The way companies communicate with their customers has changed considerably in recent years, especially as consumer behavior has become more demanding.
This change in consumer behavior emphasizes that having a good product is not enough to keep a business afloat or even to beat the competition. Consumers don’t just want quality products, they want good shopping experiences.
Today, these customers also expect companies to offer fast, efficient and integrated service. It is in this context that omnichannel service emerges as a way of improving customer service, allowing for a fluid experience across all communication channels.
According to a study by the Aberdeen Group, companies with an omnichannel service strategy keep 89% of their customers, compared to only 33% retention in companies that don’t invest in this approach.
In this article, you’ll read about:
- What is omnichannel service?
- What are the advantages of omnichannel service?
- How to implement omnichannel service?
- What is omnichannel CRM?
- How does omnichannel work in sales?
What is omnichannel service?
The term “omnichannel” refers to an approach that unifies all of a company’s service and sales channels, providing the customer with an integrated experience and continuous interaction.
Omnichannel service connects all points of contact and makes the customer journey much simpler and more efficient. In practice, this means that it doesn’t matter if the customer starts the interaction via a social network and ends it on the phone, your service will be continuous.
The great thing about omnichannel service is that it puts the customer at the center of everything. Instead of treating each channel in isolation, it makes all the contact points work together, as if they were part of a single system.
This means that if a customer starts a conversation on the website chat and then decides to call the call center, the attendant will already have the entire history of that interaction at hand, without the customer having to explain everything again.
Imagine you’re searching for a product on a store’s app, you ask a few questions over chat, but you decide to visit the physical store to see the item up close. When you get there, the salesperson can access information about your preferences, the products you’ve looked at and even the questions you’ve already answered.
This makes the process much faster and more efficient, as the seller already knows exactly what you want. This is the essence of omnichannel: total integration between channels for a more fluid experience.
What are the advantages of omnichannel service?
So far, we’ve understood the concept of omnichannel service. Now, let’s understand what advantages this service model can provide for both the company and the customer.
Personalized and consistent experience
You know that feeling of frustration when you contact a company and have to repeat the same information several times? One of the advantages of omnichannel customer service is that you no longer have this problem.
As all interactions are connected, the customer has a much more fluid and consistent experience. This means that, regardless of the channel chosen, they will be served in the same way, with the same level of quality and with all the information already available.
In addition, the possibility of increasing the personalization of service is also one of the advantages of omnichannel. With the customer’s history in hand, the company can offer a tailor-made service, taking into account their preferences, previous purchases and even browsing behavior.
Increased customer loyalty and retention
When customers perceive that they are served quickly, personally and efficiently, satisfaction increases. And satisfied customers are more loyal to the brand.
The omnichannel helps to create a closer relationship with the consumer, showing that the company is committed to offering a quality service experience.
A Harvard Business Review study revealed that companies with well-structured omnichannel strategies manage to increase customer retention by up to 30%.
This is because customers feel safer and more comfortable continuing to buy from a company that understands their needs and offers uninterrupted service.
Operational efficiency
Another great advantage is that omnichannel not only makes life easier for the customer, but also for the service team. With all the data centralized on a single platform, agents can solve problems much more quickly. There’s no need to keep changing systems or asking the customer to repeat information. Everything they need is already there, at their fingertips.
This not only improves the quality of the service, but also increases the productivity of the team, since less time is spent on each interaction. With fewer manual processes and more automation, the efficiency of the operation increases and service costs can decrease.
Boosting sales
Omnichannel customer service also has advantages for company sales. By offering a more complete and personalized experience, the chances of converting a customer increase considerably.
Studies show that integrated marketing campaigns across several channels achieve an almost 19% higher engagement rate. This is because the customer is being impacted in different ways, but always with a consistent message.
What’s more, the integration between sales channels allows customers to make their purchase journey in the way they prefer. They can start their purchase online, ask questions via WhatsApp and finalize their order in the physical store. This flexibility is something that modern consumers really value.
How to implement omnichannel service?
Now that we know what omnichannel is and what its advantages are, the question is: how can we do it in practice? We’ve listed a step-by-step guide to help you implement this strategy in your business:
- Map the customer journey: the first step is to map the customer journey. It’s important to understand how your customer interacts with your company. Make a complete map of their journey, from the moment they learn about your product to after-sales. This helps to identify the points of contact and where failures may be occurring.
- Integrate service channels: this is the essential part of omnichannel: integrating all service channels. Email, chat, social media, telephone, WhatsApp, physical store… everything must work as one. For this, using an omnichannel CRM platform is essential, as it centralizes all interactions and makes life easier for both the customer and your team.
- Team training: there’s no point in having the best technology if your team doesn’t know how to use it properly. That’s why investing in training is part of the omnichannel service implementation process. The service team needs to understand how the customer journey works and know how to use the data available to offer a personalized and efficient service on any channel.
- Automate processes: automation tools help speed up service at various stages, from automatic responses in chats to bots that resolve simple service demands (which we call level one service). This frees up your team to focus on more complex problems and improve service even more.
- Monitor results: once you have implemented omnichannel customer service, it is important to closely monitor the results and adjust as necessary. Use performance metrics to understand what is working and what can be improved. This will ensure that your strategy is always aligned with customer needs.
What is omnichannel CRM?
Omnichannel CRM is the system that allows a company to manage all customer interactions in one place. It is this system that unifies all service channels and stores the complete history of each customer, from the first contact to the completion of a purchase or resolution of a problem.
As we’ve already seen, with integrated interactions, it’s possible to personalize each communication, knowing exactly who the customer is, what they’ve bought, what problems they’ve had and how they prefer to be served. This makes customer service much more efficient and streamlined.
As well as unifying service channels, omnichannel CRM can also be integrated with other tools, such as marketing and sales systems. This allows the company to have a 360º view of the customer, enabling more assertive sales strategies and more personalized marketing campaigns.
With this integration, CRM can help create automatic campaigns based on customer behavior, make personalized product recommendations and even offer more relevant discounts for each purchasing profile.
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How does omnichannel work in sales?
As we’ve already mentioned, the omnichannel strategy not only impacts customer service, but also the company’s sales. When we talk about omnichannel sales, the idea is simple: integrate sales strategies across all customer attraction and acquisition channels.
Now, thinking about a buying journey, imagine a customer who starts by researching a product on the website, asks a few questions on Instagram and completes the purchase on WhatsApp. This is the core concept of omnichannel sales: offering the customer a fluid and consistent shopping experience, allowing them to move between different channels with ease.
The great thing about omnichannel for sales is that all the points of contact – be it the website, physical store, social networks or WhatsApp – work in an integrated way. In other words, the customer can start their journey on one channel and finish it on another in a fluid and consistent way.
The key is to ensure that all points of contact are synchronized and that the company has a continuous flow of information about the customer, their preferences and interactions. This means that if the customer has asked a question on Instagram, the WhatsApp agent will already be aware of the query and can continue the service where it left off, without the need for the customer to repeat information.
Outsource your call center to Scooto
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve certainly understood the importance of customer service in providing a good customer experience. Now it’s time to look for solutions to improve your company’s customer service and provide even more positive experiences.
Scooto is a 100% remote and flexible customer service center that will help you connect with your customers across all your service and sales channels, providing efficient and humanized service.
We specialize in transforming the relationship between companies and people, and we do this by combining technology, human intelligence and strategic intelligence.
Your company can count on Scooto for:
- Call Center
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- 24-hour telephone support, WhatsApp and various other channels.