Omnichannel contact center: how to create an omnichannel strategy from scratch? In the 21st century, with digitization very present when we talk about customer service, purchase of products and services and user experience, it seems unthinkable that there are companies that have not yet integrated the omnichannel experience into their service strategy.
This happens because, although many companies are aware of the importance of serving customers (potential or current) through different points of contact, what they really carry out is a multi-channel strategy: that is, contact with users through different channels but with a marketing strategy that is not unified.
That omnichannel is very important when we talk about customer satisfaction during their shopping experience is something that we, at ICR Evolution, are very clear about. Now, what are we talking about when we talk about omnichannel strategy? How to create an omnichannel strategy from scratch? Read on, we’ll tell you here!
Omnichannel contact center: what is the omnichannel strategy?
As we commented a few lines above, the omnichannel strategy is understood as that customer service marketing strategy in which the protagonist is the user.
Or in a different way: through omnichannel, the aim is to establish a relationship with customers through an agile and simple customer service through the different channels (incoming calls, instant messaging, email or social media).
Integrating an omnichannel strategy has one goal: to strengthen and establish a long-term relationship with users.
Omnichannel contact center: how to plan it from scratch?
Planning an omnichannel strategy from scratch is not complicated, but it does require effort on the part of any contact center company. We could summarize it in the following steps:
- Knowing the users (potential customers): although in theory it may seem very obvious, many companies do not take their buyer persona (or user persona) into account when starting to develop this omnichannel strategy. Questions like: what problem do they need to solve? How often or what type of products or services do they purchase? What are your tastes? They are a good starting point if we take into account that in omnichannel, as we said, the user is at the center of everything.
- Create and develop the Customer Journey Map: Once the different profiles of users interested in acquiring the products or services have been identified, the next step is to know and define the Journey Mapping or customer journey. In other words, is the journey that a user takes from when they are interested in a product until the end of the sales process (and a long-term relationship or link with the company is generated).
- Establish tools and metrics to analyze the effectiveness of the omnichannel strategy: the contact of call center agents with users is not linear. Throughout the aforementioned customer journey, customers make decisions and modify their purchase decision, generating a large volume of data that must be analyzed and converted into information that benefits the customer service process. Here both predictive analysis and different metrics or KPIs come into play.
Omnichannel in contact center: how to apply it?
Once the foundations have been laid to create an omnichannel strategy from scratch, we come to the next step: how to apply it in a contact center? We can summarize it in four points:
- Presence in different communication channels. We said it a few lines above and we repeat it again: when we talk about omnichannel we talk about customer experience and, therefore, an omnichannel strategy “requires” having a presence in different communication channels. This is so for a very simple reason: now it is the customer who decides where, when and how to contact the agents of a contact center. Of course, do not forget the golden rule: the strategy of all of them has to be unified. This is what differentiates omnichannel from multichannel.
- Data, data and more data: we said that predictive analysis is essential to know the client beforehand, their needs and their problems in order to anticipate them. To offer a seamless shopping experience, all of this data has to be collected correctly. A CRM correctly integrated into a contact center (that is, integrated with your omnichannel software) is, without a doubt, one of the keys.
- Physical store and virtual store, the perfect union: once again, and with the aim of adapting to customer needs, it is essential to integrate and synchronize the actions and processes of your business both physically and online. For example: make the purchase online but pick up the product or service physically, without queues or waiting.
- Data protection, a must: with cyber threats ready to attack, users need to know that their data is safe. In one of our previous posts we explained some measures to prevent possible cyber attacks, do not forget them.
Manage the omnichannel experience with our EVOLUTION software
With our contact center software EVOLUTION you can manage the omnichannel experience quickly, easily and in a single application.
Do you want to know how? Request a demo!
