Digital disruption is happening at a rapid pace, especially with the adoption of new, mobile digital channels. Innovative companies in all industries are leading the way by providing innovative and effortless omnichannel customer journeys. But creating and measuring omnichannel customer journeys can be a difficult process and can be hindered by out-of-date technology and processes within the organization. Customers are demanding omnichannel but what is the best way to implement new channels that work seamlessly with existing channels? And how can you measure KPIs and track CSAT across all channels and journeys?
5 Keys to Create and Measure Omnichannel Customer Journeys
Key #1: See the Customer Journey and Act in the Moment
Empower your agents to provide tailored customer service by providing tools that allow them to view the customer’s journey at the micro level. In order to create an effortless, personal omnichannel experience, agents must first be able to see the journey, including a summary of all historical interactions, regardless of channel. Agents who see the entire journey are able to act in the moment and utilize prior data to help customers faster and with less effort (i.e., without having to switch between different software and desktops).
If you are offering omnichannel with traditional channels, such as voice, email, and chat, as well as emerging channels like video, SMS/text, in-app, and social messengers, it is critical to show agents context from each channel interaction.
Some companies may also decide to measure not only by channel, but by journey type, product, or store branch. For example, a bank may measure across different segments like money transfer, credit card purchases, and mortgages. It’s important for these journey types to be monitored and recorded so the customer journey can be kept in context, allowing agents and other employees outside the contact center to keep track of the customer journey with the business
Key #2: Get Your Second Channel Working with Your Voice Channel
For first-timers, adopting an omnichannel setup may be difficult since companies have to decide what channels to adopt and include in the omnichannel customer journey. We suggest getting your top two channels to work as one. You can always add more channels later, but if you don’t get your top two channels working, other channels you add into the mix will likely also be siloed, causing friction in your customer’s journey.
Creating omnichannel journeys between web chat and voice is the use case we see most often. Customers typically go to company websites in the hope of using self-service FAQs to answer questions, but they often end up engaging with web chat if they cannot find their answer. From there, a customer may want to channel hop to voice in order to solve the issue faster. With this use case, it is critical that you have omnichannel technology to escalate the chat seamlessly to a call with the same agent. Under a multichannel model, the customer would have to call in to a separate siloed customer support group and repeat all the information they provided in the web chat session. Repeating information causes frustration. Instead, empower both customers and agents to communicate in an omnichannel way.
Key #3: Communicate Digitally
Not only is it important to get top traditional channels like voice, email, and webchat working as one, but it is important to make sure when adding innovative emerging channels. Especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020, digital mobile use has risen dramatically among the public. Channels like SMS, text messaging, messaging apps, chat bot, and web chat are the new channels that customers want to connect with businesses on. To allow seamless channel hopping between all traditional and digital channels with a complete historical view for agents will help differentiate your customer service from the competition.
It is also likely that customers communicating over these channels have a higher standard and demand an innovative omnichannel experience. With the demand of new digital channels comes the demand for better customer service as well. Consider utilizing omnichannel quality management as part of your contact center system to help your administrators monitor 100% of all interactions on all channels seamlessly.
Key #4: Measure the Omnichannel Journey
In Key #1, I mentioned the importance of measuring the journey at the micro level so that agents can personalize customer interactions. It is also important to measure the omnichannel journey at the macro level to make business decisions backed by real-time data. Supervisors and CS leaders need to see the journey at the macro level to improve the journey.
Companies can analyze journey types across all channels by analyzing KPIs. By asking for a simple 5-star review across all channels, companies can identify which channels are underperforming. They can also see which type of interaction is underperforming. Beyond tracking NPS and CSAT through customer surveys, companies can also track omnichannel customer journeys utilizing artificial intelligence (AI). By measuring the sentiment of each interaction on each channel, CX leaders can make actionable changes to the journey. Once you can measure omnichannel NPS, CSAT, and sentiment, make sure the relevant parties are aware of the KPIs with omnichannel dashboards.
Key #5: Take a Platform Approach
When beginning your omnichannel journey, the technology and partners you choose are critical to your success. Cloud omnichannel lets you be nimble and start your omnichannel journey right now. It also provides you with the latest and greatest capabilities—as new channels emerge, your cloud vendor will support them. Cloud contact center platforms also can be acquired at a lower cost, are fast to deploy, and are easy to manage. It is also important to make sure your vendor has native channels that were built in-house from the ground up. Native channels are the enabler of true effortless, personal omnichannel conversations and omnichannel measurement.
Out-of-date technology is the main pain point when going omnichannel. Most vendors offer multichannel but fail to offer seamless omnichannel across all channels with all history carried over for the agent to view. Even more vendors struggle to offer a way to measure a complete customer journey in an omnichannel environment.
Bright Pattern’s Omnichannel Platform
Power omnichannel communications with Bright Pattern’s cloud-based omnichannel contact center platform. Our contact center software includes built-in omnichannel quality assurance, support of emerging digital channels, and comprehensive CRM integrations to help ensure your customer’s journey with your business is smooth and seamless. Differentiate your customer service from the competition.
