Omni-channel represents the future of excellent customer service and engagement.
At a time when experience stands out as the only reliable way for a business to differentiate from its competition, omni-channel solutions ensure that you can connect with clients where they are. Remember, around 98% of Americans switch between devices various times per day.
Businesses capable of adopting omni-channel strategies can achieve up to 91% greater year-over-year retention rates for their customers. Any business that stays glued to a single-channel contact centre environment today could be missing out on incredible interactions with customers.
So, how do you migrate to a more comprehensive CX strategy?
Step 1: Understanding Omni-channel
First, it’s important to understand what omni-channel customer experience means. Going omni-channel doesn’t mean that you just add extra avenues for customer conversations to your technology stack. Bolting SMS and web-based messaging onto your contact centre strategy is great, but it doesn’t provide your customers with a seamless experience.
Unlike multi-channel environments, where businesses use various separate tools to connect with clients on different platforms, omni-channel is all about an aligned journey. Remember, 35% of customers already expect to be able to contact the same customer service rep on any channel they choose. For your contact centre to be truly omni-channel, every part of the journey should be connected.
Your omni-channel environment needs a backend environment for employees where they can track customer journeys and gather information about a client to deliver a more relevant and personalised experience. When 89% of customers get frustrated repeating their issues to multiple agents, context is crucial.
Step 2: Know Your Customer Journey
Not so long ago, there were only a handful of brand and consumer touchpoints that would affect the customer journey. Today, most customers use an average of around 6 touchpoints when purchasing from a company. More than 50% of customers say they extensively use more than 4 channels.
Creating a seamless customer experience through omni-channel means knowing which touchpoints your clients are most likely to use. You should be able to get an idea of which communication channels your customers prefer with client surveys, polls, and conversations with your marketing and sales team.
As you implement these new communication channels, pay close attention to any metrics that might help you to progress in the future. For instance, what’s the CSAT score of a customer completing a conversation through web chat, compared to their satisfaction on the phone?
Pay attention to friction points in the customer journey too. For instance, can you use virtual assistants and intelligent routing to send a customer to the right agent first-time, and reduce the number of jumps between employees?
Step 3: Prioritise Alignment
An effective omni-channel contact centre needs to be connected throughout the whole company. A comprehensive back-end environment that gives your agents a single pane of glass for dealing with all client concerns and queries is essential. That environment should be easy to use, brimming with useful reporting features, and capable of valuable integrations.