Omnichannel

Omnichannel is an integrated approach to customer experience in which businesses provide a seamless, interconnected experience across multiple marketing channels.

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Omnichannel refers to the ability for customers to interact with a business in a variety of ways. This could include visiting a website, or using a mobile or web app, making a phone call, visiting a brick and mortar store, or using a variety of social media platforms. All of these channels should be integrated so that customers can access all their information in one place and move effortlessly between various channels.

Ideally, customers should be able to start an interaction on one channel (e.g. web search), continue on another (e.g. mobile app), and finish on yet another channel (e.g. in-person). To enable this, businesses need to make sure they have unified customer profiling (so that customers can access the information from any channel) and a unified database (so that customers can access data from various channels without having to repeat transactions). Additionally, having a single view of the customer over all channels allows companies to offer a tailored experience on each channel.

A customer service center can use omnichannel to provide a better customer experience. When a customer calls in to get help, they can quickly be connected to their online account. This way, the customer can see all of their recent interactions with the company, such as a purchase history or a ticketing system that shows customer inquiries. This allows the customer service rep to provide smarter, personalized service more quickly. In addition, since the customer service rep will have a single view of the customer, they can provide more comprehensive customer service. For example, they may be able to offer discounts to customers who’ve been frequenting the company’s website, or suggest related products for customers who’ve made similar purchases in the past.

Some other examples of omnichannel activities may include:

• Campaigns that track customer preferences on different channels
• Single sign-on capabilities that allow customers to sign in using their login credentials across all channels
• Deep linking from one channel to another (e.g. from a website to an app)
• Cross-channel promotions and discounts
• Personalized customer care services
• Unified loyalty programs

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