How omnichannel creates seamless customer service experience

Today’s business environment is ever-changing! The increasing competition due to demanding customers, technological disruptions, and shopping behavior patterns have changed the traditional course of action. 

Given the numerous platforms that we have today, achieving a consistent customer experience across these platforms is challenging for many firms. For example, your customer service agent may offer information on a product that differs from the internet, or an online deal won’t be accessible to customers shopping in-store. But, how can a company handle the intricate “hand-offs” across channels in a way that is seamless and unnoticeable to the customer?

It’s simple; all they need is an ‘omnichannel approach’ in their Customer service journey!

When you introduce an omnichannel customer experience, you’re up for an integrated, consistent, and real-time customer experience across multiple channels! But, interestingly, that’s not all. 

What is the omnichannel approach?

The omnichannel approach refers to a cross-channel strategy for customer support that provides an integrated experience to form better customer relationships across various touchpoints of the customer journey over traditional and digital channels.

There are elements of marketing at play in omnichannel customer service. The omnichannel approach generally relates to customer engagement. However, it is also important to consider the overall effect personalized marketing can have on customer experience. 

Benefits of Omnichannel customer service

A successful omnichannel customer service approach can:

1. Improve CX through consistent and personalized support that enables customers to engage online and offline at their convenience.
2. Streamline customer journeys and provide better customer insights by understanding customer demands, their complaints, and customer lifecycles. This in turn can be used to deliver personalized customer support.
3. Boost customer loyalty and retention by improving precision and personalization in your communication that builds value and trust.
4. Strengthen brand recall by providing a consistent brand experience across all channels.

7 Strategies to deliver a seamless omnichannel customer experience 

• Get cloud-based communication solutions

Around 38% of businesses are planning to adopt cloud technology in their communication while 33%  have already endorsed cloud. Having cloud-based communication solutions pay for itself. You can streamline and upgrade your level of services. Every conversation you have, message you send, and video conference you host work on cloud-hosted technology. Cloud-delivered communication solutions are a brand new way to build and deploy an omnichannel communication experience. 

• Close the customer service gaps

The customer service gap is the void between the quality of service you think you offer across various channels and the quality of service your customers receive on these channels. A good rule for businesses to follow is, that if you are selling on the platform you should be serving on the platform as well. It is one great way to align your business vision with customer perception positively. This kind of contact at all levels strengthens your relationship with customers and enables them to participate and communicate with you at their discretion. Let’s not forget that over 90% of customers expect seamless interactions across all channels. 

Read Also: The Future of customer service is the Omnichannel Contact Center

• Create mobile-friendly channels-

Be accessible to your customers where they are. You may choose the proper channels and touchpoints to interact with your customers by being aware of their behavior and preferences. People are always jumping between different devices: cell phones, tablets, laptops, and vice versa. And your customer service should foresee this kind of screen jumping and be prepared to serve efficiently for a consistent omnichannel customer experience. Interestingly, Hodusoft’s contact center software offers an omnichannel platform for a stellar customer experience. 

• Integrate your CRM with customer service 

No one likes to repeat themselves when they call customer service for help and that’s why merging your omnichannel contact center software with CRM is a critical step in delivering omnichannel customer engagement.  By doing so if the customer calls in the system or reaches out the agent can see the entire journey of the customer and the latest interactions he had so they can easily pick up where the last agent left off. You can also set up your Automatic Call Distribution in your CRM to smart route your customers to specific agents.

• Include self-service options

79% of customers expect businesses to provide self-service support tools to find solutions on their own without having to contact support. Give the customer what they want: the ability to answer their own questions and help themselves. With changing times, millennials, and Gen Z holding purse strings, self-service is becoming a popular feature for businesses to adopt.

Here are a few possibilities of what self-service might look like for businesses-

• A comprehensive and insightful Frequently Asked Questions( FAQ) page where customers can find answers to elementary questions.
• A chatbot on every page of the website that answers the most common questions and customer needs.
• An IVR menu that helps customers with simpler tasks without plugging the phone lines. ( Check their account balance, the status of their order, and more) 

• Use skills-based routing for the customer service call

Skill-based routing improves your first call/chat resolution by 98%. A better first-call resolution means customers trust your support team’s agility to get that job done.  For an omnichannel customer experience implementing an omnichannel routing via ACD, you can forward calls, messages, and emails about a particular topic directly to the agent who has relevant skills in handling that concern. HoduCC, an omnichannel contact center software offers skill-based routing that can significantly improve your omnichannel customer service experience and optimize your workforce.

• Use metrics to evaluate the performance 

Contact center software often churns lots of data from customer interactions that you should be monitoring. Call/Contact center metrics help you understand the overall efficiency of your customer service team. It shows whether you’re on the right track in aligning your vision with your perception of omnichannel customer service.

Omnichannel support: The future of customer service

Omnichannel customer service means you are everywhere, meeting your customers wherever they are. With customers having multiple touchpoints, your business is now all set to offer a more seamless, personalized, and consistent CX, irrespective of the type of channel used.

If you are ready to switch to an omnichannel customer experience, the best thing you can do is go all in and do it right. This means choosing the right platform that can manage all your existing channels.  Reach out to our sales team here or request a free demo of HoduCC contact center software to streamline your customer journey through a single platform.