When it comes to customer experience strategies, multichannel and omnichannel approaches have very similar intentions, but it is the execution that sets the two apart.
Both strategies aim towards excellent customer care and service, but it is the omnichannel experience that provides the best option for customers. It offers benefits to the company’s brand not only in the form of customer service brownie points, but also through a more penetrative brand message, thanks to its consistency.
If They’re So Similar, Why Does It Matter?
Companies with a well-defined omnichannel strategy have been found to achieve an average of 91% higher customer retention year on year. When utilised correctly, an omnichannel experience offers the closest thing to a perfect customer experience. That’s not to say that a multichannel approach isn’t better than just having a website and waiting for customers to fall into it, but if you’re going for gold, you’re going for omnichannel.
What’s The Difference?
A multichannel strategy is often used to describe companies that use two or more channels to engage with customers. Unfortunately, multichannel experiences tend to not factor in customer experience across devices, and there is little focus on delivering consistent messages.
While multichannel approaches allow customers to engage with a brand on different platforms, they do not offer a seamless experience. For example, you may be able to read about a company selling mannequins on their social feed, but you may not be able to click a link on the post that takes you through to the right place on the website. Or even worse, you may be able to click a link, but when you get there, you realise that it is not mobile-optimised, so you can’t view the product anyway!
Omnichannel strategies focus on integrating communications fully. A customer should be able to engage with the brand on the device and platform of their choosing, at the time of their choosing, without experiencing any difference in interaction with the brand. So, the challenge for an omnichannel strategy is to facilitate customer access to a company’s services and goods across offline and online mediums, as well as offering it throughout the day (and night).
Of course, this is often blue-sky thinking — particularly for smaller businesses that can’t afford to have channels manned 24 hours a day and to maintain 6 billion different platforms. But, if a business consistently strives towards offering this level of service, the service will improve — and if done properly, the benefit will be felt on the bottom line.
An industry that has really had to move towards this strategy quickly is retail. If customers don’t find what they want in-store, they jump online. Or, if they have had a good (or bad!) experience, they are likely to go onto social media and expect an i mmediate response. If customers don’t get the answers they want right away, they leave.
What’s worse is the lasting impact this has on the brand. It’s not even just the comments of “last time I went to MannequinsRUS I didn’t like it, so I’ll try somewhere else”; it’s more than that. It’s a tweet to 2,000 followers or a post to 500 Facebook friends that warns them of the terrible experience. There can even be a situation where a post about an awful product or service goes viral; the stuff of nightmares for marketers. If you’re not on top of all of your touch points, don’t expect things to be plain sailing, or to retain as many customers as you could.
So, What Do I Do About It?
1) Don’t expect to get it all right, all the time
But, of course, plan to. Outline the channels and touchpoints that you have now. Do they all work across all devices? If you were a customer and decided to browse on your phone one day and your desktop the next, would you get the same quality of experience? Would you be able to find everything you needed? If you haven’t addressed this yet, you really need to. This isn’t only an important factor for Google’s rankings, but also for your customers!
I know you want to show me all the wonderful things you do, but if you’re not optimised and I can’t read the text or see the images on my phone, I’m afraid I’m going to browse through the other search engine results!
2) Think about what you can add to make it easier for customers
For example, if you employ staff that sit in your office all day, why not add a chat function on your website? After all, a successful omnichannel strategy makes it easier for your customers to interact with you. If you’re an eCommerce business, it can be particularly useful to add a chat function. Many people are doing something else while they surf, so they might not want to call you or to open the email app. They want the answer now and you want to give them it now, while they have their money ready. Replying to an email within 24 hours means they have probably looked elsewhere or decided that perhaps they’ll buy it another day.
Are your social media accounts manned? If someone tweets you a question, will there be someone to answer it? Can they text you? Can you text them?! Many companies text their customers with a live update. For example, if your taxi is on its way, many firms send you a text (or even an app notification) and it’s really helpful!
3) If you believe in your business, you’ll find a way to shout about it
If you love your product, or think that you provide a great service or help your customers solve a problem, you’ll do two things. Firstly, you’ll make sure that your customers can find you. Secondly, no matter where they look for you and wherever they find you, you’ll make sure your messages are clear and consistent.
If you’re advertising yourself as a visual merchandiser on Facebook and your website says you provide retail supplies, customers will click through from your Facebook account and bounce right off again — all because you have confused them. It’s fine to offer both services, but make it clear on all of your channels and make sure you have a great website layout and excellent landing pages.
4) Be consistent, but also be savvy
Your messages should be consistent, but they should also be suitable for the platform they’re on. For example, it is common to see companies using social media publishing tools to post across several social sites. Often, this is done with little consideration to the social platform’s ‘personality’ . This results in Facebook posts with the inclusion of hashtags, or memes on LinkedIn.
If your customer has chosen a particular platform to deal with you on, they have chosen the way they want to interact with you. It’s just like picking up on the tone of a conversation; stay on brand, but adjust to them. Offer them the opportunity to interact on a different platform, but try to avoid forcing them.
5) Integrate!
Your platforms shouldn’t just be offered in tandem; they should feed from each other too. Invite your Facebook followers to join you on Twitter and your email contacts to join you on LinkedIn. You want to be so helpful and useful that your customers will never want to let you go.
—————————– Author Bio
Ali Newton is the Marketing Executive for The Display Centre, where a team of creative experts provide shop fittings and display equipment, including bespoke items. Ali combines her fine art and fashion qualifications with her market research experience and psychology degree to help retailers drive their sales.
