4 Components of Omnichannel Customer Experience Strategies

Many experts are in agreement: Omnichannel experiences are absolutely required for enterprises in 2016 if they want to meet consumer needs and provide them with as many options as possible when it comes to interacting with brands, buying products or seeking information.

But what does an omnichannel experience even look like? To put it simply, omnichannel entails a complete integration of each channel through which consumers interact with brands - the Web, in-store, mobile and more. Most importantly about omnichannel, Marketo cited John Bowden, senior vice president of customer care at Time Warner Cable, as he explained that omnichannel experiences must allow individuals to move between those channels with minimal effort and maximum benefit.

It's difficult to point out a scenario or industry in which omnichannel experiences wouldn't provide a benefit to a brand. As such, every organization should create a strategy for reaching customers on every channel, as well as ensuring that when they move between those channels, it's seamless and, above all, consistent - a point duly noted by Bowden and commonly expressed across the Web.

To guarantee successful adoption of an omnichannel initiative, enterprises must have four key components of their strategies planned and ready to go.

1. Platforms
The first step in omnichannel customer experience creation is identifying and optimizing the channel through which they hope to communicate. Obviously, storefronts are some of the most utilized channels along with corporate websites. But, nowadays, organizations must also communicate with consumers via social media accounts, mobile apps and call center services.

Each businesses is likely to invest differently in each channel, and that is perfectly alright. That said, it is important to focus marketing and engagement on what avenues brands' customer bases use the most. For example, when companies try to sell to other organizations, they often leverage LinkedIn over Facebook, and they could even devote more resources to a website than a mobile app.

2. Processes
As enterprises stretch out across more platforms and channels, they must create processes and deploy enterprise tools and technologies to ensure they can support them all. Right now, this is a particularly popular step to take in developing an omnichannel customer experience strategy, as Innovative Retail Technologies reported that almost 78 percent of 500 business leaders said they are investing in customer experience improving IT solutions.

Sometimes the only technologies required are feature-rich customer relationship management platforms, but as is often the case, the more tools the better. Destination CRM reported on an omnichannel CRM-based strategy leveraged by "a major European airline." The source wrote that a CRM system was used in conjunction with tablets, and both were integrated with other solutions in the company's tech stack. In this regard, even a mobile point-of-sale tool is a valuable component in an omnichannel experience.

3. People
A brand can have all accounts on every social media channel, call center services to fuel customer support, and all the tools and technologies in the world, but if it lacks the "people" or cultural aspect of omnichannel customer experiences, it will not succeed.

In this way, enterprises must define ownership over omnichannel aspects and effectively connect marketing and sales teams to ensure consistency and efficiency. Some brands hire new executives and managers to overlook omnichannel as a whole, but that isn't the only solution. Businesses can encourage every department to work together in creating marketing campaigns, developing personas and so on, as any inconsistencies could damage an omnichannel experience.

Companies must also consider the support side of omnichannel. In stores, all employees should be on the same page when it comes to consumer data - they need to access it. Meanwhile, customer service representatives provided by call center services should have sufficient knowledge of what businesses offer and how they convey their brands' images.

4. Practice
All omnichannel strategies will be for naught if enterprises do not put the above three components into practice. This all comes down to unified messaging across each channel. In other words, social and mobile platforms must communicate the same idea that in-store sales associates and external call center representatives do. Tools and technologies will make doing so simpler, as those solutions should seamlessly share customer data and empower employees to accurately portray a consistent brand image.

Businesses must also realize that their omnichannel strategies should evolve over time. Customer feedback is critical in that regard. Support representatives should evaluate how well they are meeting consumer demands, mobile apps can collect behavioral data and social media must be used as a tool to hear customer thoughts. If any cracks start to show in omnichannel experiences, they should be filled with either a new platform, an additional technology and process, or an extra team of employees.

In 2016, omnichannel customer experiences are absolutely vital to the success of enterprises across a variety of industries. But, with a lack of a single key component, those experiences might not be as seamless as is required.