Personalizing omnichannel experiences involves tailoring your interactions with customers across multiple channels to meet their unique needs and preferences.

Here are some tips on how to personalize omnichannel experiences:

1. Collect customer data: Collect data on your customers such as their purchase history, preferences, and behavior across different channels. This information can help you create a more personalized experience.

2. Use customer segmentation: Segment your customers based on their demographics, behavior, and preferences. This will allow you to create targeted campaigns and messages that resonate with each group.

3. Implement a CRM system: Implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system to track customer interactions across different channels. This will enable you to provide a seamless experience across all touchpoints.

4. Offer personalized recommendations: Use customer data to offer personalized product recommendations and promotions. This will increase the likelihood of customers making a purchase and returning to your brand.

5. Use chatbots and AI: Use chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide personalized recommendations and support to customers across different channels. This will improve the customer experience and reduce response times.

6. Continuously optimize: Continuously optimize your omnichannel strategy based on customer feedback and data. This will help you identify areas for improvement and create a more personalized experience for your customers.

7. Create consistent branding: Ensure that your brand’s messaging and visual identity are consistent across all channels. This helps to create a familiar and cohesive experience for the customer, no matter how they interact with your brand.

8. Tailor communications: Customize your email, social media, and other communications based on the customer’s previous interactions with your brand. Use their name, reference past purchases, and suggest items that complement what they’ve bought before.

9. Leverage location-based services: Use location data to send personalized offers or information when a customer is near one of your physical stores or in a particular geographic region.

10. Optimize for mobile: Ensure that all digital interactions are optimized for mobile devices, as many customers use their smartphones for shopping and communication. A seamless mobile experience is crucial for personalization.

11. Enable cross-channel customer service: Make sure that a customer service inquiry can be picked up and continued across different channels without the customer having to repeat information. This means integrating your customer service platforms and training staff accordingly.

12. Personalize the in-store experience: Use online customer data to enhance the in-store experience. For example, a sales associate could have access to a customer’s online wish list or purchase history in order to provide personalized assistance.

13. Implement loyalty programs: Use loyalty programs to gather more data on customer preferences and to reward customers for their repeat business. Personalize these programs based on customer behavior and preferences.

14. Use predictive analytics: Analyze customer data to predict future behaviors and preferences, then tailor your marketing strategies accordingly. This can help anticipate needs and personalize the customer experience before the customer even expresses those needs.

15. Respect privacy: Always be transparent about how you collect and use customer data. Follow data protection regulations and give customers control over their personal information. Trust is a crucial element of personalization.

By following these strategies, you can create a more personalized and engaging omnichannel experience for your customers, which can lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, higher sales. Remember that personalization is an ongoing process that requires regular review and adjustment to keep up with changing customer expectations and technological advancements.

Businesses are continuously on the lookout for innovative approaches to enhance their customer outreach and engagement strategies.

However, one essential element of customer communication often goes unnoticed – outbound voice communication. This traditional yet robust channel, when implemented with contemporary strategies, has the potential to significantly elevate customer relations and fuel business growth.

Understanding Outbound Voice Communication

At its core, outbound voice communication involves proactive contact with customers or prospects through calls initiated by the business. This method is not just about sales; it’s an opportunity to provide value, gather feedback, and build lasting relationships.

Outbound voice communication serves as a powerful tool for businesses to directly connect with their customers and prospects. It allows companies to go beyond the limitations of written communication, such as emails or text messages, and engage in real-time conversations. By initiating these calls, businesses can provide personalized assistance, address inquiries, and offer valuable insights and recommendations.

In addition, outbound voice communication is not only about sales. It also allows businesses to gather feedback, refine products or services, and enhance the customer experience.

Building lasting customer relationships is a key objective of outbound voice communication. These conversations establish trust, show genuine care, and foster loyalty, demonstrating a commitment to customer satisfaction and long-term partnerships.

Setting Clear Objectives

When embarking on an outbound calling campaign, it is crucial to set clear objectives that align with your overall business goals. Defining specific objectives will not only guide your strategy but also help you measure the success of your campaign.

