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Today, your customers have more ways to connect with your brand, whether through social media platforms, your website, a mobile app, or in-store visits. For instance, a customer might start by browsing a specific product on your website, explore further on your mobile app, and finally visit your physical store to make the purchase. However, if these touchpoints aren’t properly integrated, you may lack crucial information and offer inconsistent details to the customer. This can be frustrating for both the customer and your company. Such gaps can be costly, eroding customer trust and impacting your bottom line.
The solution? Omnichannel customer experience. By integrating all customer touchpoints into a unified strategy, omnichannel ensures that every interaction, whether online or offline, is connected and consistent. According to a study by Forbes, companies with the most effective omnichannel customer strategies retain 89% of their customers
So, how would businesses plan their strategy to deliver a superior omnichannel consumer experience (CX)? Before diving more into the details, let us understand what is omnichannel customer experience and why it matters.
In simple terms, omnichannel customer experience (CX) means streamlining all the customer interactions across multiple touchpoints in a unified way to deliver a consistent brand experience.
The digital omnichannel strategy involves multiple channels approach for sales, customer support, and marketing. It focuses on delivering a cohesive customer experience irrespective of the channel used by customers to reach out to your business.
If seen from the customer’s standpoint, every interaction with your business should be part of a singular experience. It means it should not be siloed or repetitive as it happens with multi channel customer support. Having a seamless journey across all channels, both online and offline is the key to provide a consistent omnichannel experience.
Omnichannel is complex, and many factors contribute to a customer’s evaluative judgment of perceived omnichannel customer experience (OCX). You can check out the peer-reviewed scientific journal article that discusses the concept of OCX and how to measure omnichannel CX.
It illustrates the OCX framework with nine prime focus areas for delivering better CX: social communications (i.e., customer reviews), value (i.e., products and pricing), personalization, customer service, consistency product availability & prices across channels, information safety, delivery, product returns, and loyalty programs.
Great customer experience is the by-product of an effective and well-designed omnichannel ecosystem. To achieve it, businesses must understand customer journeys across devices and channels. Customers who use more channels to communicate are more valuable to the companies as research shows that they spend an average of 4% more in physical stores and 10% more than online single-channel customers.
Adopting an omnichannel approach in your business operations—including customer service, marketing, advertising, and sales strategies—offers a wide range of benefits, such as:
An omnichannel consumer experience strategy gives you a bird’s-eye view of your customer’s journey. You can monitor the whole buying journey throughout all the touchpoints. It streamlines all the interactions under one platform and provides insights into the right actions for improving your business.
An omnichannel CX strategy allows customers to connect with your brand through their preferred channels while ensuring a seamless transition within the same interaction. With all channels integrated, you can provide consistent information across all touchpoints, creating a positive experience that leads to higher customer satisfaction. The more satisfied your customers are, the more likely they are to stay loyal to your brand over time.
Omnichannel customers are 30% more valuable to your business throughout their lifetime. An omni CX approach makes easier for customers getting in touch with the company simple and intuitive. When a business plans to deliver a consistent response, they also choose your business for a lifetime.
You can conveniently store all customer chat interactions from different channels in one place. This means when customers contact the support team for help, they won’t have to repeat previous conversations or provide references. The agents can quickly access all the relevant details in a single database, allowing them to assist more efficiently.
Usually, there is a conflict between omni channel marketing and omnichannel customer experience (CX).
Omni-channel marketing ensures that messaging and branding are consistent among channels. It acknowledges and addresses the customers across their preferred platforms to deliver a smoother buying experience at every stage of their journey. It also includes merging the different channels together (for example, social media, website) for promotional experiences.
Omnichannel journeys refer to the seamless integration of various channels through which customers interact with a brand, ensuring a cohesive and consistent experience. whether your customers prefer shopping for clothes online or in a physical store, understanding and integrating their preferences across various touchpoints is key. By doing so, you can create a seamless omnichannel experience that not only attracts but also retains customers, ensuring the sustained success of your brand.
There are different types of Omnichannel customer journeys. Lets deep dive to know more about it.
