Omnichannel engagement

across the customer journey

Omnichannel CX is all about providing customers with consistently high quality experiences at every stage in the customer journey. In order to deliver that value, omnichannel customer journey mapping is used to ensure feedback collection is happening all along the way. With this data, companies can work on optimizing omni channel experiences with customer feedback.

To provide omnichannel CX, it’s important to understand how close you are currently to true omnichannel engagement! Connect with your internal team for their understanding of the customer journey map, then connect with your customers to fill in all the gaps. Next, figure out how customers want to share feedback at every stage. Do they prefer to send emails or fill out forms? Do they like in-app pop-ups or SMS feedback requests? Do they need always-on listening opportunities? From omnichannel customer service options to new product suggestions, ensure you’ve covered every angle!

True omnichannel CX is based on consistency of experience. Customers should know what to expect from your brand, including experiences, messages, and service. They should also know how open you are to feedback and when and where to deliver it. Successful omnichannel engagement looks like an ongoing conversation between brands and their consumers across all platforms with consistent, on-brand responses and follow-up as needed.

When was the last time you asked your customers how they prefer to connect? Omnichannel customer service requires both proactive outreach to check in on customers and always-on listening options that encourage customers to share any issues as they appear. A customer service feedback survey is a great way to find out how satisfied customers are with the service they receive, but it’s important to include regular audits of your communication channels in other conversations, too. Preferences can change, too, so omnichannel customer service must evolve! Some who used to prefer email might like SMS better now. Maybe those who used to prefer phone calls prefer scheduled video calls. Finding out how customers prefer to be served can be just about as important as the service you provide!

Is this a trick question? 😉 The channels that are best for omnichannel engagement with your customers are 100% the channels your customers prefer! While it may be trendy to collect customer feedback through QR codes, if your customers prefer personalized email invitations, that’s what’s best for you! Remember that setting up the right channels is only part of the recipe for successful omnichannel engagement. The other half? Making sure your employees are prepared to respond appropriately! Setting up in-app chat, for example, can be a super helpful addition to omnichannel customer service, but if your team isn’t sure how to make the most of it, your customers are unlikely to see the value. Ready to prioritize omnichannel engagement? Listen to your customers, prepare your team, and repeat!

If you’re not sure where to begin, start small. Think through your entire omnichannel journey. Identify one specific moment in the customer journey that is very important. What is the best way to collect feedback at that time? Start by setting up one type of feedback collection at that point – maybe an emailed customer satisfaction survey or a QR code on the receipt. As you collect and learn from your data, expand your outreach to different touchpoints and different channels. When you’ve got that covered, start to include questions not just about the specific moments but also about the types of ways customers prefer to share with you, about the consistency of their experiences with your brand, and what hiccups or bumps in the road they’ve encountered. There’s a lot to cover and the challenges will continue to evolve, but omnichannel customer experience management succeeds through slow and steady progress.

An omnichannel customer journey starts with listening and ends with listening. While a customer journey indicates some progress throughout the course of a customer’s relationship with your brand, customer experience itself is iterative and evolving. As customers continue through their experience with you, an omnichannel journey makes it possible for you to connect with and learn from them along the way. From positive exposure to prospects to deep dive conversations with loyal brand ambassadors, every stage of an omnichannel customer journey is about listening! After all, if you don’t listen as you go, the customer journey will probably be a pretty short one.

Welcoming feedback from multiple channels might sound great, but what happens when it comes in? Multichannel feedback can result in data silos, with different kinds of responses from different kinds of customers stacked up in different kinds of formats. If you have all the time and resources in the world to (1) read through it all, (2) figure out what it means, and (3) take appropriate follow-up action, good for you! In the real world, though, omnichannel CX requires bringing together all of that data into a common place – like a comprehensive customer experience management tool – so you can make sense of it. After all, if you can’t figure out what’s important, you’re probably not going to act on it – which is a big turn-off to customers who shared their feedback because they thought you cared! Yikes. Omnichannel engagement is better than multichannel data silos every time.