• Increasing Sales: One of the primary objectives for many businesses is to increase sales. Outbound voice communication can play a pivotal role in achieving this goal by proactively reaching out to potential customers and offering personalized assistance. By engaging in real-time conversations, businesses can address any concerns or objections, highlight the unique value propositions of their products or services, and ultimately drive sales.
• Gathering Market Research: Another objective for outbound calling campaigns can be to gather valuable market research insights. By directly contacting customers or prospects, businesses can gather feedback on their products or services, understand customer preferences, and identify areas for improvement. This data can inform strategic decision-making and help businesses stay ahead of market trends.
• Improving Customer Satisfaction: Outbound voice communication provides an excellent opportunity to enhance customer satisfaction. By reaching out to customers, businesses can proactively address any issues, provide personalized assistance, and offer valuable insights or recommendations. This level of proactive customer care shows a commitment to customer satisfaction and can significantly improve the overall customer experience.
• Expanding Customer Base: For businesses looking to expand their customer base, outbound voice communication can be a powerful tool. By reaching out to potential customers, businesses can introduce their products or services, establish a personal connection, and nurture leads. This approach allows businesses to go beyond written communication and build relationships that can lead to long-term partnerships.
• Measuring Success: Defining clear objectives also enables businesses to measure the success of their outbound calling campaigns. By setting specific metrics, such as the number of sales generated or customer satisfaction ratings, businesses can track their progress and make data-driven decisions to improve future strategies. Regularly analyzing campaign performance allows businesses to identify areas of improvement and optimize their outbound voice communication efforts.

Audience segmentation

Audience segmentation is a critical aspect of effective outbound voice communication. By tailoring your message to fit the specific needs and preferences of your audience segments, you can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your outreach. Utilizing customer data to segment your audience allows for more personalized and relevant communication.

Segmentation allows businesses to divide their customer base into distinct groups based on demographics, behaviors, preferences, or other relevant factors. By understanding the unique characteristics of each segment, businesses can create messaging and communication strategies that resonate with their target audience.

An outbound lead generation call center can deliver personalized experiences by treating every interaction as an opportunity to understand and meet the unique needs of each prospect. – Michael Mcguire, Contact Center Software Consultant @NobelBiz

Scripting and messaging

One key strategy for effective communication is scripting and messaging. Developing compelling scripts that are flexible enough to be personalized for different segments of your audience is key. These scripts should serve as a guide rather than a strict template to allow for genuine conversation. By customizing the message based on the specific needs and preferences of each segment, businesses can create a more personalized and engaging experience for their customers.

Adapting to changing market dynamics is crucial when executing new outbound lead generation programs. Call centers must be agile, leveraging advanced analytics and automation tools to stay ahead of competition and deliver targeted, personalized interactions. – Brad Butler, Contact Center Software Consultant @NobelBiz

Leveraging omnichannel contact center software, technology and tools

In addition to scripting and messaging, leveraging omnichannel contact center software, technology and tools can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your outbound voice communication efforts. Automated dialing systems, for example, can streamline the process of making calls, allowing your team to spend more time in conversation with potential or existing customers rather than dialing numbers.

To further elevate your outbound voice communication strategy, consider the transformative power of NobelBiz’s cloud contact center solution. This innovative platform seamlessly combines ease of use with a comprehensive suite of productivity tools, all while maintaining low IT overheads. With features like high server redundancy, built-in compliance tools, a unique proprietary Voice Carrier Network, and advanced omnichannel capabilities, NobelBiz OMNI+ sets the stage for unparalleled efficiency and effectiveness in customer outreach. Each client benefits from an individual cloud architecture, ensuring a tailored and robust solution for any contact center’s needs.

Training and Empowering Teams

Training and empowering your teams are crucial for the success of outbound voice communication. Providing comprehensive training and continuous support empowers your team members to perform at their best. Communication skills training can enhance the effectiveness of conversations and result in positive customer experiences. Ensuring that your team has in-depth knowledge of your products or services enables them to provide valuable information and answer questions confidently.

Regulatory Compliance and Ethics

Regulatory compliance and ethical communication practices are essential for building trust with your audience. Adhering to privacy laws and regulations is crucial to protect your customers’ information and your business’s reputation. Promoting ethical communication within your team helps to ensure that all interactions are respectful, transparent, and considerate of the customer’s preferences.

By incorporating these strategies for effective communication, businesses can optimize their outbound voice communication efforts and create meaningful connections that drive business growth. Tailoring messages to specific audience segments, leveraging technology and tools, and providing training and support to teams can enhance the effectiveness of outbound voice communication and ultimately improve customer relationships.

Conclusion

Incorporating effective strategies for outbound voice communication can significantly enhance your customer outreach efforts. By understanding your audience, leveraging technology, and empowering your team, you can create meaningful connections that drive business.

Nowadays, it is a standard practice for businesses to have multiple channels for interacting with customers. In this article, Yasar Jameel takes an in-depth look at omnichannel customer service.

Connecting all the touchpoints and building an omnichannel customer experience can enhance your customer’s interaction with your company. In turn, it can help in boosting sales, drive customer retention and assist your customer support team. But, before we delve deeper, let’s understand what an omnichannel experience is and why it is essential.

What Is Omnichannel Customer Experience?

An omnichannel customer experience comprises unique touchpoints on several marketing channels, such as website, physical store, social media, etc. Omnichannel in itself means a unified customer experience through multiple channels, irrespective of where the customer exits and picks up again.