In today’s digital age, the customer journey can be entirely virtual, requiring no human interaction. This fully digital journey begins when potential customers become aware of a brand’s offerings through a targeted medium, such as social media channels, online ads, or email campaigns. Intrigued by what they see, they navigate to the brand’s website, browse through categories, read product descriptions, and view high-quality images or videos. Advanced search functionalities, filters, and personalized recommendations enhance the omnichannel shopping experience, making it easier for them to find exactly what they’re looking for.
The customer relationship doesn’t end with the sale. Post-purchase engagement is also crucial for maintaining a strong connection with the brand. This is achieved through interactions on the brand’s app or website, where customers can manage their orders, initiate returns, or address any complaints digitally. A robust digital infrastructure ensures that these processes are smooth and hassle-free, enhancing customer satisfaction.
The combination of digital and physical interactions creates a seamless customer journey that leverages the strengths of omnichannel marketing customer experience both online and offline channels. This approach allows customers to interact with a brand in the way that best suits their needs and preferences, enhancing their overall experience.
Imagine a customer who starts his journey by browsing an online store for dresses. She might explore the website, use virtual try-on tools, and read reviews. However, she may prefer to visit a physical store to feel the fabric and ensure a perfect fit. After making a purchase in-store, the customer can still engage digitally by accessing her purchase history, managing returns, and using loyalty points through the brand’s app or website.
Integrating digital channels with virtual assistant interactions creates a seamless and efficient customer journey that leverages the strengths of both technologies. This approach allows customers to access information and support in the way that best suits their needs, enhancing their overall experience.
This type of omnichannel customer journey became popular in the post-pandemic era, as consumers increasingly sought assistance through helplines, video calls, live chat or phone calls to make purchasing decisions.
In Latin, the term “Omni” means all. However, this doesn’t imply that you must use every possible channel to deliver an optimized omnichannel CX. Omnichannel experience encompasses a wide range of channels, including:
There are some obvious differences between customer engagement strategies. According to HubSpot, “All omni-channel experiences will use multiple channels, but not all multi-channel experiences are omni-channel.”
The key difference is that omnichannel businesses streamline all customer interactions under a single platform. It means the planning, purchasing, marketing, customer relationship management seamlessly affect all your online and offline channels.
On the other hand, in the multi channel customer care approach, every channel is treated individually and is managed in a unique manner by implementing different strategies. Thus, a multichannel customer care strategy does not focus on creating a consistent shopping experience.
Comparing omnichannel vs multichannel based on the customer experience statistics helps to understand how you can integrate the touchpoints together to provide a consistent experience of a unified journey.
In order to build a digital omnichannel customer experience, there are different strategies. By implementing the strategies rightly, you get rid of siloed engagements and deliver a better experience. Businesses who make omnichannel customer service as their focal point are able to boost customer satisfaction and retention significantly.
Let us discuss the different ways comprehensively.
Businesses who lack a solid customer experience (CX) strategy based on deep customer insights complain that they don’t understand their customers. Alternatively, those who develop omni channel CX plans grounded in a survey, demographic, and behavioral data have much better outcomes.
More and more companies exceed revenue and lead goals have documented personas. Customer personas provide tremendous value to your business by representing different segments that make up your target audience. Using data-driven research is the key to understanding who is your target audience and what motivates them to purchase your products and services.
The most crucial element of a persona’s influence is an improvement to customer experiences. The use of a well-constructed persona results in more effective marketing and sales.
Here is how omnichannel integration helps in creating buyers to deliver a better customer experience:
Always remember the old retail adage: “Customers remember the service a lot longer than they remember the price.” – Lauren Freedman
Identifying your customer touchpoints enables you to have a better understanding of what your customers are feeling at each stage of their buying process with your company and through different mediums and channels.
It gives you insights into what customers expect and how you can exceed those expectations in order to create “WOW Moments”. Once you have identified key points where your customers connect with you, you will be better placed to create enhanced experiences for them and devise effective marketing strategies.
How identifying touchpoints help to improve omnichannel consumer experience:
A customer journey map is a tool that tells the story of a customer’s experience of interacting with your brand. A typical customer journey map begins with the first exposure that the customer has with your brand or product and follows their engagement through to the point of sale and beyond.
