The Key to Offering Customer-Centric Experiences Across All Channels

We live in a fast-paced society where consumers are often short on time, which means that they have very little of it to spend interacting with your brand — the smallest mistakes can lose consumers’ interest fast.

To provide your customers with an outstanding experience, you need to find ways to seamlessly capture as much of their attention as possible, and then make the most of it. This means finding ways to connect with them via all channels – taking an omnichannel approach to customer interaction.

Why Omnichannel?

In today’s competitive marketplace, customers expect omnichannel and multichannel experiences. While many companies are delivering a multichannel experience, few have achieved a true omnichannel customer experience. As more aspects of our lives have gone digital — particularly as a result of the pandemic — customers have come to expect seamless ease of interaction with your business, no matter the channel. This ability to move from channel to channel without needing to restart the experience is key to delivering valuable experiences that foster customer loyalty.

Businesses are taking this shift in customer expectations seriously, and for good reason. 9 out of 10 consumers want an omnichannel experience with seamless service between communication methods, according to UC Today.

How Can You Create an Exceptional Customer-Centric Experience?

To build a successful omnichannel customer experience, you should start by mapping your customer journey. Think about the following questions:

• What are the most frequent ways your customers interact with you?
• Are there areas where you need to add communication touchpoints along the journey?
• Which aspects of your business might your customers come in contact with?

Answering these questions will be a crucial step toward identifying every customer touchpoint, no matter how big or small, so you can work toward providing a more connected customer experience. Branding, service level, and messaging should be consistent across every step of your omnichannel customer journey, from marketing and sales to delivery and client support. By ensuring all of these touchpoints are interconnected, you can ensure exceptional and memorable customer interactions.

To create a winning omnichannel customer experience, you need a plan for each channel, informed by customer habits and preferences. Consider the following:

• What requirements do customers typically have when they engage via a certain channel?
• What channels do your customers prefer for various tasks?
• How much time are your customers spending on each channel?
• How long does it usually take your team to assist your customers on each channel?

In addition to customer preferences, consider channel appropriateness. How will you optimize each channel and ensure you are delivering a frictionless experience per channel? Not every channel is well suited for different customer needs. For example, if a consumer thinks their identity has been stolen, they don’t necessarily want to be inundated with a bunch of channels. Instead, they want to speak to a representative immediately.

If you have any doubt about the types of service and support your customers would prefer to receive via a particular channel, analyze the data available to you. Digital analytics, customer interviews, data within your CRM, and surveys are all great tools for gathering the data you need to start optimizing. The more data you can get your hands on, the closer you will get to delivering outstanding customer-centric experiences.

Finally, in order to deliver a truly stellar omnichannel customer experience, you also need to pay attention to what’s going on outside your organization. Is there something in the news cycle that’s relevant to your product or service? What are people saying about your brand vs. your competitors on social media?

What Impact Can an Omnichannel Customer Experience Have On Your Organization?

Taking the time to evaluate and consider the aspects of the omnichannel customer journey that I’ve laid out here is paramount in building a more connected, customer-centric experience. A 360-degree understanding of your customers will make all the difference.

For example, when we helped Chipotle improve their access to customer data, they were able to merge 400 million records — which uncovered a number of lucrative cross-sell opportunities. As a result, the company is now projecting a growth of $280 million in annual sales revenue.

We can help your organization achieve similar proportional growth as Chipotle. By building a holistic experience that is hyper-focused on the needs of your customers, we’ll help you unlock revenue potential that you didn’t even know you had.

For more than 45 years, Avtex has been focused on helping businesses increase sales and retention volumes by making their interactions with their customers more memorable, frictionless, and personal than ever before. With an omnichannel customer experience, you’re better equipped to offer exceptional service and improve your customer relationships.