Omnichannel Customer Experience

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What is a omnichannel customer experience

Your customers aren’t just in your retail stores or only browsing your ecommerce website. Instead, they are across omnichannel platforms, interacting with your brand both online and offline. To survive and thrive as a retailer in the current age of retail, you must focus on creating a omnichannel customer journey that is effective at engaging and satisfying your customers.

Omnichannel can be simply defined as a form of retail experience that crosses a number of different mediums. One omnichannel customer experience example would be to connect purchasing history for both your ecommerce and retail store customers. More commonly, retailers will take a omnichannel approach to their loyalty program, allowing customers to track their rewards points regardless if they’re purchasing online, in-store, or through social media.

Your customers desire omnichannel experiences as they make their purchasing process seamless. For example, a customer can visit your retail store, try out products, then later purchase those same products online in the size that fits them perfectly.

Some retailers confuse omnichannel vs multichannel as the same, however, they couldn’t be more different. While a multichannel customer experience will still include multiple platforms and mediums, these channels aren’t connected. Omnichannel customer experiences will breakdown the barriers dividing these siloed experiences, connecting them so that customers can enjoy an effortless purchasing experience.

Benefits of omnichannel customer experiences

Why do customer experiences matter? Well, when your customers feel satisfied with their experience they’re more likely to return and buy again. Taking a omnichannel approach to your customer experience can help you create the kind of seamless and satisfying experiences that your customers are after.

Craft a flawless customer experience

Your customers long for flawless experiences, and with so many alternative brands to choose from it is essential to rely on a omnichannel competitive advantage. Linking all of your customer interactions across platforms and mediums can create a phenomenal experience that your customers will sit up and notice. Through these seamless experiences you’ll realize the omnichannel customer experience benefits that come from an audience of dedicated and loyal customers.

Deliver high accessibility

The easier it is for your customers to purchase from you, the more likely they are to stick around with your brand. By connecting your purchasing experience across web, in-person, and even social media you can deliver high-end accessibility to your customers. For example, when your customers are in-store, there is no guarantee that they’ll buy right away. However, when you connect your purchasing platforms your customers can be re-targeted to purchase that same product online that they saw in-store.

Drive retention rates and sales

When you connect your customer experiences across platforms you reap the benefits of omnichannel customer engagement. Instead of targeting customers in just one channel, you’ll be engaging with potential customers across multiple mediums. The results of these efforts can directly translate to an increase in retention rates and sales, helping retailers improve marketing performance and grow their business.

Improve customer satisfaction

A customer who has an engaging and seamless purchasing experience is going to be a satisfied customer—it’s as simple as that. It’s been shown that 63% of customers will fall in love with a brand just because they’ve delivered great service. These satisfied customers deliver substantial long-term value to your brand and you can drive this satisfaction by providing engaging omnichannel experiences. This means, focusing on customer satisfaction regardless of how they interact with your brand whether that be via email, your website, in-store, or social media.

How to improve your omnichannel customer experience

You may be wondering how to improve omnichannel customer experiences? Well, there are many ways to get started, and the specific actions you take can vary depending on what you’ve already established. For this reason, your first step should be to deeply evaluate your existing customer journey, while also keeping a keen eye on potential weak spots or gaps in connectivity. You want to create an interconnected experience that not only works for your customers but satisfies their every need.

Once you’ve evaluated your existing customer journey, personalize the experience wherever possible. Whether you’re focusing on your omnichannel ecommerce strategy, or are centering your efforts for in-store retail, you’ll want your customers to feel catered to on a individual level. Personalization is key in the modern age of retail, and businesses who manage to deliver engaging personalized experiences benefit from a base of loyal high-value customers.

Even after you’ve deployed your omnichannel customer experience your customers will have questions. Fortunately, you can ensure that your customers feel heard by establishing mobile and social media customer support. Your customers will understand when things go wrong, especially in the early stages of deployment, however, if you don’t provide a channel for them to communicate these errors and concerns you run the risk of losing them.

Another effective way to blend online and offline channels is to give your customers access to a display of live in-store inventories. Pulling off this omnichannel strategy requires that you synchronize with your in-store retail team so that you can ensure these live inventories are accurate and up to date. Having live inventories can help your customers avoid feeling disappointed when they visit you in-store to purchase a product, which as a result can improve their overall satisfaction.

Omnichannel customer experience platforms

Whether you’re looking to enhance your existing omnichannel experience or are hoping to start from scratch you should have omnichannel solutions that aid in your efforts. Omnichannel ecommerce platforms can assist you in collecting adequate data on your customers and using that data to inform your marketing and engagement strategies.

There are a number of omnichannel experience platforms to choose from, however, Customer Data and Experience Platforms (CDXPs) are the solutions of choice for retailers. CDXPs act as a unified platform for you to view all of your customer interactions across channels. CDXPs like Lexer integrate with a wide range of social media platforms allowing you to add social connections to your growing customer database. Lexer’s CDXP helps you fully utilize your customer data so that you can create omnichannel customer experiences that engage and satisfy.

Click here to learn the top 15 reasons customers choose Lexer as their preferred CDP partner and vendor.

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