A couple of decades ago, the only channels customers had to communicate with brands were telephone and mail. Technology has evolved drastically today to the point where consumers are happy to reach out to companies through a combination of channels, such as email, phone calls, SMS messages, and more.
According to Zendesk®, around 87% of today’s customers want brands to work harder to provide a consistent experience across all channels. Not only is providing multiple avenues of communication convenient and appealing to your customers, but it’s also a highly effective way to make your business more productive too. Let’s discuss some of the advantages of launching an omnichannel shopping environment.
1. Enhanced customer experiences
With the support of the right cloud-based contact centre solutions and technologies, your organisation can move towards the future and deliver an omnichannel customer experience. This means that you’re ready to offer exceptional service wherever your clients prefer to interact with your business.
Omnichannel strategies provide customers with a unified and seamless experience that feels the same regardless of whether they’re chatting to your brand over instant messaging or contacting you over the telephone. This is a great way to differentiate your brand from other companies that might be unwilling or unable to serve clients on their preferred channels.
2. Improved employee satisfaction
An omnichannel environment isn’t just a great thing for your customers, it also indicates that you’re willing to explore different communication options for your employees too. Often, companies with omnichannel shopping experiences have better internal collaboration practices because they need to make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to serving clients.
Your staff wants to feel as though they’re efficient and effective in their jobs. This means that they want to have access to the tools they need to communicate with colleagues and clients as effectively as possible. An angry customer who’s struggling to get through to your company could end up shouting and screaming at your employees, leading to more stress for your staff. On the other hand, if your clients feel well served and valued, they can be easier for team members to handle.
3. Omnichannel solutions create centralised data insights
Behind any great omnichannel strategy is a technology solution making sure everything works smoothly. Cloud-based unified communications tools can help to ensure that employees have everything they need when it comes to collaborating with co-workers, accessing consumer insights, and more.
If you integrate the right technology into your business to support your omnichannel customer service strategy, you can ensure that you offer the same consistent experience to clients regardless of where your agents might be located.
4. More insights into customer behaviour
Finally, the more contact centre agents engage with customers across multiple channels, the more data they can gather about their preferences, buyer’s journey, and experiences. Your omnichannel shopping experience will help you to gather important data about how clients find your business and move along to the point of purchase. The more you learn, the more you can adjust your communication strategy for better customer retention and bigger sales.
Today’s customers expect a strong omnichannel experience, but it does take some research to determine which channels your clients are using. The more you experiment, the easier it will be to create a bespoke internal and external communication strategy that supports both your clients and your employees.
Originally published Apr 25, 2018, updated Jan 17, 2023