Developing a customer journey strategy begins with mapping the steps the consumer takes on the route to purchase. This mapping process can be complex as customers engage with touchpoints across multiple channels. Increasing the use of mobile and social has also multiplied the number and frequency of contacts during a typical journey.
Applying the customer experience statistics and analytics to the customer journey map can help your business better understand customer interactions and bridge the gap between devices and channels for a unified and satisfying omnichannel consumer experience.
It is not possible to deliver seamless experiences across diverse touchpoints without the right technology to enable it. Building the right technology stack to deliver a seamless experience across channels is important to achieving success with omnichannel customer engagement.
From a customer being able to switch between your mobile app and a chat with a bot smoothly, businesses need to use the right digital tools & technology that allows data flow at ease in real-time, to serve customers on their preferred touchpoints.
Key tools that can be used to enhance omnichannel customer experience at different touchpoints.
By using digital tools and customer engagement strategies, provide real-time response, and effective solutions. You can strengthen your relationship with existing customers and increase brand loyalty.
Customer feedback is a blessing in disguise for businesses as it brings in golden opportunities that can help you to improve the omnichannel customer journey. Delivering superior service means delivering real time support by being where your customers are and giving them an easy way to share feedback.
Omni channel customer service approach allows brands to engage with customers through every channel and capture feedback at every customer touchpoint. The different ways to ask for customer feedback are website, social media, emails, in-app, reviews, etc.
Here is how analyzing customer feedback can improve the omni channel CX.
One vital aspect of omnichannel customer experience management is the right balance of automation, and human understanding: Customers expect brands to understand them with intelligent technology along with authentic and empathetic human experiences.
Choosing the right approach needs a deep understanding of using live chat vs chatbot by learning the pros and cons of both channels. The balanced support approach manages the resources on priority tasks. You can use chatbots at the primary stage and put human support for complex conversations.
Designing both into the overall customer service experience design helps maintain the appropriate balance, which can become a real differentiator for the brand. Knowing when a conversation needs to move from a bot to a human, for example, knowing when to appease an angry customer with an apology versus an offer, and so on. is how the balance manifests.
Identifying the gaps in fragmented experiences is a vital part of improving omnichannel customer experience. Delivering better CX is always work in progress and as customer habits keep evolving, so should be the experience brands aim to deliver.
Earlier, the concept of providing customer service over social media didn’t exist. And today, it is one of the major platforms to provide immediate assistance to customers while also scoring brownie points in full view of the entire customer community.
Measuring the gaps provides you insights into what actually your customers are looking for and takes the right steps of improvement to deliver a better omnichannel customer experience.
Pro tip: Keep an eye out for any data gaps between various channels, as that may force customers to refer to different sources or channels for one purpose, making them lose time, causing inconvenience, and ultimately spoiling their overall experience.
Businesses are recognizing the benefits of self-service portals for improving the overall brand experience. As customers want instant answers to their questions or problems. In fact, response time is the most important attribute of the customer experience.
Self-service portals provide customers with instant access to information and save valuable time and business resources. You can create a content hub in the form of tutorials, manuals, videos to help customers to solve their problems on their own. Here are the key benefits of self-service portals:
At its core, omnichannel customer experience (CX) refers to brands that have the approach to deliver an integrated shopping experience. The customer has a seamless experience of an easy transition from shopping online on a desktop or mobile device, to the phone, or a brick-and-mortar store. Omni integration fosters a greater sense of familiarity with the brand, which impacts positive brand image and retention rates.
Here are two examples of omnichannel integration and innovation in the way to deliver a great consumer experience.
Crate & Barrel understood the fact that usually consumers switch through several different devices prior to completing purchases. They moved to omnichannel settings to capitalize on the customer behavior of the toggling to devices.
Whenever a customer is logged into their account, the app saves their shopping cart and browsing data so they can access this information across multiple devices. It helped customers to take up where they left off in the shopping process which greatly reduces the shopping cart abandonment rate, and Crate & Barrel has reaped great returns and delivered a great omni channel shopping experience.
