Ring, Buzz, Ding, UhOh, You got Mail… Okay, so we don’t hear the last one very often anymore, but you get the point. 😉
Why Do Customers Prefer Omnichannel Support?
We have different methods that we prefer to communicate and for various reasons. As such, marketers and support staff must be able to navigate through the customer’s preferred channel at the right time.
A customer who needs urgent assistance may prefer calling a customer service representative, while a customer who is just interested in a price quote would rather send an email or a message. Similarly, customers would also like to be reached in different methods depending on the situation, the time of day and other considerations.
To make matters more complicated, customers also like being recognized. They don’t want to repeat a specific request or complete a new profile. They want the company they’re interacting with to follow up when necessary and keep relevant information about the customer to ensure smooth and productive communication.
Additionally, customers spend 140% more with companies that offer them great experience with excellent products and services.
How Does Omnichannel Communication Help Your Business?
Imagine what the daily process of a contact center employee would look like when they have to contact different customers using different communication methods, while keeping track of historic information related to a specific customer, simply put – it would be a disaster.
One way to ensure a positive experience both for the company and the customer is by installing an omnichannel communication platform. This type of platform allows companies to optimize the customer journey by integrating various communication methods, including voice, video, messaging, or social media, at any given time, from one unified, cross-channel platform.
“Companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain on average 89% of their customers, compared to customer retention rate of 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement.”
While in sales, a refined multi-channel approach to marketing and selling creates an integrated and cohesive customer experience no matter how or where a customer reaches out. This translates to 3 times greater effectiveness rates using multi-channel marketing vs. non-integrated campaigns.
From a company and agent perspective, having to toggle between channels can also be cumbersome, as such automating redundant tasks allows the agent to focus on sales, and where focus goes so does energy. By enabling the system to automatically follow up on a phone call by sending an SMS reminder or an E-mail sales quote, the agent can engage, follow up and convert without as much as tabbing through his browser.
Haven’t implemented an omnichannel solution yet? No worry, 26% of companies have yet to take any action regarding an omnichannel strategy. So there’s the competitive advantage your company can take advantage of with an ROI that speaks for itself.