Omnichannel customer communication has become one of the defining priorities for organizations looking to improve customer experience, increase operational efficiency and unlock new revenue opportunities. Businesses understand that customers expect faster, more relevant and more connected interactions, and that relying on one or two legacy channels is no longer enough.
Yet many are still struggling to turn ambition into operational reality.
MMDSmart's State of Digital Customer Communications survey illustrates the scale of the challenge. While 99 percent of business leaders say omnichannel communication is a strategic priority, only 43 percent of organizations have expanded beyond basic email and SMS channels. That leaves 57 percent still relying on a limited communications mix, even as customer expectations continue to increase.
As Karen Krivaa, Chief Marketing Officer at MMDSmart, told CX Today:
"We're seeing a huge gap between the strategy that's defined by the leaders of organizations in terms of omnichannel communication and the actual execution on the ground.”
The challenge for many enterprises in expanding customer communications lies in the underlying infrastructure supporting those interactions.
Why Omnichannel Strategies Stall
MMDSmart’s survey found that 80 percent of organizations identify a lack of unified omnichannel communication functionality as the primary barrier to expanding into new channels.
"The fact that they don't have the infrastructure and the architecture in place is limiting them from adding the newer channels that their customers want,” Krivaa said. “They're finding themselves in a place where they want to do it, but they can't."
Businesses may want to add WhatsApp, RCS, or other richer messaging channels to communicate in more relevant ways, but the survey findings indicate that the fragmentation and siloed systems that are common across industries continue to prevent them from delivering consistent interactions. “A company will add new systems, new processes, new communication channels, new ways of doing things. And they don't look at the big picture,” Krivaa explained.
"People talk about a single pane of glass. You need to see your customer as a whole customer. The fact that this doesn't exist today in most organizations is the main barrier for omnichannel communications ."
Hesitation to tackle the problem is often driven by outdated assumptions that implementing unified systems is difficult and complex. Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) platforms, which provide cloud-based APIs for integrating voice, messaging, and other communications capabilities into business applications, have helped simplify that process.
"With today's solutions and different types of CPaaS platforms, it really isn't that difficult anymore. And the addition of AI now into the mix where agents can start automating tasks… integrating these unified communication platforms is possible,” Krivaa said.
The strategy exists, but projects can stay trapped in planning if the business does not build the foundations needed to act on it.
Multichannel Is Not Omnichannel
Many enterprises describe themselves as omnichannel businesses because they communicate through email, SMS, WhatsApp or voice, but if those channels do not share customer context, the experience is not genuinely omnichannel.
“Companies talk omnichannel when they're really only doing multi-channel today,” Krivaa said. In practice, they may simply be using multiple channels that do not share context.
Krivaa illustrated the issue with a recent travel experience.
“I was abroad on vacation and had a flight early in the morning. I used the WhatsApp customer service channel test question. And they say, ‘We’ll get back to you with a representative as soon as possible.’ But I wanted to go to sleep, and the flight was the next morning. So I called them.”
After waiting on the phone, Krivaa received an answer. The next morning, the WhatsApp channel responded as if nothing had happened elsewhere.