Achievements
Oasis, a highly acclaimed UK based fashion retail brand operates online as well as physical stores globally. It was really impressive that they integrated both online and offline stores together to provide an all-round omnichannel retail shopping experience to its customers.
The store realized the core part of moving to an omnichannel customer care approach was to:
And their touchpoints were not just the stand-alone sales or support channels. They integrate with each other to bring a more unified experience.
Key learnings:
Chipotle Mexican Grill is a popular fast-casual restaurant chain known for its focus on fresh ingredients and customizable menu options. Chipotle excels at creating a seamless customer experience through various channels. Their online platform and mobile app make ordering easy, allowing you to place an order from anywhere and have it ready for pickup when you arrive. If you sign up for an account, you can save your favorite orders, making the process even quicker and more convenient.
Key Learning:
Starbucks is famous for its premium coffee drinks, beverages, a variety of other drinks and quick meals. Starbucks has developed an omnichannel experience that not only builds strong connections with customers but also encourages them to return for more. Their popular mobile app allows customers to place orders, pay and select a physical store for pickup. The app also provides access to special offers and promotions, allowing customers to earn points that can be redeemed for free drinks.
Starbucks has also partnered with Spotify to create a unique “music ecosystem.” This feature lets Spotify Premium subscribers use the Starbucks app to discover and enjoy the music playing in-store, whether they are at a Starbucks location or not.
Key Learnings:
Omnichannel isn’t just about integrating all your customer touchpoints to run marketing campaigns; it’s about ensuring that all your customer communication platforms are seamlessly connected, delivering consistent information across all channels. To provide the best omnichannel customer experience, here are some tactics to follow:
Whether through social media, mobile apps, website or physical stores, customers are always interacting with brands. By offering more interactive experiences, brands can increase their visibility too, drive revenue, and foster a loyal customer base. You can engage with them in multiple ways like launching loyalty programs, arranging various social media contests, etc. Trust me, the more you engage with them the more they will get connected to your brand.
Pro Tips:
Research indicates that almost 84% of customers use their phones while shopping in physical stores. Now you can understand the importance of mobile devices in their shopping journey. If your communication platforms aren’t mobile-optimized, you are at risk of losing engagement and potential sales.
Pro Tips:
Understand how your marketing content fits into the omnichannel customer journey. Analyzing your content helps determine which types—informative, educational, or engaging—are most effective in different contexts. Informative content is especially crucial, as it provides essential details related to business contact information. When conducting your analysis, make sure that all informational content is accurate and up-to-date.
Pro Tips:
You may have adopted omnichannel strategies to better serve your customers, but the key to making them feel valued and satisfied still lies in providing excellent customer service. Omnichannel efforts streamline customer service by giving you a unified view of all interactions in one place. This means your agents don’t need to ask customers for background information—they can see everything from past interactions to the entire buying journey in real-time, enabling them to deliver personalized service.
Pro Tips:
You might be providing a seamless omnichannel experience for your customers, allowing them to easily communicate with you across multiple platforms. However, it’s equally important that your team can connect with customers in the same effortless way. This means that all communication touchpoints should be integrated, giving your team centralized access to all customer information. With an omnichannel interface, your team should be able to manage interactions efficiently and provide a more cohesive service experience.
Pro Tips:
Many customers start their shopping journey by searching for products online, and exploring different retailer websites and marketplaces. Some may even visit the physical stores to get a closer look at the products. Companies need to ensure that the transition between online and offline experiences is smooth and effortless.
Whether customers choose to buy online or in-store, you need to have the right information to serve them effectively and ensure consistent messaging across all channels. Providing options like Buy Online, Pickup In-Store (BOPIS) can also enhance their experience, allowing them to shop online and conveniently pick up their orders at a nearby store.
Pro Tips:
Omni-channel marketing platforms are comprehensive solutions that integrate various marketing channels to provide a seamless and cohesive customer experience across multiple touchpoints. These platforms are designed to help businesses manage, analyze, and optimize their marketing efforts across various channels such as email, social media, mobile apps, websites, physical stores, and more.
There are many omnichannel CX platforms available in the market to choose from. Here are my top 3 recommendations.