Using an omnichannel approach helps eliminate gaps in customer service and enhances the quality of the service offered. In addition, unlike traditional or multichannel experience, it ensures higher customer satisfaction. Therefore, it is regarded as the new prescribed benchmark for a premier customer experience.

The customer experience of an omnichannel customer service strategy differs from the single-channel one a lot, and they significantly impact businesses. For example, research conducted by Aberdeen Group reveals that companies with robust omnichannel strategies had a customer retention rate of 89% compared to 33% of organizations with no such plan.

Omnichannel customer engagement varies from the traditional one, choosing more convenient modes of communication with customers across different channels. For instance, regular customer experience interactions concentrate on a single track per consumer at a particular time. However, it doesn’t consider that individuals may communicate with multiple people from your company on different channels at distinct touchpoints, all within their separate customer journeys.

Why Is Omnichannel Customer Experience Important?

To back our points with relevant figures, as per a report by PwC, 73% of people regard customer service as a vital element affecting their purchasing decision, running just behind price and quality.

But, even if you manage to have excellent communication across channels with a customer, if the information isn’t flowing seamlessly between different channels, you would still offer a terrible customer experience. Therefore, the omnichannel CX improves the traditional process by incorporating seamless transitions. As a result, the information and quality of service offered to a customer on one channel will be the same on all the channels. Let’s understand this better with an example. Suppose a rep is prospecting through LinkedIn. In such a case, the consumer should feel the same ease if and when this conversation moves to a new channel like live chat or email.

‍‍Top 5 Tools to Create an Omnichannel Experience for Your Customers

1. AI-Powered Chatbots

Providing the omnichannel experience to your customers can seem daunting because you would assume that coding separately for every channel will be an individual challenge. But AI-powered chatbot technology has made the job quite simple.

You can deploy AI-powered chatbots throughout the text- and voice-based communication channels. The chatbots help human agents to take care of customer needs and offer them assistance.

So how does it work? When your customer interacts with an AI-enabled chatbot on any platform like your website or a social media channel, the bot offers a resolution. It employs natural language processing and identifies the intention, compares the question to documented FAQs or cases it has settled effectively in the past. Accordingly, it offers a clarification or answer to the customer’s query.

All the channels are fully attached to your existing service framework. It ensures that even though the bots function on different platforms, you still deliver the exact high-quality customer support you’d provide to a consumer connecting with an actual customer support agent. However, if it’s a complex request or the consumer shows dissatisfaction, the customer support team can deflect the ticket, and they can further handle the case.

Using chatbots for customer support helps in reducing the number of tickets your customer support team has to handle. They deflect many of them even before they reach your customer support team. As a result, it enhances the customer experience and improves the efficiency of your customer support teams.

You can employ a similar chatbot experience across multiple channels to facilitate an omnichannel strategy.

2. Unified Knowledge Base

Customer journeys are complex in multichannel customer engagement. For instance, when consumers are looking for answers related to your business or service, they could first come to your website or online self-help site and explore the FAQs or articles. After that, they could get on a call with a customer support executive. So, to make sure the customer receives the same information or can easily pick up from where they left off, it is essential to have a unified knowledge base or knowledge management (KM) platform.

This KM platform is handy in delivering a unified experience to the consumer while ensuring a uniform flow of information throughout multiple touchpoints. In addition, it serves as a Single Source of Truth that you can incorporate in all the communication & collaboration channels to provide a personalized and seamless omnichannel experience.

Here are a few benefits of using a unified knowledge base

• Delivers Information Seamlessly

The user info is invariant across all channels. It makes it simple for the company’s teams to serve the consumer better. In addition, it empowers your teams with the correct information.

• Offers Convenience to Customers

Customers can connect with your brand as per their preference. They won’t have to be limited to a single or a few channels.

• Faster Resolution of Tickets

It is easier to deal with issues of your consumers with a unified knowledge base for customer support teams. In addition, the self-help portals created using your KM tools can contribute more to the faster resolution of queries.

• Enhanced Brand Loyalty and Customer Retention

A unified knowledge base that supports the creation of an omnichannel experience for your customers can help generate brand loyalty. The customer-retention rate can also increase with a better client satisfaction score through improved customer support.

3. Decision Trees

Decision trees are a graphical representation of troubleshooting workflow in layman’s terms. It has branches that are possible customer responses. Accordingly, they are created to help customer support agents resolve clients’ issues over a call or any other mode of communication. So a decision tree is made of 3 elements:

• Decision: It is the decision taken by the client or whatever their input is.
• Node: It directs to the outcome corresponding to the decision.
• Possible Outcome: It is the result that has been assigned for a particular decision.

