Omnichannelity is a new necessity for an optimized customer experience.
Cross-channel, multi-channel, and finally omni-channel: the customer journey has recently undergone profound transformations. These different terminologies remind us of one essential thing: companies must multiply points of contact with their customers to adapt their distribution strategy to their aspirations and consumption patterns.
In the digital age, omni-channel has emerged as a necessity to provide a unified and optimized customer experience. A focus on one of the new grails of customer relations.
The Rise of Omni-Channel
Multi-channel, the first response to the proliferation of channels brought about by the arrival of the first digital tools, was long considered the norm. In this perspective, a channel corresponded to a customer journey. Then, the consumer began to use multiple channels in their purchasing journey: they browse online and buy in-store.
This new behavior gave birth to cross-channel, a strategy based on the successive use of several channels, creating bridges between them (click and collect, using discount coupons received by email in-store, etc.). Multi-channel thus relied on the separation of channels, managed in silos, while cross-channel obeys the integration of several channels together… The goal then remained to merge all these channels: this is the entire challenge of omni-channel.
Channels are now decompartmentalized, and the barriers between physical and digital no longer exist. Omni-channel offers consumers a global and coherent experience across all customer relationship channels. Unlike multi-channel or cross-channel, which focus on the brand, omni-channel is a decidedly customer-centric approach.
Omni-channel is the only concrete and viable response to the current needs of the omni-consumer: collecting information on social networks, testing the product in-store, having it delivered to their home, etc. By seeking to leverage all functionalities, all potentialities, of all channels, omni-channel aims to offer consumers a unique experience: richer, more complete, and always more personalized.
How to Implement Your Omni-Channel Strategy?
Omni-channel solutions are suitable for companies wishing, above all, to unify their interaction channels with customers (social networks, SMS, voice, email, live chat…) while ensuring that all customer data is preserved at every stage of the journey. To build this customer experience optimization strategy, it is essential to study the customer journey in depth and adopt an approach that places the customer at the very heart of the deployed strategy.
To do this, it is necessary to identify the key expectations of the customer and to list the channels they are likely to use. However, multiplying points of contact is not enough! It is necessary to offer a unique and unified quality of service. Therefore, creating a homogeneous support for handling customer interactions is essential to ensure a smooth and consistent customer journey.
Thus, data centralization is a determining element for optimal management of customer relations. Integrating a suitable omni-channel solution for managing customer interactions ensures careful tracking of the customer journey from start to finish, across all customer relationship channels.
ViaFlow, Your Best Ally for Transitioning to Omni-Channel
To address this major challenge of customer relations, ViaDialog has designed an innovative solution resolutely focused on deploying an omni-channel customer journey.
ViaFlow is a platform that allows for native handling of all customer relationship channels, both synchronous (voice, live chat) and asynchronous (SMS, MMS, email, social networks, etc.) within a single interface. All customer relationship channels are thus grouped within a single platform, just like the history of exchanges with the customer, thereby increasing the fluidity and efficiency of responses. Agents can therefore switch from one channel to another while preserving the complete context of the exchange.
To understand what ViaFlow can do for you, catch our launch keynote replay!
