Member Article

Omnichannel Hype And Reality

VoiceSage’s John Duffy thinks that much over-used word ’omnichannel’ may be moving from PowerPoint to everyday reality in British contact centres

If there’s one word the Marketing and Contact Centre worlds must be tiring of, it’s ‘omnichannel’.

However, the reality is omnichannel is an important idea that was possibly over-promoted, but whose time has come.

Consider the latest Mary Meeker annual Internet Trends report which observers see as the ‘State of the Online Nation’ report. Her data shows that having easier access to online support channels is the number one preference of US consumers – above faster agent response times, even (60% versus 53%). Meanwhile, having a consistent customer experience across all channels is the most-desired improvement of one in three contacted – and that clearly means being omnichannel.

A reassuringly robust picture’s emerging

Plus, the reality is that it’s getting increasingly difficult to shake off a bad image – 82% of customers say they stop doing business with a company after a bad experience, up from 76% two years ago. And as they share their negative experiences on social media, having a consistent view of what people do – another aspect of omnichannel – is getting ever more desirable.

So if your brand has an integrated online presence, is supported by community building activities and is open to user-generated content, it seems that at least some parts of the US business sector are delivering, if not full omnichannel, then something approximate.

However, is there any basis for concluding that things are on the same route of travel in the UK? We believe there is, as we’ve just completed a comprehensive UK contact centre research exercise that shows that there’s a lot of grass-roots omnichannel taking place in the UK.

Undertaken in collaboration with the UK Contact Centre Forum (UKCCF), the national membership group for call centre and customer service professionals, the research involved interactions with 150+ customer contact leaders in the public and private sectors – and the results confirm the route of omnichannel travel.

SMS and Automated Voice a bigger part of the UK contact centre mix

For example, no less than 56% of respondents map the customer journey, and 20% say they’re about to. The same proportion, 56%, said they have in place, or will shortly have in place, a fully-integrated information and contact routing systems, a pre-requisite for multi-channel engagement. Interestingly, the majority, 51%, are using SMS to dialogue with brand followers, while one in five are using Automated Voice – and 14% believe that, if they did, it would be Effective or Very Effective.

The research also looked at whether contact centre professionals in the UK get a clear picture of the customer history – another must-have for omnichannel working. The reassuring answer is that one in six UK organisations confirmed that they can give a team member immediate access to previous conversations with customers about the same issue – and across all channels.

That shows a high percentage of organisations have the kind of integrated information and contact routing systems Meeker and her fellow trend watchers say are needed to deliver omnichannel.

Ground-level omnichannel

The stamp of a successful and practical omnichannel strategy for today is one that allows efficiencies on your side to be continually improved upon, and enhancements made to the customer’s journey.

However, as omnichannel isn’t just about having multiple channels but about ensuring they work together, it’s the brands that worry less about what their PowerPoints say is omnichannel and the sort of pragmatic omnichannel we see emerging, that will win.

The author is Enterprise Consultant at proactive customer engagement specialist VoiceSage (http://www.voicesage.com)

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by John Duffy .