Decision trees help the seamless functioning of customer support services by making resolving a particular problem easier for the customer service teams. Also, they help direct the query to the correct outcome and help CS teams offer the best possible product. In turn, it ensures the delivery of a better omnichannel customer experience.

Decision trees at customer support centers ensure an enhanced quality of the service offered. It helps your CS teams deliver exceptional customer service by ensuring that the service is fast and provides a correct resolution. Here’s how the use of decision trees supports omnichannel customer experience:

• Unique Experience of Self-Service

When decision trees are used to offer self-service to customers, they help create unique experiences for consumers. Chatbots and website helpdesks can utilize them. You can put them under the FAQs section to provide greater clarity to consumers. A decision tree enabled via a unified knowledge base software offers a seamless flow of information. It presents a step-by-step guide to solutions for issues the clients face, depending on the responses they select. It also reduces the resolution time for queries.

• Reduced Instances of Calls on Hold

With decision trees, customer support agents have immediate responses or answers to every possible query a customer may have. It reduces the chances of putting a customer’s call on hold. It is a feature that improves the customer experience and promotes omnichannel communication better.

• Avoid Repeated Collection of Details

While on the phone with a customer service agent, a consumer may not remember all the specifics of a product or service purchase. As a result, unknowingly, they may provide incorrect information to the agent.

You can establish an error-free environment using decision trees, which document past replies and display the previously chosen guide steps. Then, if the consumer provides inaccurate information, the agent can go back to the relevant action, correct the selection, and proceed with the following steps as mentioned in the tree.

Consequently, it saves time for both the agent and the client by preventing the consumer from repeating the facts to the agent. Similarly, API-integrated decision trees don’t require gathering any data. Instead, they link the steps back to a CRM automatically.

• Decreased Instances of Call Transfer

While on a call with a support agent, call transfers lead to customer dissatisfaction. When a call is moved, the customer must repeatedly explain the issue. It is avoided by using decision trees enabled by a knowledge base.

There are two approaches to tackle this with decision trees. Decision tree software allows users to link pertinent information in widgets or notes to avoid transferring calls. The other is to use knowledge management software; an agent can find and solve a practical decision tree guide.

When calls aren’t transferred for minor details, the customer experience improves immediately. Decision trees assist in determining the optimal course of action in any case, resulting in fewer call transfers.

Decision tree software is a great tool for SOP adherence in customer support and thus offers omnichannel CX.

4. Visual Assistance

Today businesses are increasingly using augmented reality to offer an immersive and engaging customer experience. It supports them in providing a seamless omnichannel customer experience too.

Visual support, which is offered through innovative and interactive technology, promotes excellent communication, increases client confidence in the agent, and improves the overall efficiency and enjoyment of the contact center experience. In addition, it reduces executives’ call duration and enhances the rate of first call resolution, thus improving customer happiness and retention.

The visual engagement of customers is beneficial in offering an omnichannel customer experience throughout a broad spectrum of sales, marketing, and customer care and support situations, giving the fastest path to victory and solution in various use cases.

For example, customer data can be conveniently analyzed using omnichannel videos for elements like specific interests, preferences of products, or history of buying. In addition, augmented visual support is used to help with technical issues and solve billing conflicts, including other things. Here are a few features of visual assistance that contribute to creating a robust omnichannel experience for customers:

• Contactless Support

Users’ expectations for contactless help and self-service have completely shifted in the post-pandemic time. Deliver resolutions to your consumers the way they want to resolve them with remote visual support in this contactless era.

• Visual Interaction

Mixing text and graphics is the most effective technique to involve your customer in problem-solving. Doing something like this visually and guiding them through a step-by-step process is much better. Show a picture of how a consumer can do stuff with screen-sharing.

• Mixed Reality

The bridging of the natural and virtual world divide links contact center assistance and field trips. Both are possible with remote visual help. This translates to higher conversion prices and increased first call resolutions, resulting in higher revenue per user.

• Annotations

Customers are not satisfied with just putting words on photos in a video. Annotations describing a client’s actions to tackle the issues are particularly helpful. Using tech, visual aid driven by AR helps illustrate complex technical concerns with annotations.

• Co-browsing

Co-browsing with clients’ consent using camera access and screen-sharing makes it possible to share expert assistance from field technicians. In addition, co-browsing to resolve technical problems or difficulties avoids the need for unnecessary field visits plus repeated contacts with tech support. As a result, co-browsing may be able to minimize support expenditures significantly.

5. Self-Service Portal

Customers expect quick responses to their inquiries and faster resolution of their issues in the T-20 age. Therefore, immediate reaction times are considered the most crucial characteristic of the customer experience nowadays. But, if they don’t get quick resolutions and responses, then?

