What is the omnichannel customer experience?

Ever find yourself in a retail store, peering at your reflection in a jacket, then whipping out your phone to see if you can snag it for a better price online? That is omnichannel customer experience in action. We're living in a world where brick-and-mortar meets click-and-order, creating a seamless shopping experience faster than you can say "I’ll take it."

In this article, we'll explore how omnichannel customer service  can help businesses and customers alike, we'll take a look at the differences between omnichannel and multichannel, and we'll take a look at how to create an omnichannel experience worthy of your business. But first, what even is omnichannel customer experience?

What actually is the omnichannel customer experience?

Omnichannel customer experience (CX) is a term used to describe the approach companies take to provide customers with a unified and seamless shopping journey across all channels or touchpoints. It's an important area of focus in modern customer service, because it recognizes that customers are increasingly using multiple devices and channels to make their purchasing decisions.

Unlike omnichannel customer service, which focuses on addressing customer inquiries and complaints, omnichannel CX looks at how customers interact with a company from the moment they discover a product to the post-purchase follow-up. It involves optimizing digital experiences across multiple channels, including websites, mobile apps, social media accounts, stores, and more. In short, omnichannel customer service is part of the omnichannel customer experience.

An important part of creating an effective omnichannel CX is understanding customers' behaviors and preferences across each of these channels. For example, a more and more common situation is that a customer may prefer browsing through products on an app but purchasing items in-store, or they might get their questions answered via social media before reaching out to customer service representatives. By taking the time to understand how customers interact with your brand, you can better create an omnichannel experience that's tailored to their needs.

In addition, it's important to ensure that all parts of the customer journey are connected and consistent. This means that customers should have access to the same content, product selections, checkout process, and other elements across each channel. By making sure all channels are interconnected, you can create an integrated experience that your customers will thank you for.

What are the benefits of creating omnichannel CX?

Creating an omnichannel customer experience can greatly benefit businesses of all sizes. With this approach, companies can build better relationships with their customers by offering them seamless experiences no matter which channels they use.

Using an omnichannel CX strategy can help businesses provide customers with a personalized experience that is tailored to their needs and preferences. Companies can also use this approach to gain useful insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can be used to develop more effective marketing strategies. Additionally, having an omnichannel presence allows companies to reach out to newer audiences by making their products and services more accessible to them.

Overall, an omnichannel customer experience approach can help businesses improve customer satisfaction, build better relationships with customers, gather meaningful insights into customer behavior, optimize marketing strategies, and reach new markets. Companies that successfully implement this strategy are sure to reap long-term benefits in terms of growth and profitability. Therefore, it is important for businesses to invest in creating an omnichannel customer experience.

By providing customers with a seamless and consistent shopping experience across all channels, businesses can ensure that their customers have the best possible experience when interacting with them. This in turn will help businesses build strong relationships with their customers while increasing loyalty and trust. 

Omnichannel vs multichannel.

Having a multichannel customer experience is not bad, but it's not that good either. While having a multitude of different channels and touchpoints sounds great, and it's the thing that the two approaches share, the key is how you connect them. That's where omnichannel comes in. With an omnichannel customer experience, you're able to provide a unified and consistent experience that people know and love across all channels.

Omnichannel CX is about more than just having the same message everywhere; it's about creating meaningful interactions with customers on each channel they use while also providing them with a holistic view of their entire customer journey. This could include keeping track of customers' preferences, support requests, purchase history, and more. It allows you to provide a personalized experience that's tailored to each individual user's needs and interests.

Omnichannel CX also enables companies to be more agile in responding quickly and effectively to customer inquiries while also providing them with the convenience of being able to access any information they need at any time. In addition, it encourages customers to return and remain loyal by providing a consistent experience that meets their needs.

In short, if you're looking for an effective way to streamline your customer experience and provide a unified customer journey, then omnichannel CX is definitely the way to go.

How to create a good omnichannel customer experience?

Creating an excellent omnichannel customer experience is essential for businesses in today’s digital-first world. With the help of technology, companies can build an engaging and seamless experience across multiple channels. By understanding how customers interact with your brand, whether it be via mobile app, website, or physical store location, you can create a tailored journey that caters to their needs and expectations. In this section, we’ll explore how businesses can create a good omnichannel CX by analyzing customer behavior, leveraging technology, and investing in training initiatives.

