Customer experience is imperative to business in today’s world as 52% of customers will switch to a competitor if they have a single negative experience.
Because of the internet, there are more ways than ever for customers to interact with businesses. That’s where omnichannel customer experience comes in. It’s all about making sure that no matter how a customer reaches out—whether it’s on the website, through social media, or in person—the experience is seamless and satisfying.
In this blog, learn about omnichannel CX and the importance of creating an omnichannel experience strategy.
What is omnichannel customer experience (CX)?
The omnichannel customer experience involves focusing on and optimizing all customer interactions across various channels. Whether they shop online, visit a store, use a mobile app, or connect on social media, the experience should be smooth and connected.
What is the difference between omnichannel marketing and CX?
Omnichannel marketing and customer experience (CX) are related but different concepts in the business world.
Omnichannel marketing is a customer-centric strategy performed by businesses to reach out to customers on different channels. It aims to maintain consistent brand messaging creating a uniform brand image so that customers have a consistent and smooth journey no matter where they interact with the brand.
On the other hand, Customer experience (CX) is broader and focuses on the overall perception and satisfaction that customers have with a company throughout their entire journey. Customer experience is a sum of experiences that a customer experiences from initial awareness and interaction to post-purchase support and beyond.
What is the importance of omnichannel CX?
An omnichannel experience strategy holds greater significance for any business. Here are some of the reasons:
1. Improved Insight into the Consumer Journey
An omnichannel experience strategy provides businesses with a deeper understanding of how consumers interact with their brands across various touchpoints.
When businesses keep track of customer behavior and preferences across different channels whether it is a website, email, customer support chats, or social media platforms, they get a plethora of valuable data.
This data helps businesses to personalize conversations and offerings for each individual. It also helps in identifying patterns and pain points proactively to provide a positive customer experience.
For example, when creating an omnichannel experience strategy, businesses can easily identify the most effective channels for different stages. You can use social media for product updates, but email for detailed promotional offers and savings. This insight enables companies to optimize their marketing strategies to better meet customer needs and expectations.
Recommended read: How to Create Personalized Customer Experiences at Scale
2. Enhanced Consumer Retention
When a business uses the collected data to optimize interactions and marketing across different channels, it establishes familiarity with its customers. This familiarity becomes helpful for your customers who are expecting a genuine answer to their needs. This is because the business is already familiar with customers’ problems and what they’re looking for, no matter which channel they use to reach out.
An omnichannel experience strategy establishes personal experience that allows consumers to think of your brand as a more reliable option.
For instance, a customer may start browsing products on a company’s website, continue their research on a mobile app, and make a purchase in-store—all without encountering disruptions or inconsistencies. This level of continuity and ease of interaction enhances customer satisfaction and encourages repeat business.
3. Increased CLTV (Consumer Lifetime Value)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total profit a customer generates for a business throughout their relationship. Focusing on an omnichannel experience strategy puts a spotlight on each customer separately. This focus allows customers to associate a positive brand perception and increase customer loyalty.
For example, a positive omnichannel experience can lead to higher average order values, increased frequency of purchases, and reduced churn rates—all of which contribute to maximizing the CLTV.
How to build an omnichannel customer experience strategy?
Here is a step-by-step guide to building an omnichannel experience strategy for your business:
1. Research, strategy, and design
It all begins with deep research. Research your target audience’s preferences and behaviors across different channels like websites, social media, and stores. This will allow you to understand your customer’s demands and pain points and also allows you to predict their upcoming needs with the following pattern.
Based on the gathered data, develop a strategic plan that aligns with your business goals and customer needs. Share this plan with different departments to maintain consistency.
Design value proposition by performing customer data segmentation for creating relevant and seamless experiences across all channels, ensuring that branding and messaging are cohesive and tailored to your audience.
2. Identify touchpoints
Identify touchpoints where customers interact with your brand. These touchpoints could include browsing your website, engaging on social media, or contacting customer support. Understanding these touchpoints helps perform integrated customer journey planning and identify opportunities in omnichannel experience strategy for improvement.
3. Plot the funnel
A marketing funnel maps the customer journey from their point of interaction to making a purchase and loyalty. Plot the funnel by mapping out this customer journey. Optimizing customer touchpoints across channels along the funnel and ensuring a smooth transition between each stage for customers. Optimize the funnel to reduce friction and make it easy for customers to move through their journey.
Recommended read: Complete Guide on Customer Journey Analytics and How to Get Started
4. Use the right technology
AI and automation assist in keeping up with your strategic omnichannel customer engagement. For example, chatbots help cut pressure on agents and attend to your customers 24/7 with automated responses. Right techstack also works in the background. It also helps in social listening, data collection and analysis, and utilization.
5. Study feedback and find gaps
One of the omnichannel experience design best practices is to go through the feedback to find and fix gaps.
Perform surveys, collect reviews, and study customer support interactions to study feedback from customers across all touchpoints. This data will help you build a proactive approach to address any identified gaps and continuously improve the customer journey.
Conclusion
To be able to build an omnichannel experience strategy, you need visibility into what is happening across channels. That is where a solution like Radarr comes in for planning for seamless cross-channel interactions.
Radarr as the best online reputation management platform serves as a valuable tool, enabling real-time monitoring of online conversations surrounding your brand and offerings. With Radarr, timely responses and proactive reputation management become achievable, fostering a positive online presence.
And now with Radarr and Genesys coming together, you can create better omnichannel customer experiences too.