Many consumers will be dissatisfied and migrate to competition, resulting in a reduction in the company’s business. Some active clients may also propagate negative word-of-mouth, sowing seeds of mistrust and reawakening old latent animosity in current customers and a lousy impression amid observers. You can overcome this difficulty by adopting consumer self-service, which could also increase productivity.

Below are a few benefits of using self-service portals, and these features also help in offering an omnichannel customer experience:

• Ticket Deflection by resolving common issues before it reaches a human agent
• Enhanced User Experience
• Interactive Display
• Smooth Handling of Bulk Enquiries
• Consistent Information- Portal Backed by Unified Knowledge Base
• Reduced Manpower Requirement and OPEX cost

Consumers today are not like the ones in the past. They prefer self-service portals to conventional customer assistance channels. On the other hand, self-service portals are challenging for many clients. Therefore, when creating customer self-service portals, businesses should remember that they are only helpful when they are simple.

Companies may optimize their client self-service portals by taking the following steps:

• First, recognize and focus on the most frequently requested questions.
• Use photos, movies, charts, and other visuals.
• Include a search field in the user interface.
• Customization and context are the focal points.
• Ensure cross-device interoperability.

In Summary

It is essential to have a solid omnichannel strategy to serve your customers to boost your business’s success and growth. Create a plan, use the precise tools, and ensure that the implementation is perfect. Offering an omnichannel customer experience will help you save time, improve your customer support function, make your support team happier and your customers satisfied.

You will experience a better customer retention rate, enhanced brand loyalty, and improved business growth. If you require help at any step of creating an omnichannel customer engagement model for your business, you can get a qualified service partner on board. It can seamlessly help your business transition from a multichannel strategy to an omnichannel consumer communication strategy.

With the advent of online shopping, customers can now buy anything they want from anywhere at any time. As a result, brands and retailers have to be increasingly aware of reaching consumers through different channels.

This calls for a new approach to doing business, one that considers online shopping and brick-and-mortar stores. With omnichannel eCommerce, you have access to two channels that can bring your customers together. It mixes your offline and online presence and provides consumers with different ways to buy goods and services, whereas Nembol is another good option to multiply your online presence and grow traffic and sales!.

This article will give you recommendations on what you need to do to implement the best omnichannel approach for your business.

What Is Omnichannel eCommerce?

Omnichannel is the combination of all sales channels for one business under one website. With omnichannel eCommerce, companies can reach their customers more efficiently than ever before by targeting the right customer at the right time on the right channel.

How Can You Implement Omnichannel eCommerce For Your Business?

The nature of your business would influence the best omnichannel eCommerce approach. Nevertheless, the following best practices apply to every business:

1. Analyze The Current Marketing Tactic

The first step in creating a new strategy for omnichannel eCommerce is to audit your current one to see what worked and what didn’t. At the same time, email marketing tools can help you develop a stronger plan. In some instances, the most relevant insights can be obtained from your customer’s feedback on your social channel or eCommerce website.

Keep an eye on all of your platforms and brainstorm new approaches to your current marketing strategy. When developing an omnichannel strategy, put yourself in the shoes of the customer.

2. Improve Your Mobile Usability

The widespread use of smartphones is a major force behind omnichannel marketing. Today, mobile devices account for a significant portion of the client journey. According to a new eMarketer report, mobile devices will account for nearly half of eCommerce purchases by 2022 (see the graph below).

So, optimize your mobile site and provide the information in a way that works well. An excellent mobile website should be minimalistic, simple to use, and aid visitors in their buying journeys.

3. Create Highly Targeted Buying Guides

A buying guide is a great way to increase revenue in any omnichannel eCommerce store. The more a consumer knows about a product before they buy, the higher chance they’ll complete the purchase. That’s why your customer should be provided with detailed information about every single product you sell.

Moreover, eCommerce brands use buyer’s guides to educate, inform and influence shoppers. For example, an eCommerce fashion brand might create a buyer’s guide explaining how to wear different items in its fall collection. This buyer’s guide would include:

• Print advertising.
• Social media content (like videos and photos on Instagram).
• Product pages that encourage readers to click through to the full buying guide.

4. Make The Most Of Coupons And Discounts

Omnichannel marketing is about reaching the target audience at every touchpoint. This means that the same message of your brand should be consistent across all channels, whether it be digital or physical. It also requires efficient use of promotions and discounts for greater customer engagement. Moreover, you will be able to keep track of all of your business actions using listing tools.

Over half (59%) of shoppers are still influenced by digital coupons, according to Invesp. Discounts and free shipping can also convince an unsure buyer. How can you make good use of promos and discounts in omnichannel marketing? It’s simple: by integrating them into your overall strategy.

