be capitalised on. When starting online transactions, customers want personalised content that is accessible across multiple platforms.
Ensure your employees have the tools required to efficiently carry out strategies. Regardless of how great your digital presence is or how thoroughly thought out your strategies are, your customer experience will never reach the level you are looking for if your organisation’s internal operations do not run efficiently.
Use a headless CMS to eliminate restrictions on how and where content can be distributed across multiple platforms, leading to an even better omnichannel customer experience.
Benefits of an Omnichannel Customer Experience
Creating an immersive, seamless, and thoroughly enjoyable customer experience across many platforms is key to the digital transformation of your business.
So, what are the benefits your business can enjoy with an omnichannel customer experience?
Increase revenue: 86% of customers are willing to pay a higher price for a great customer experience. Placing all of your focus on a single channel (i.e. your website) will not allow you to provide a seamless experience for your customers or reach your full revenue potential.
Reduce cost-to-serve: Over 80% of customers try resolving their problems by themselves first. A self-service portal provides customers with this opportunity, which can help to improve customer experience and allow your customer service team to resolve more complex problems for your customers.
Increase employee efficiency: Modern intranets can give your employees the tools they need to work more effectively, drive consistency, and provide better service to your customers. By saving your employees time, you can give them further opportunities to contribute meaningfully and focus on their potential.
Remove silos created by disparate technology: An integrated platform can eliminate silos that can be caused by disconnected and disparate systems. A unified system with a single login can accelerate your digital transformation efforts by making use of legacy technology and simplifying business processes.
How to Create an Omnichannel Experience
It’s not uncommon for businesses' digital transformations to fail – actually, around 70% of them do. However, there are ways to mitigate risk and overcome failures to maintain an excellent omnichannel experience. Here are a few best practices:
1. Create a Unified Strategy
When it comes to your omnichannel strategy, your team must have a clear vision. First, understand what your goals and objectives are, then create a timeline and roadmap to success. Map out the customer journey across teams to ensure a seamless experience. Define your project scope and responsible parties to ensure success.
2. Obtain Organisational Buy-In
Ensure the whole team is on board. One of the biggest reasons for failure is when your employees resist or are unsure about change. Unless everyone is on board and on track, implementing an omnichannel strategy will be far less effective.
3. Connect Your Tech Stack
Businesses should invest in a digital experience platform (DXP) to avoid tangled tech stacks which inevitably lead to wasted resources and a customer experience that is disjointed and ineffective. It’s also imperative for your team to identify tech gaps in order to implement the proper technology, in an organised manner.
4. Focus on Data Management
More than 80% of businesses fail to leverage their data effectively to fuel their digital transformation initiatives, in turn, destroying the omnichannel experience. Disparate technologies only create extra hassle for your business, creating data silos and wasting time and resources. Not getting to grips with your data management could be what’s stopping your omnichannel approach from flourishing.
5. Invest in Scalable Technology
Long-term, sustainable solutions are necessary to ensure that a business’s omnichannel initiative can scale and grow alongside the organisation. A limited mindset will result in your strategy fizzling out and not achieving the returns you are hoping for in the long run.
The Final Touches
Once the strategy has been drawn out and implemented, your organisation can deliver an unmatched omnichannel customer experience. Once the omnichannel customer experience approach is in process, it’s important to:
Leverage your data to make improvements to your internal processes, as well as your external experiences.
Simplify your connected tech stack by integrating your systems. This will make it easier for your IT team and will eventually lead to a more rewarding customer experience.
Improve employee efficiency by integrating different self-service channels and providing access to training and resources in a single location that's easy to navigate, such as a digital workplace.
Delivering an Impressive Omnichannel Customer Experience
As businesses continue to shift to a customer-centric approach, customer demands continue to rise. With the technology at hand today, customers seek experiences that make them feel valued and understood. A seamless experience does, however, begin from the inside out. Implementing a strong omnichannel strategy will have your employees working together efficiently and effectively to create a great experience for your customers.
An impressive omnichannel customer experience will produce loyalty among customers, resulting in positive reviews, a decrease in churn, and a significant impact on your business's overall success.