How to Create an Omnichannel Experience

In today’s business world, the more touch points you can create to connect with your prospects, the more opportunities they have to convert to customers. Technological advancements like mobile devices and social media have created multiple channels for customers to interact with your brand at the touch of a button. To give your business a competitive edge, it’s necessary to create an omnichannel experience for your customer base. 

Syncing sales, marketing, and customer support creates a seamless customer journey that leads to sales growth and demand generation. To maximize your opportunities for optimal customer lifecycle marketing, learn how to create an omnichannel experience that yields results.

Key Takeaways

• While many companies use multiple channels to reach their customers, an omnichannel experience promotes interconnectivity across all platforms.
• Creating an omnichannel experience streamlines the customer journey, leads to a positive customer experience, and builds customer loyalty.
• For an effective omnichannel strategy, you must know your customer, map their journey, optimize content, continue contact post-sale, and incorporate physical locations.

Why Omnichannel is Important

Many companies are already incorporating a multichannel experience for their prospects, but an omnichannel experience connects the customer experience across multiple platforms. For example, a customer receives an email touting a new service you offer. Your Instagram page offers a coupon code for that same service, while Facebook shares a customer review about that service. The customer journey is interconnected, decreasing the likelihood that they’ll abandon the sale.

An omnichannel experience not only creates a positive customer experience, but also enables prospects to connect with your business through the method that’s most convenient for them. They can visit your physical location, shop online, or reach you on the phone or through a live chat feature. You’re able to create a more personalized customer experience that leads to customer loyalty.

When a customer has a good experience, they’re not just more likely to become a repeat customer. They’re also more likely to purchase more over time. 86% of shoppers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. An omnichannel experience promotes ease of use, minimizes frustrations, and keeps people coming back for more.

5 Ways to Create an Omnichannel Experience

Engagement is essential to creating a positive customer experience. By developing an effective omnichannel experience, you increase the ways in which your audience can engage with your brand. Through multiple touchpoints, you can establish brand identity, heighten awareness, strengthen loyalty, and build meaningful relationships with your customers. 

Follow these five steps to create an omnichannel experience that yields results.

1. KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER

The key to a successful omnichannel experience is understanding what your potential customers want, when they want to receive it, and how they want to acquire it. As you develop your strategy, it’s imperative that you research your prospects and gain real insight into who you’re trying to reach.

Demographics like age and gender will determine what channels to incorporate into your plan. Millennials are more likely to prefer online methods, while baby boomers generally shop in brick-and-mortar stores. This information helps to create an omnichannel experience that yields the best lead generation, drives traffic, and boosts revenue.

2. MAP THEIR CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Once you have a clear picture of who your customers are and the channels they rely on for shopping, you should map their journey from start to finish. Understanding how a customer finds your service and makes a purchase can provide invaluable clues about opportunities for an effective omnichannel experience.

As you outline the customer journey, you may discover a decline in customers between reviewing their purchase and confirming their purchase. There must be a reason (perhaps difficulty with the edit feature in the shopping cart), and this can alert you to brainstorm possible solutions to increase customer conversion rates. Customer journey mapping helps to identify areas for improvement and find solutions that increase your company’s overall success.‍

3. OPTIMIZE CONTENT FOR MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

The point of creating an omnichannel experience is to enable customers to connect with your brand through multiple platforms and on various devices. It doesn’t do any good if your content isn’t optimized for this purpose. The person accessing your company through their smartphone should have just as efficient of an experience as someone accessing it on their desktop. 

Ensure photos are embedded or compressed to minimize load times. Design content to be scalable for any screen size. Make sure your message comes across clear and that important text isn’t cut off. Call to action (CTA) buttons and useful links should appear in generally the same place on any platform. Streamline the customer experience by creating uniformity across all platforms, and on all devices.

4. DON’T FORGET POST-SALE CONTACT 

An effective omnichannel experience leads a customer from the beginning purchase stages all the way through the close of sale. But don’t forget about post-sale contact. The customer experience doesn’t end simply because they’ve made a purchase. There are still opportunities to connect with your customers and continue to build meaningful relationships that lead to brand loyalty and lead generation.

Customer satisfaction is critical for maintaining your current base and attracting new customers. Reviews have a huge impact on sales. 90% of global consumers read reviews before committing to a purchase. A company that continues to maintain contact with customers post-sale and extends the omnichannel experience is more likely to earn positive feedback. That endorsement can entice others to interact with your brand and increase sales exponentially.

5. REMEMBER PHYSICAL LOCATIONS 

Although ecommerce is a growing industry, online purchases account for just 12.5% of total sales. That means brick-and-mortar physical locations still bring in the majority of revenue. Consumers are rarely purists when it comes to where they do their shopping. Most shop both online and in physical locations. For this reason, it’s critical that you include your physical locations as part of your omnichannel strategy. 

This brief video explains how combining brick-and-mortar locations with ecommerce strategy provides a more sustainable path to profitability.https://www.youtube.com/embed/1sEPdGzy1WM?feature=oembed

“Omnichannel” literally means “all channels.” To maximize your efforts and create a truly all-encompassing positive customer experience, you must connect your physical store with your website, social media, and customer support platforms. 

Connect with Your Customers

International sales and marketing leader Televerde creates solutions that increase engagement, boost your sales pipeline, and generate more revenue for your brand. We help you develop effective strategies to meet the needs of today’s consumers. Let us help you connect with your audience and create a positive experience that keeps them coming back for more.

Looking for more resources to help you engage with your customers? The Televerde Resource Library is packed with webinars and tools to help you create an impactful omnichannel experience.