5. Embrace The Power Of User-Generated Content

The world of marketing is changing, and the line between customers and brands is becoming blurred. The traditional break between online and offline marketing is quickly fading into the past as customers expect personalized experiences across all channels.

Marketers are under pressure to meet rising customer expectations through omnichannel outreach—and they’re finding that leveraging user-generated content (UGC) can be one of the most effective ways to do so.

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by consumers for consumers. One of the essential aspects of the current omnichannel marketing environment is to create a strong connection with your customers and make them feel like they are an integral part of the brand. This is where UGC comes into play. If you can find a way to use your marketing strategy effectively, you will have a substantial competitive advantage.

6. Incorporate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Into Your Omnichannel Strategy

Aligning your business with a cause is one of the easiest ways to generate more brand awareness and loyalty. Your brand will seem more trustworthy, authentic, and reliable to consumers.

In addition, there are many tangible perks for aligning your company with a cause. Consumers want to support companies they believe in, and aligning yourself with a cause can increase sales or lead to positive press coverage!

As reported by NielsenIQ, 56% of worldwide consumers are willing to spend more to support companies that share their social values with them. It’s also vital to fully commit to your chosen cause, to develop content around it, and to use it to establish a community around your brand. This can serve as a solid foundation for your complete omnichannel approach if done effectively.

Conclusion

The evolution of online shopping has created a need for businesses to offer an omnichannel customer experience. As an SMB, it’s crucial to have a multichannel approach for your eCommerce site. By using multiple channels, it’s possible to reach more customers and boost overall sales. However, implementing an omnichannel strategy isn’t easy.

Businesses must ensure that they’re offering their products across all channels while still meeting customers’ needs. However, we’ve provided you with some valuable tips so you can implement an effective omnichannel eCommerce strategy for your business today!

About the Author

Efrat Vulfsons is the Co-Founder of PR Soprano and a data-driven marketing enthusiast, parallel to her soprano opera singing career. Efrat holds a B.F.A from the Jerusalem Music Academy in Opera Performance.

The omnichannel approach has been used by marketers to reach as many customers as possible, especially in the current circumstances, where most physical stores remain closed and rely on product deliveries and online purchases.

In 2020 alone, more than two billion people made online purchases, with online retail sales surpassing the $4.2 trillion mark. With many companies resorting to omnichannel strategies to maintain consistent service quality across channels, they have also been focusing on improving their customer service channel via an omnichannel contact center, which unifies customer interactions across all channels in an effort to enhance the overall customer experience.

To really achieve total customer satisfaction, or at least something very close to it, an organization should take the outside-in approach. This approach leverages available “listening tools” like social media to put the company into the customers’ shoes. The power has always been in the hands of the customer, but by using what companies know about their customers, they can turn the tables to maximize the benefit for both themselves and the customer.

The omnichannel approach differs from multichannel by integrating multiple marketing and service channels into a cohesive whole. This allows different departments and teams to work together toward the common goal of ensuring quality and enhancing customer satisfaction. An omnichannel contact center, similarly, integrates customer service channels—including email, phone calls, instant messaging, and the like—to consistently provide a unified customer experience.

Omnichannel Contact Centers for Improved Customer Service

A holistic view into how your organization provides quality products and service will help you determine what you’re doing right and what needs improvement. Taking all channels and looking at them as pieces of a bigger puzzle ensures that you leave no stone unturned in providing your customers the best experience possible. Below are key considerations in establishing an omnichannel contact center for your business.

• Customers expect good—and fast—mobile and web services
  Mobile and online channels have been on the rise in recent years, with digital channels being used more by customers for shopping and complaint resolution. However, 64% of customers complain of difficulty in navigating websites; even companies with good websites don’t provide the same experience when it comes to mobile. They have shown preference for online chat for resolution of issues, but two thirds of these customers also report waiting up to a day or more for their issues to be addressed. These problems should be viewed as opportunities to improve the customer experience and make them loyal patrons through memorable, pleasant experiences.
• Customers expect instant responses.
  The dawn of social media has increased the expectations of customers; compared to email, customers expect quicker response times when it comes to social media. They treat social media channels akin to one-to-one conversations, and letting this conversation die down leads to customer churn. If customers are unhappy with the way they are treated, reasonable or not, they will leave or go to your competitor.
• Customers expect a conversation.
  If you really want to keep the conversation going, live chat is one of the best ways to provide real-time interactions with customers. Through it you can answer questions, address concerns, and make product or service recommendations instantly. You can also use it to get insights on what your customers currently want, making adjustments or improvements to your products as needed.
• Customers expect easy solutions.
  Customers rely on instant responses from brands or companies, but they also expect simple solutions to simple problems. Often, customers want to resolve issues on their own, without having to reach out to customer service. Convenience is key when it comes to customer satisfaction, and there’s nothing more convenient and empowering than knowing you can solve a problem yourself.
• Customers still read emails.
  Despite email being dismissed by some as a dying medium, it remains one of the most effective digital marketing strategies, with over 6 billion emails sent and received in 2019 alone. This is predicted to increase to 374.3 billion emails in 2022 despite the availability of more modern communication media like instant messaging and live chat. This jus t goes to say that email still works. It should be noted that customers also expect quick responses when it comes to email communication. Companies can use email as an opportunity to respond directly to customers and send branded, personalized messages.

