Omnichannel Customer Experience: A Compact Guide For Beginners

Today’s customers are fluid. 

They don’t settle on one channel or device. According to Statista, the average American has access to over 10 devices. Not only do consumers use many devices, but they are also very demanding.

Meanwhile, this calls for an agile customer experience strategy. Brands must be flexible enough to follow customers as they jump from channel to channel. This will help keep up needs and give them the best customer experience, no matter which channel they engage in.

In this article, we will cover how to build a smooth omnichannel customer experience.

What is an omnichannel customer experience?

Omnichannel customer service is providing smooth unified experiences for customers across multiple channels.

This allows customers to start their journey in one channel and pick up where they left off on a different channel.

6 Benefits of omnichannel customer experience

There are many advantages to connecting with customers across multiple channels instead of a single channel.

1. Increases reach

The more channels you use, the more prospects and customers you reach. Each channel presents a golden opportunity to reach a new audience.

2. Boosts brand loyalty

When you connect with customers many times on multiple channels, your brand becomes more memorable to them. As a result, they stay with your brand longer.

3. Improves customer satisfaction

Using many channels allows you to connect with customers on their preferred platform. This pleases consumers, which boosts customer satisfaction.

4. Collects more data.

Interacting with customers on multiple channels allows brands to improve both the quality and quantity of customer data. Data is a vital business asset in a data-driven marketing landscape.

5. Creates self-service portals.

Each channel that’s added gives customers a self-service platform to address their needs. This relieves the customer service team.

6. Boosts SEO 

Serving customers on many channels is good for SEO. Since SEO-optimized content drives all online campaigns, being on multiple platforms gives your brand better organic visibility. 

With these benefits in mind, let’s look at how to design an effective omnichannel experience.

How to build delightful omnichannel customer experiences

Building a successful omnichannel strategy involves combining in-store visits, phone, email, live chat, and social media interactions into one coherent whole. 

Here’s how.

#1. Map out customer journeys.

Designing an effective omnichannel customer experience starts with mapping customer journeys.

The modern customer journey isn’t linear. Today’s consumers zig-zag their way through the buyer journey.

To do that, you must retrace the steps your customers take from initial contact to when they become customers and beyond.

The idea is to pick the most popular routes from being prospects to becoming loyal customers and focus on those instead of trying to be everywhere and spreading yourself too thin.

Here are a few vital questions to ask to nail your customer journeys:

1. Who are my customers (cover both demographics and demographics)?
2. Which channels and platforms do they prefer?
3. Which devices do they typically use to engage with your brand?
4. What types of content do they consume most?
5. Which common steps do they take on their way to becoming customers?

A customer journey mapping tool like Feedier can make this process a breeze.

It allows you to unify all the channels under one roof. You identify pain points across channels and allow customers to give feedback you can use to improve their experiences.

#2. Blend in-store and online customer experiences.

Contemporary shoppers are a finicky lot.

Whether they are shopping inside a store or digitally, they want tailored experiences. They can start their shopping journey by researching online and then buying in-store. Or, they can check out a product in a brick-and-mortar store but buy it later online.

Customers who have nasty or nice in-store experiences share them on social media platforms or review sites.

The point of all this?

The lines between physical and digital shopping are now blurred. Everything connects. What happens offline affects what happens online and vice versa. That’s why you must combine in-store and online customer experiences for the best CX for your customers. 

Here are some quick tips on how to align online and offline CX:

• Offer a buy online and pick up in-store facility.
• Allow shoppers to browse your online shop in your physical store.
• Use mobile in-app checkout inside your physical shop.
• Encourage happy in-store shoppers to leave positive online reviews.
• Use offline experience to optimize online experiences and vice versa.

#3. Collect customer feedback consistently.

There’s no doubt about it.

We live in a data-driven economy. Whoever gathers the best data wins. Having quality data at your disposal makes it easy to optimize for growth.

Surveys are superb for gathering feedback from consumers and coming up with actionable insights that drive growth. While surveys are a popular method of getting customer data, most business owners underutilize the strategy. They usually survey people after they become customers at the end of their customer journey.

As a result, they miss many optimization opportunities to improve customer satisfaction and boost sales.

With Feedier, you can survey customers in real-time at any stage of the buyer journey. Creating surveys using the tool is easy. Not only can you create and customize forms and surveys, but you also get intelligent reports to help you analyze and share data insights.

Data can be complex.

So getting a tool that can pull out all the vital numbers, organize and spit them out as simple visuals is incredibly helpful. Clear data is easy to grasp and more actionable than complex data.

Customer needs aren’t static. They are ever-evolving. Surveys are an excellent way of keeping in touch with customer needs, so you give them exactly what they want.

#4. Optimize mobile experiences.

Everyone is on mobile these days.

In 2021, there were 7.1 billion mobile users globally. By 2025, that number would have ballooned to 4.9 billion. Not only most people have mobile devices, but 82% of them also turn to their smartphones for online shopping according to Think With Google.

So if you don’t optimize for smooth mobile experiences, you will inconvenience an enormous chunk of your customers. 

Here are a few best practices for creating better mobile experiences for users:

• Design mobile-friendly customer surveys.
• Provide silky in-app support.
• Offer users SMS support.
• Create conversational feedback engagements.
• Use data to anticipate and meet customer needs.
• Personalize experiences for your consumers.
• Provide smooth mobile shopping experiences.
• Gather and analyze valuable data through robust analytics.

In short, optimizing for mobile customer experiences gives you a competitive advantage.

Omnichannel CX is here to stay.

At the end of the day, omnichannel experience is all about delivering:

• What customers want.
• When they want it, 
• Where they want it.
• How they want it.

A smart omnichannel customer experience strategy gives them just that. 

Whether they are shopping or reaching out for support from an offline or online channel, they get the best experience.

You want to get the best experiences for your clients? Book a quick call with our team to discuss your goals.

About the author

Qhubekani Nyathi aka The Click Guy is an irresistibly handsome pillar posts writer for SaaS, Marketing, and e-Commerce brands. He helps B2B brands drive measurable ROI through actionable pillar content. This builds authority, drives traffic, increases leads, hikes sign-ups, and boosts sales. He’s been featured on top sites like Search Engine Watch, Crazy Egg, ClickZ, Get Response, and The Drum.