Omnichannel customer experience is no longer what businesses and brands aspire to have, rather it is becoming a must-have for any business. Because nowadays, customers don’t have just one medium to reach out to brands.
There is a wide range of mediums available to them at the tip of their fingertips, where they can learn about the products and services of any business and have their issues resolved.
Consider this scenario: Let’s say you have subscribed to Xfinity internet services, and you are facing a problem with their internet router. You reach out to Xfinity Twitter handle, and if there is an omnichannel service activated, the Xfinity Twitter handler should be able to locate your accounts detail and respond accordingly.
If you have communicated your issue with one rep from the Xfinity customer service, then another customer service rep should be aware of your issue as well. That is the beauty of having an omnichannel system; it saves time, trouble, and effort and provides an enhanced customer experience.
Omnichannel Customer Experience
Narrowing it down from the above-given examples, omnichannel customer experience is when any business aims to advertise, sell and support the prospects and their customers through multiple channels and treat each of these channels as a whole. It allows customers to initiate communication with one channel and continue it onto another channel.
Examples of Omnichannel Customer Experience
Many brands have already adopted the omnichannel process to provide an enhanced customer experience.
Take an example of Oasis, which is a UK fashion retailer, which has fused together its online website, mobile app, and physical store into a shopping experience conveniently designed for customers.
If you walk into any of its stores, you will come across sales associates providing you with an iPad on spot, containing up-to-date information. You can place your order and make payment through the same device. If an item is out of stock, you can purchase the item anyway so that when it is available, it will be delivered to your store.
Another example can be taken from Chipotle, which is an American chain of food restaurants. To deal with the frustration of placing an order for food online and not having it by the time you arrive, Chipotle decided to change that through their omnichannel method. You can use their online system or mobile ordering app to make use of the seamless and quick experience. You can save your favorite food and place an order for it to have it ready by the time you arrive to collect it.
Omnichannel experiences are all about making it convenient for the customers.
Benefits of Omnichannel Customer Experience
The omnichannel customer experience positively impacts the quality of customer experiences and improves customer engagement. It brings about several benefits which will be discussed below;
- More Choices. Customers can expect a frictionless experience with their brands when they have multiple channels to opt for. As a result, it is the most convenient option for them while still maintaining their own relevance with the brands.
- Customer Retention and Revenue. A report from Harvard Business Review reported that customers who use more channels to communicate with the brands were found to spend 4% more in physical stores and 10% online. This just goes to show that customers using various channels have a much higher purchasing frequency than those who communicated through one channel only.
- Wider Audience. Customers have their own preference of channels to communicate through to their favorite brands. Hence, the more options there are of channels to communicate through, the greater number of potential customers will be attracted.
- Data Collection. Omnichannel customer experience also provides impressionable data, that can be used to gain understanding and insight into customers’ behavior to work on improving businesses’ offerings.
Omnichannel and Multichannel Customer Experience
Many brands use multiple for doing their sales and providing their support but that doesn’t mean providing an omnichannel experience. A business might have multiple channels such as a Facebook page, brick-and-mortar source, website, etc. but these channels could be operated independently and not in a unified manner. This is just a multichannel customer experience.
In an omnichannel customer experience, all of these channels will be integrated into one and knitted together.
Final Thoughts
Every business and brand must have its unique omnichannel experience methods to provide an aligned and coherent customer experience across multiple platforms. Information technology has come a long way, and it doesn’t matter whether a business is small or big, they both need to apply omnichannel methods to provide engaging experiences to their customers.