Humanizing the Customer Experience With Omnichannel Strategies

In the quest to provide excellent and memorable customer experiences, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the “human touch” makes all the difference. This means that your organization and your employees should be attuned to customer sentiment and current market trends. Empathy is still one of your best tools, and active listening will always get you farther than even the best marketing spiels. The key here is in applying this level of understanding across the organization. By providing a unified customer experience across all channels, you also build stronger relationships and transform prospects into patrons.

About the Author

Efrat Vulfsons is the Co-Founder of PR Soprano and a data-driven marketing enthusiast, parallel to her soprano opera singing career. Efrat holds a B.F.A from the Jerusalem Music Academy in Opera Performance.

Applying analytics to pinpoint customer relevancy

The value of positive customer experience continues to grow. The 2019 Gartner Customer Experience Management Survey found that 86% of respondents say they will compete based on customer experience (CX) two years from now.  The challenge for CX leaders is to build a multichannel communication strategy to reach customers either in a way they want or via channels they prefer.  They need to avoid creating solutions that try to be everywhere and as a result risk being nowhere.

Honing the fundamentals

Multichannel integration, to form that true omnichannel experience, involves getting back to the fundamentals of your consumers’ behaviour, then choosing channels based on what they really want. It also includes selecting the most efficient channels based on demonstrated consumer behaviour, then cleverly integrating these channels for the ultimate customer experience.

The best way to see and understand that behaviour is through analytics. Analytics helps laser-focus on target customers and determine which channels they are using and for what purpose. Adopting a strategic, integrated, analytics-driven approach that focuses on consumers helps build relevancy in their eyes.

Below are five interlocking techniques and technologies that provide the clarity and insights required to achieve both meaningful and timely interactions.

1. Micro-moment management

A term coined by Google half a decade ago, micro-moments are a recognition of the increasing importance of devices, particularly the smartphone, in consumer decision making. As Google noted at the time: “These I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-buy, and I-want-to-do moments are loaded with intent, context, and immediacy … These micro-moments are critical touchpoints within today’s consumer journey, and when added together, they ultimately determine how that journey ends.”

Given the average adult checks his/her smartphone screen every 12 minutes of the waking day, it’s hard to disagree. The ability to manage messaging tone, frequency, and timeliness is essential to micro-moment success.

2. Customer data platform

A data-driven strategy necessitates two things above all others: access to quality data and the ability to effectively manage it. Only then can you turn data into information, information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom. A customer data platform allows you to ingest data from multiple sources including legacy systems, CRM programs, social channels, IoT devices, and third-party sources to create a single unified record. Each interaction is captured to add another layer of insight available in real time.

3. Journey orchestration

Omnichannel communication is a capability not a technology — and it’s a capability that starts with intelligent orchestration. Organisations need the ability to create unique, personalised journeys based on the most relevant communications, offers, or instructions. And they need to be able to deliver those messages with the right cadence, at the right moment, across any digital channel or device.

4. Real-time decisions

The power of now is an indisputable competitive advantage. Access to actionable insights is only of use if you are able to deploy messaging at a time that will influence the customer. That’s why a predictive engine powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning is an essential piece of the communications toolbox. Advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities enable organisations to turn digital-channel behaviours into new opportunities to connect with end users in more relevant and meaningful ways.

5. Good customer data

As noted above, successful multichannel campaigns are predicated on quality data. Without quality data, there is no precision. With quality data, you will know your customer better, you will know how to delight existing customers and you will know how to find new customers. Above all, you will know the right time to hit send.

A strategic, selective, and orchestrated approach to omnichannel campaigns needs a platform that can bring these techniques and technologies together.  The platform needs to capture each customer’s interaction across every channel and continually build their identity to create a single customer view and a truly personalised experience. In short, organisations need a partnership with a supplier who can provide a platform or a “platform as a service” to empower strategic goals to help deliver your customer experience vision.

About the Author

Sharon Smith is Director – OmniChannel Communication Services (Europe) at Conduent. You can contact her at sharon.smith3@conduent.com.

Building stronger customer experiences and unifying their digital and traditional channels will be a top priority for bankers in 2018, according to Computer Services, Inc.’s annual Banking Priorities Executive Report.

