The market is inundated with countless channels and services, making the practice of improving customer experience all the more difficult. With the rise of cross-channel marketing, customer experience is no longer just a one-dimension process. Today, businesses have to struggle with handling multiple channels all at once to reach out to their market segment.
Customer demands have increased exponentially, with customers interacting more frequently with businesses. They want their interactions to be convenient, efficient, timely, and, above all, tailored to their needs. They also expect to be able to talk to businesses through the same channels they speak to everyone else: mail, chat, voice, text message, social, and video. Companies that can keep up and provide a seamless multi-channel customer experience will reap the benefits.
Cross-channel customer experience has become the one-stop solution for every customer-centric need of businesses. It helps organizations interact with a customer across different touch points through multiple channels.
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According to a Genesys report, 83% of consumers state that the ability to move from one channel to another is desirable, but only 50% of companies support such cross-channel interactions.
John Orlando, CMO at Endurance International Group, says, “Consumers irreversibly shifted to online shopping in 2020, and social distancing has forced us to replace face-to-face interaction with conversations on video and social media.
In 2021, I expect we’ll finally see the convergence of these channels as brands seek to provide a more seamless online experience that allows users to shop directly through the digital platforms they now use every day.”
Even though implementing cross-channel customer experience may seem like a popular idea, many companies fail to implement it successfully.
Here are three ways businesses can optimize their customer journey for a seamless cross-channel experience.
Consistent Experience across Every Channel
Cross-channel customer experience can prove cumbersome, but if businesses want to engage their customers using omnichannel service, consistency is key. Offering transparent customer service along with consistency is also crucial. Businesses should avoid hidden clauses that might make the customers feel cheated.
Furthermore, businesses need to take responsibility and accountability for the issues that went wrong from their end. This alleviates trouble and creates trust and loyalty, which eventually leads to a tremendous buyer-seller relationship.
For a consistent experience there needs to be a conscious effort in translating every experience to work for every channel being used. This seamless experience happens when companies make customers feel that the experience is similar for every device, making all the features accessible for every channel and conveying the same message to customers on all channels.
The Right Mobile Experience
Mobile plays a critical role in the entire customer journey starting from discovery until finding the product or service. The Ericsson Mobility Report predicted a 25% increase in mobile traffic by 2025. Businesses need to treat the mobile website experience as sacred. It can turn a casual visitor into an interested prospect or chase away an interesting prospect.
By matching the right brand presets, mobile experience imitate an in-store experience. Brand presets can ensure that the business can create a similar experience for all touch points of the customer journey.
Without proper execution of brand presents, each channel in the cross-channel ecosystem may appear to be siloed from one another. This is a poor customer experience scenario and should be avoided at any cost. A uniform brand preset is of utmost importance to deliver a good customer experience.
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Data-Driven Personalization
A cross-channel strategy offers more data to create the right customer journey map. It tells businesses what kind of products are purchased more online and how many footfalls their physical store gets.
Combining datasets from the offline and online channels can give a unique understanding of customer preferences and their buying behavior. This, in turn, can lead to crafting a customer journey that can improve sales volumes.
Data acts as a pointing finger towards crafting the right customer journey that is mapped to customer interests. It is crucial to leverage data in a cross-channel scenario to understand what will work and how quickly it can be implemented.
