Even though shopping malls and brick-and-mortar retail stores are on the decline, it's still very unlikely that they will disappear altogether. However, today more than ever, customers expect a full omnichannel experience. If a company wants to keep up with industry leaders, they must commit to this omnichannel strategy. When it was only brick-and-mortar sales, customer journeys were fairly linear. This is no longer the case with various business channels from social media, stores and e-commerce, today's customer follows many different journeys. An effective omnichannel strategy requires an in-depth understanding of every business opportunity you can provide to a customer. In this video, we'll cover three basic essentials for setting up your omnichannel strategy. First, we'll create an overarching strategy and use it as your North star for every aspect of your design principles. Then we'll design customer journeys that ensure the end-to-end digital and live contact that addresses customer's needs and preferences. Finally, we'll identify the necessary technology needed to support the customer journeys you've designed. An omnichannel transformation is the only way for a company that provide an excellent customer experience while addressing the rising complexity in consumer expectations and managing costs. Research conducted on customer behavior indicators reveals that their satisfaction hinges on a combination of live and digital channels. It's vital for you to have seamless integration and design consistency. Having your design principles guided by your omnichannel strategy is a great way to ensure this. When building the strategy, keep in mind that digital channels have changed the way customers interact with brands. Today's consumer expects options for how they receive information and services. Some may engage with product research online, but purchase in-store, or maybe they purchase online, but see customer service a return options in person. Digital channels means providing as many options as possible to meet your customer needs. It's also important to keep your customer's end-to-end journey in mind, as you build out all of the individual touch points. In order to do this, you must be thorough, it's not enough to say to optimize your website, but to [inaudible] social media or have excellent service tools, but no human to human customer service options. Research has shown that for a large purchase or complex requests, 52 percent of customers still prefer a live associate to assist them, and 24 percent still prefer live assistance with typical purchasing tasks. It's important to ensure that customer's contact with your brand doesn't end once they leave your website. So yes, these trends make building an omnichannel strategy more complicated, but when you execute and integrate your customer digital experience, it can be invaluable. As you embark on an omnichannel transformation, make sure that each channel is optimized for customer interaction. This goes for brick-and-mortar retail, e-commerce, and social media. To do this, you must seek to understand what customers truly care about and deliver it. When improving customer care, conventional wisdom can be an obstacle, so never assume that you already know their wants and needs. When designing your customer journey, you must not only be fast and flexible, but reliable, transparent, and engaged. In general, all consumers want a quick and responsive customer care experience. Is a given that not all of their expectations fall into one simple category, but you still have to ensure their needs come first and foremost when designing your customer journey for speed and flexibility. When you're flexible and provide options, you'll be prepared for anything. In addition, reliability and transparency are key. The best way to meet any customer concerns or questions is through regular communication and a proactive approach. The final thing to remember when building your customer journey is to stay highly engaged. Consumers expect personal attention, strong employee competence, empathy, and clarity. When you supply all of these throughout their journey, they will remain a very loyal customer. Once you design these customer journeys, you can use those principles to paint a picture of how they will look years from now in you're fully omnichannel world. Still, since customer preferences are ever evolving, that means your approach should as well. I can't stress enough to never assume you know what your customers care about. Remain diligent and stay on the lookout for ways to improve and strengthen these customer relationships. To do this, employ a test and learn methodology, structure your interactions with tactics like design thinking and ideation sessions. Some of the most successful best practices are customer experience labs, where customers and employees joined forces and prototype design journeys together. This rapid consistent approach can be summed up as tests, fail and then adapt. By using this process, companies can piece together the omnichannel experience to include additional touch points, detailed personas, comprehensive trade-offs, and a deep understanding of pain points and delight moments. Finally, to implement an effective omnichannel strategy, all employees and managers must commit to provide an exceptional customer experience. Your customer journey mapping also comes in handy here as it helps you identify what technologies you need to accomplish this. Before you select the technology, make sure it assist your overarching design goals. One way to approach this is by having an agile design process. Agile methodologies allow managers and associates to move quickly. They also increase transparency and alignment to overarching business objectives. To put this into effect, you must train staff with their property skill sets. Never overlook the power of a knowledgeable staff as they're the key ingredient to your omnichannel strategy. Once this process is in place, select the automated measures and technological advancements that will meet your customer's needs. Some possible options include an omnichannel desktop that allows each associate to have their own command center. These desktops integrate into chat platforms, web browsing, or emails, or have an integrated omnichannel platform that allows associates to reach all channels and manage requests. This takes a customer's entire history with your brand and puts it all in one place. The final technology to consider is a back-end interface. This is the self-service portal that handles customer requests and even communications if needed. Data obtained here is then saved and accessible for managers to review. Technologies such as these can save time and money. They also allow you to put more effort into creating customer experiences instead of managing requests. But no matter your methods you choose, make sure they increase measurement and accountability. This is critical for monitoring your company's progress. Measurement should be frequent to identify potential changes to customer's patterns. One example of a company level metric is Net Promoter System or NPS, which measures customer satisfaction. Moving further, accountability helps you identify points of improvement and your customers journey. It's also a good idea to set up a cross-functional team that help manage responsibilities and improvement to your customer journey. This brings multiple perspectives to the table in order to promote collaboration and build a unified company effort towards large business goals. The more employees you engage in the process, the stronger your omnichannel strategy will become. In conclusion, creating an omnichannel strategy should place your customer's needs and preferences at the forefront. It's from that starting point that all other decisions follow. Doing this will allow you to create a frictionless omnichannel experience for your customers that's adaptable for years to come. Thanks for watching and we'll see you again next time.