Nearly half of the respondents (48 percent) plan to increase spending on customer experience initiatives in 2018, with the same percentage indicating that reaching new customers through omnichannel banking is their greatest opportunity for the year.

CSI, a provider of end-to-end financial technology solutions, surveyed more than 230 bankers nationwide for the annual report, which explores what bank executives perceive to be the issues, technologies and strategies that will most affect the financial industry in the year ahead.

While the regulatory climate and cybersecurity also registered highly as major issues facing bankers, the clear emphasis on customer experience and omnichannel initiatives this year is undeniable.

“Today, the main differentiator between financial institutions is the customer experience,” said Steve Powless, CSI’s chairman and CEO. “Banks must focus their attention not only on gaining new customers, but also on building loyalty among their existing ones. We’re seeing bankers tackle this by focusing on omnichannel strategies that streamline and connect the customer’s bank experience across all channels, from in-person interactions to mobile apps and online. Banks utilizing these strategies will likely see the most growth throughout 2018.”

Key survey highlights related to enhancing the customer experience and omnichannel strategies include:

• When asked to name the areas in which they expect to increase spending in 2018, 48 percent of respondents noted customer experience initiatives, which trailed only cybersecurity risk (59 percent) and information technology (64 percent).
• When asked which omnichannel strategies they consider the most important, 53 percent of respondents ranked implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution first.
• 38 percent of bankers will improve the customer experience with digital enhancements, including branch transformation (39 percent), mobile banking adoption (35.3%) and mobile wallet/tokenization (23.9%)

While planning initiatives for the new year, financial institutions should focus on unique strategies for boosting profitability and growing business,” Powless said. “Using CSI’s Banking Priorities Executive Report 2018, banks can learn where their peers will place focus, and build their strategies around standing out from competitors.”

The executive report, containing full survey results and detailed analysis, is available online here.

Requests for help came in via email and online forms. As social media and website capabilities evolved, channels were expanded further.

Today, customers receive support using a variety of channels, including phone, email, social media, video, self-service portals and chat forums. Customers are interacting with companies via a range of devices, including smartphones and tablets. This multi-channel customer support model is now the standard rather than the exception.

Multichannel Support – Complex for Companies, Confusing for Customers

Multichannel support sounds good – instead of contacting a company on a business hours-only support line, customers have more choices. But is the multi-channel model effective in helping customers and the companies that serve them resolve issues more quickly? In too many cases, the answer is no.

Multichannel support has made resolving requests more complex for customer support teams, which must now monitor multiple applications to manage all of their customer interactions – often handling six or more separate channels. For customers, there is frequently no continuity between interactions – too often, the service record and information created in one channel are invisible to agents and customers using another channel.

Omni-Channel Support – An Integrated Approach for Better Results

There’s no going back to using fewer channels – customers like having more choices, and it’s better for companies if customers can access answers 24/7. But multiple communication channels require rethinking the way information is gathered, stored and shared. Companies need a fully integrated approach that makes all information accessible across all channels.

This strategy, called omni-channel support, gives customers access to the same channels as before, including phone, email, self-service portals, chat, etc., but all channels are integrated into a single system. That means customers can choose which medium to use when they need support, and agents can view customer data from a central repository of information.

The Growing Importance of Self-Service Channels

The Internet has changed the way people get answers. With access to an unimaginably huge dataset that can return answers on virtually any topic in seconds, people typically go online to get answers to questions, and that extends to customer support questions as well – studies show that 90% of consumers check company sites for answers before placing a phone call.

By some estimates, customers will rely on virtual agents and self-service channels to resolve approximately 85% of their customer service issues in the future. Customers actually prefer it since self-service is typically the quickest way to get answers. And companies benefit as well since self-service enables support staff to focus on resolving more complex issues.

Unified Omni-Channel Support – The Best of Both Worlds

Customer expectations about support and communication with companies is undergoing a generational shift, and business owners who want to stay ahead of the curve will need to rethink their support delivery strategies. Today’s consumers expect a robust self-service option, so companies that plan to build a unified omni-channel communication strategy should invest in a solution that makes it easy for customers to access information via a knowledge base.

Beyond self-service options, an effective omni-channel support system requires a platform that integrates support data from all sources – including phone, chat, email, social media and other channels – into a single solution. It will require collaboration between the customer support team and colleagues across all departments, with everyone accessing a central knowledge base and contributing their expertise to solve customer problems.

In this way, customer support will complete the evolution from multichannel to omni-channel service, giving a new generation of customers support when and where they need it on whichever device they choose. Companies that embrace this new model can stand out in a crowded marketplace.

About the Author

Robert C. Johnson is CEO of TeamSupport.