Identify preferred channels and touchpoints.

By understanding which channels and touchpoints customers prefer, businesses can establish more effective communication and increase customer satisfaction with their omnichannel CX. Customers today demand personalized experiences that are tailored to their needs - for example, a customer might prefer using an app to communicate with a company instead of calling them on the phone. Knowing this information helps companies provide customized experiences to each customer depending on their channel preferences, and allows them to deliver a better omnichannel CX.

Knowing your customers' preferred channels isn't only important to them, it's also important to you. Having all channels readily available sounds like the easiest solution to the problem, but it can be pretty costly. The thing you need to think about here is your ROI. If a channel is used by a very small number of customers then there is no point in having it. That's why you shouldn't just go in blind but actually try and figure out which channels and touchpoints work for both you and the customer.

At the same time, it is important to recognize that customer preferences can change over time. Keeping an eye on which channels are being used more often by customers helps businesses stay up-to-date with the changing trends and make sure they are providing the best possible omnichannel customer experience.

Use bots and automation.

Sometimes having a good website and great customer service just isn't enough. That's why bots and automation are an essential part of creating a great omnichannel customer experience. 

Automation helps to streamline communication between customers and businesses, making it easier for customers to get the help they need quickly. It also allows companies to provide consistent service across all channels, ensuring that customers can reach out in their preferred way and receive the same level of service regardless of the channel. It also allows for a lot of cost-saving measures to be applied. 

Using bots is an important part of creating a great omnichannel customer experience. They can increase FCR and reduce AHT by helping customers with simple questions and queries. Even if they aren’t able to help, chatbots and automation can create better routing and direct the customer to the right agent.

Use consistent messaging.

Consistent messaging across touchpoints is essential for providing a great omnichannel customer experience. When customers interact with your brand through different channels, having unified branding, language, and visuals helps them recognize and trust your business. This builds loyalty and encourages customers to keep coming back.

A consistent message throughout all of these channels also allows your customer service team to provide a more seamless experience and respond to customer inquiries faster. By having a centralized system that tracks customers’ previous interactions, customer service reps can quickly access past conversations and provide personalized responses. This helps create a smoother, more unified omnichannel CX for your customers.

The important thing to remember is that unified and consistent messaging does not mean copying and pasting boilerplate answers across all channels and touchpoints. That shows a clear lack of effort on your part and can take away from the experience.

Map your customer journey.

By taking the time to map out exactly how customers move through different channels and touchpoints, you can identify opportunities for improvement at each touchpoint. With a thorough understanding of your customer's journeys, you can make changes that give them a consistent, seamless experience across all channels. 

By mapping out the customer journey and making sure that each touchpoint is optimized for an omnichannel experience, you can create a truly memorable customer experience. After all, customers will remember being given prompt and helpful service throughout their entire journey - something no single channel alone can provide.

Ask for customers’ opinions.

Asking for customer opinions is an invaluable part of building a successful omnichannel CX. By gathering feedback and insights about your customers’ experiences you are able to identify areas where you can improve or reinforce the customer experience throughout their journey with your brand. 

Moreover, when customers know that their input has been heard and taken into consideration, they will feel more valued and connected to your business. 

The omnichannel experience is composed of all the touchpoints that a customer has with your brand, from online shopping to in-store visits. Knowing how each one of these experiences makes customers feel is important for businesses because it allows them to adjust their strategies to best meet customer needs and expectations. 

Create frictionless customer support.

A great customer support operation is also essential to the success of an omnichannel customer experience. It should be available in a variety of forms, such as self-service options, telephone lines, and live chat. This helps to ensure that customers receive the help they need quickly and conveniently.

By providing customers with consistent and high-quality service across all touchpoints, companies can improve their overall customer satisfaction. This allows them to build brand loyalty and trust, which in turn leads to more sales and higher profits. To ensure that customers have the best possible experience with your company, it is important to provide an omnichannel customer experience that incorporates many different touchpoints. 

By leveraging the latest technology like Transcom’s Automated Translation and integrating these various touchpoints into a unified platform, businesses can deliver an exceptional omnichannel customer experience that will impress their customers and keep them coming back for more.