Did you know marketers that used three or more channels to run any campaign could achieve a 287% higher purchase rate compared to those that used a single channel for their campaign? Also, purchase frequency is at least 250% higher on omnichannel compared to a single-channel experience. Let’s not forget, the average order value and customer retention rates are also higher in omnichannel than single-channel experience by 13% and 90%, respectively.
Given the extent of prominence gained by omnichannel customer experience, it’s essential that you keep the right tools handy to be able to manage the multiple touchpoints with your customers efficiently. The marketplace is flooded with options, but not all of them are relevant to your business or give you equally great outcomes. To make your job easier, here are a few business tools that you should have in your technology stack to create a great omnichannel experience for your customer.
Live Chat – making interaction easier improves customer experience
Live chat is by far one of the most crucial omnichannel tools that a business needs to invest in. It is one of the most natural ways to encourage communication from a visitor on your website. Customers today expect businesses to be proactive and responsive. Having live chat support on your website or e-commerce site gives them more confidence in making their purchase decisions. Live chat can also be automated. Having chatbots that provide automated responses to common customer queries is a great way to save time and increase productivity in customer support. They provide faster responses and add to the customer experience you are trying to build.
A good live chat software solution is the first thing your omnichannel CX strategy needs.
Email automation – personalised direct communication influences buying behaviour
The email was and always will be an important marketing and communication channel in the world of business. The relevance of targeted emails is only going to increase every year. Personalized emails sent to a prospect or a subscriber at the right moment can have a noteworthy influence on their purchase decision or buying behaviour. Automated email marketing campaigns using tools like MailChimp is becoming a widely adopted norm, and businesses are seeing excellent outcomes from them.
Email automation allows you to send automated, targeted emails triggered by a visitor’s activity on your website or online store. For instance, when a visitor clicks on a particular product from your product listing, a triggered email is automatically sent to them with recommendations of products similar to the ones they viewed. You can also send automated welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, offers, and more. Emails automation tools can also automatically personalize emails for individual recipients to make your email marketing campaigns more effective.
There is a wide range of email automation tools that let you plan, manage, and measure your email marketing campaigns. You just need to choose one that fits the bill for you.
Mobile apps and messengers – be where your customers are
More than half of your audience is surfing the internet on mobile devices. As of Q1, 2021, almost 54.8% of web traffic was attributed to mobile devices. That’s the highest since 2015. So an omnichannel CX program without optimization for mobile is not even an option. The next set of tools that you definitely need to have in your tool kit are mobile applications and mobile messengers. Customers want to buy from businesses that give them the experience on their mobile screens as they do on a desktop screen. Customers want to engage in conversation with a business from their mobile phones.
Every business with a website or at least an e-commerce store should also have its own mobile application that is optimized for viewing on the small screen. Another important customer touchpoint is through popular mobile messenger apps like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp Business. These applications let you reach your customers in real-time and at any time during the day. Customers also find web-based messengers to be more convenient than SMS and emails when it comes to two-way communication.
Apps like WhatsApp Business let you set automated replies to any incoming message as well. So even when you are away, your customers are not left abandoned but receive an appropriate automated response.
CRM that brings all the business communication tools together
Finally, your omnichannel experience for customers will only be complete when everything is unified. Omnichannel CX is different from multichannel CX because in omnichannel, all your conversations are consistent. There is the connection, history, and context in every conversation across every channel. Unlike multichannel, where conversations on different channels can be disjointed and discontinuous, omnichannel CX requires a flow.
This can only be achieved when you have a common platform where all your customer interactions are stored. You need to ensure that your customer support team, sales team, or marketing team has access to every conversation on every channel to give them context in future interactions with a customer. A robust CRM platform gives you exactly this. CRM helps unify all customer interactions across multiple channels and touchpoints. All your other communication channels, including messengers, emails, SMS, social media, etc., can be integrated with the CRM to automatically sync all interactions and save them for future reference.
CRM software can give you a holistic view of what customers prefer and need. It is at the core of every omnichannel CX program, irrespective of industry or business size.
With these few essential omnichannel tools in hand, you are sure to put together a solid strategy. The ROI from the adoption of these tools will not only be in the form of increased sales and revenue but also better customer satisfaction and greater productivity. We have years of experience implementing holistic CRM tools, book a free consultation here.
