Omnichannel customer service engagement refers to the practice of providing customers with consistent and seamless support across all channels, such as phone, email, social media, chat, and in-person interactions. The goal of omnichannel customer service is to create a cohesive and unified customer experience, no matter how or where the customer reaches out for help.
There are a few key things you need to know about omnichannel customer service engagement:
- It’s all about convenience: Omnichannel customer service allows customers to reach out for help on their own terms, using the channel that is most convenient for them. This can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- It requires a consistent approach: To provide a seamless experience, it’s important to ensure that your customer service team is using a consistent approach across all channels. This includes using the same language, tone, and branding.
- It requires integration: To provide an omnichannel experience, your customer service team needs access to all relevant customer information, regardless of the channel the customer is using. This requires integration of your customer service systems and data.
- It requires good communication: Effective omnichannel customer service requires good communication between team members and departments. This includes sharing information and updates about customer interactions and ensuring that all channels are regularly monitored.
Overall, omnichannel customer service engagement is about providing a consistent and seamless experience for your customers, no matter how or where they reach out for help. By investing in an omnichannel approach, you can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, and ultimately drive business success.
This is a time for you to sit up and take notice if you haven’t heard the term “omnichannel”. The trend has been picked up by companies like Go4customer, is part of the decks of consultants like McKinsey, and is being practiced on social channels like Twitter.
Omnichannel engagement is driven by the exponential growth in the number and types of devices and channels available to customers to interact with brands and businesses. In the event that these channels become available, customers expect corporations to show their commitment to them by engaging extensively on them, regardless of the reason for doing so.
Explore why omnichannel engagement matters to you, how to use it to improve employee and customer satisfaction, and what it can help you achieve.
1. Probably not what you want to do
In order to ensure consistent customer support services and stakeholder experiences across the full spectrum of possible mediums, omnichannel engagement is critical.
One of the most personal and value-creating touchpoints for a customer is interaction with someone at a company; frustration or inconsistency among different channels may result in customers feeling dissatisfied rather than more loyal to the brand. Thus, you must ensure that you keep your customers happy on every channel they use to reach you.
As you think about your own company, what steps have you taken to ensure all of your team members are responding consistently to customers? Do you hold training sessions, create priority lists, create a task force, and equip your team with the right response?
2. Business is being transformed by it
The only thing you had to worry about used to be the storefront. The telephone eventually made its way into our lives. Then came SMS and email. Today, customers try to reach you through all of the above plus Facebook and Twitter, Google search, WeChat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Snapchat, and new channels that seem to pop up every few days. Trying to force customers to call or email you with questions may have worked in 1995, if you were running a business. It is unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you look at it) that we live in an age of multiple channels, and you need to be prepared for these changes.
Customer support service and operations are not the only benefits of having these channels. In addition, it impacts your marketing and branding, sales, finance, and human resource allocations. Imagine how you might use each of these touchpoints to create a brand experience for your customers; how you might upsell other products based on channels; how you might hire “social media managers”… If you want your business to thrive in this era, you need to consider all of the impacts as a whole.
3. Value isn’t just about profits, but also about value
Engagement isn’t solely about sales when we talk about it. Providing customers with enough value is the only way to generate sales for your company. In Marketing 101, you may have heard that the 4Ps – Product, Place, Promotion, and Price – must be in place and providing value in order for the company to generate value from its customers.
It is common for companies to integrate omnichannel engagement into their products (for example, creating a mobile app, tablet app, and website), their distribution channels (selling through social networks and other eCommerce deal stores), and their promotions (broadcasting your advertisement online and offline). Since your customer is highly likely to vet you across different channels before ultimately making a decision, it’s even more crucial that you have all of them at your disposal.
If you think about it, unless you’re offering enough value for people to pay you for it, you can’t sell solely for profit. If you do, people will catch on. If you plan to sell through those channels, you’d better be willing to provide great customer service and support as well.