REVE Chat is a leading AI-driven omnichannel customer engagement platform that facilitates real-time interactions with your customers via live chat on your website, mobile app, and popular platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber, Instagram, and Telegram. Its AI chatbot automates various business operations, including 24/7 customer service.
If you’re a business owner looking to enhance your omnichannel experience or streamline your support process, choosing REVE Chat is a smart decision. This investment can enhance customer service, generate leads, and increase sales.
REVE Chat offers a 14-day free trial to explore all its unique features. Want to experience it firsthand? SIGN UP today.
Core Features:
HubSpot CRM is a comprehensive AI enabled marketing platform designed to help businesses of all sizes manage their customer interactions and streamline their sales processes. It includes six hubs: Marketing Hub, Customer Service Hub, Commerce Hub, CMS Hub, Sales Hub and Operations Hub, each equipped with robust features designed to help your business grow.
Core Features:
ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one marketing automation and CRM platform designed to help businesses engage with their customers and streamline their marketing and sales efforts. It combines powerful email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM tools to help you offer the best omnichannel CX.
ActiveCampaign works like building blocks – you can mix and match different tools, apps, and channels to make the perfect marketing setup for your business. So, you can combine email, social media, and other tools in a single platform to reach customers wherever they are.
Core Features:
Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) is a powerful omnichannel online shopping platform that helps businesses create smooth and engaging shopping experiences. With SFCC, you can easily manage new leads, customers, and sales opportunities through an intuitive dashboard. It is part of Salesforce’s range of customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
Core Features:
Intercom is a versatile customer messaging platform that helps businesses improve customer engagement, support efficiency, and overall communication strategies. Its range of features, from live chat to automated messaging and analytics, makes it a valuable tool for businesses looking to enhance their customer interaction and support capabilities.
Core Features:
Many companies, whether eCommerce or retail, often fail across digital channels because they are not completely aware of the exact needs and preferences of their customers across omnichannel journeys. And today’s customers have an unprecedented number of ways to engage with companies, from traditional channels to an ever-growing array of digital modes.
Hence, businesses need to get started by investing in digital channels along with the existing traditional channels to deliver an omnichannel customer experience. The thinking is that as customers become more technologically savvy, they favor digital channels, significantly reducing the need for live agents and thus saving significant costs.
So, how to improve the omnichannel experience for your customers? Here are some tips for you!
An omnichannel transformation is the only way for retail or eCommerce businesses to address the rising complexity, provide an excellent customer experience, and manage operations costs.
Omnichannel CX makes communication smooth across multiple channels to help customers improve their experience. Customers are viewed as the ones in power, telling businesses what they need rather than being told by businesses they need for their product or service. Great customer experience management focuses on personalizing every customer experience and keeping customer retention high.
When customer satisfaction improves, word spreads quickly between friends, family, and social media, encouraging other people who never knew of these possibilities to reach out to your business.
A successful omnichannel customer experience provides seamless interaction across all the communication platforms customers use to engage with the brand. Communication should be consistent at every touchpoint, and the company should efficiently manage all interactions from a centralized system.
Effective omnichannel communication should be:
Businesses can measure the success of their omnichannel strategy through key performance indicators (KPIs) such as
Customers often use websites, mobile apps, social media, email, live chat, and retail stores to connect with a brand. Therefore, companies should integrate these channels to provide consistent omnichannel services.
REVE Chat is an omnichannel customer engagement platform that offers live chat and AI automation to its customers. It integrates multiple communication platforms, including websites, mobile apps, and social media channels like Facebook, Viber, Instagram, Telegram, and WhatsApp, ensuring consistent messaging throughout.
Customers can start a conversation on social media, visit the website, and place an order—all while REVE Chat consolidates all this information in one location, allowing support agents to manage everything from a single dashboard.
Want to give it a try? SIGN UP for its 14-day free trial today.
An omnichannel experience ensures that customers have a smooth journey across all the channels they use to interact with a brand. Whether they engage through a website, mobile app, social media, email, or in-store, the experience should be consistent and interconnected. Businesses that provide such an experience consistently stay ahead of the competition.
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