What Makes an Omnichannel Experience Best in Class?

So your business has a mobile app, a website that works for every conceivable platform and device, and a host of brick-and-mortar locations across the country. Your customers can make purchases with their phones, tablets, and desktops, or they can walk to the nearest store and buy what they need in person. And each of these channels reliably and consistently meets your customers’ expectations -- that pretty much sums up what omnichannel is, right?Wrong. This kind of model, one in which each channel offers the customer a singular, isolated experience, isn’t really omnichannel at all -- it’s called multi-channel, and it’s hardly unique. The problem with multi-channel is that it doesn’t necessarily improve or resolve problems with a customer’s shopping experience. Instead, it merely offers a range of alternative experiences, ones that might each come with their own problems and frustrations.So how do you design an omnichannel experience that really meets every consumer’s needs? You first need to understand the context in which your customers are using each available sales channel, then imagine how fluid transitions can take place between those channels, and then finally (and most importantly), ensure that you’re engaging customers with a single, consistent experience.

Integrating Channels

If you’re offering a multi-channel experience, you’ve already accounted for each of the potential devices your customers use to interact with the company. To take that experience to the next level, you need to find a way to package all those devices together, creating a seamless, integrated experience that can be delivered via any device or any channel.Multi-channel takes something of a one-size-fits-all approach: each channel tries to make itself available when the customer has a need, then tries to convert that need into a purchase. This approach doesn’t account for what specific needs might drive a customer to a specific channel, or how the use or assistance of another channel might remove roadblocks to achieving those needs.An omnichannel approach uses everything in a company’s arsenal to make sure the customer is driven to purchase, gets what they’re looking for with minimal frustration or confusion, and has an experience that’s both completely positive and consistent with the brand. By shifting from a channel-specific view of your business model to a channel-agnostic one, your business will begin to better understand your customers’ behavior and meet their needs.

The Strategy Behind Integration

If your physical and online presences aren’t fully interconnected with one another, they’ll offer no strategic value to either you or your customers. It’s fairly standard at this point to offer users the ability to order something online to later pick up at a physical location -- but if your integration ends there, your strategy is doing little to actually improve the customer’s experience on either channel.But imagine if you could do more than that. Imagine that a customer who needs to see a product in person before they purchase it could look that product up online and place it into a virtual shopping cart. When they enter the physical store, a beacon detects the customer’s mobile phone, looks up what items they have in their virtual cart, and provides them with the exact location of those items within the store.This is how omnichannel improves the customer’s experience of your brand. Instead of just treating online and in-stone experiences as interchangeable, an omnichannel approach puts each purchase in context. Now, a customer doesn’t have to choose between a quick and easy shopping experience and getting the exact product they need. By integrating the virtual and physical experiences, your business eliminates the obstacles to purchases involved in each.As more companies announce their plans to bring omnichannel experiences to their customers, many will fail to deliver on their promise, offering only piecemeal connections between channels without any understanding of context or behavior. By not only understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each individual channel, but also allowing them to assist and compensate for one another, you can begin to deliver a service that truly sets you apart from your competition.

‍