The Ultimate Guide To Omnichannel Customer Engagement

How businesses connect with customers has radically changed over the past few years.

Instead of in-person window shopping, we scroll through our social media feeds from the comfort of the couch. Instead of bringing in a broken product for in-store repair, we chat with an online support agent or watch a video tutorial to see if we can fix it ourselves. Instead of writing a company to tell them how much we love them, we tag them on social media or leave them a glowing online review.

This is omnichannel customer engagement in action: the ability to communicate with businesses on our favorite voice or digital channel–even switching between communication channels–without missing a beat.

Read on to learn more about what omnichannel customer engagement is, why it matters, how to implement it, and more.

• Overview
• Why It's Important
• Benefits
• Challenges & Best Practices
• How to Create a Strategy
• Examples of Uses
• Tools and Technologies
• Next Steps

What Is Omnichannel Customer Engagement?

Omnichannel customer engagement is a marketing and communication strategy that creates a familiar, consistent, and cohesive customer experience across all of a company’s available communication channels and touchpoints.

Omnichannel customer engagement is about maintaining consistency throughout the entire customer journey–even when customers switch between communication channels, re-engage with your support team after a few days of silence, or contact you from a different device.

The goal of omnichannel engagement is continuity, regardless of customer intent, communication channel, customer lifecycle stage, or which agent is assisting the client.

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel

The terms omnichannel and multichannel are used interchangeably, but they offer two distinct frameworks and customer experiences. Multichannel means simply being present on multiple channels, while omnichannel refers to a unified customer experience and record.

Multichannel systems allow customers and prospects to connect in several ways such as phone, email, social media, and web chat, but each channel has its own set of data, workflows, team members, technology stack, etc. If a customer begins a transaction on one channel and then switches to a different channel, they may have to repeat their issue.

Omnichannel systems also offer multiple channels, but they keep a persistent unified record that follows the customer across all touchpoints. This means that every agent, bot, or system that the custom interacts with, will have context such as purchase history, customer service history, etc.

In short: no matter when, where, how, or why customers and businesses connect, omnichannel customer engagement provides a unified experience informed by past interactions and free from communication silos.

Why Is Omnichannel Customer Engagement Important?

Omnichannel customer engagement is important because it ensures businesses meet consumer expectations of a consistent, recognizable customer experience across multiple communication channels and throughout the entire customer journey. It also:

Centers Customer Preferences

Omnichannel customer engagement puts your customers in control. Customers can connect with your business on their preferred channel, instead of being limited to the one or two channels you provide. This level of flexibility shows you care about customer preferences, and that you’re willing to meet customers where they’re at–not where you want them to be.

Widens Your Customer Base

Different demographics are drawn to different communication channels. For example, most Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) prefer to communicate with businesses via email, while most members of Gen Z (born 199-2012) would rather connect with brands on social media.[*]

The more communication channels you have, the larger and more demographically diverse your customer base. Omnichannel engagement introduces your business to customers you wouldn’t have converted if you’d stuck to just one or two channels.

Offers Detailed Customer Insights

Omnichannel customer engagement isn’t just a strategy to help you get more customers, but also a way to get to know your current customers on a much deeper level. Collecting and analyzing customer data from multiple channels and touchpoints streamlines the market segmentation process and makes it easier to provide a personalized omnichannel customer experience.

Omnichannel data collection helps businesses identify trends in customer behavior, anticipate customer needs, respond quickly to common pain points or gaps in the customer journey, and improve omnichannel marketing strategies.

What Are the Benefits of an Omnichannel Approach?

Taking an omnichannel approach to customer engagement and support increases customer retention rates, improves the agent experience, and eliminates common customer frustrations that lead to churn. Omnichannel communication makes it faster, easier, and more convenient for customers to connect with your business.

It also builds brand recognition, makes customers feel valued, and increases consumer spending–all while providing business owners with granular insights that continually optimize the customer experience.

Higher Customer Retention

Omnichannel engagement makes the support process more efficient, shortens customer buying cycles, and gives agents the tools they need to provide personalized service. That’s why, while companies without an omnichannel strategy in place retain only 33% of their customers, businesses that properly leverage omnichannel engagement have a customer retention rate of 89%.[*]

An increased customer retention rate lowers operating costs, increases upselling opportunities, and boosts CSAT scores. Happy, repeat customers transform into loyal brand ambassadors who recommend your products and services to their networks.

Better Agent Experience

Nearly 50% of contact center managers cite increased agent absenteeism and high turnover rates as their biggest business challenges.[*] Overburdened employees, irate customers, inefficient scheduling, and a lack of quality customer self-service options all increase agent attrition–but omnichannel customer engagement can help.

Omnichannel solutions streamline customer-agent communication across channels into a unified agent inbox, giving team members instant access to complete conversation histories, CRM data, account information, and more without app switching. Admins can create a searchable internal knowledge base or leverage Agent Assist for automated next-best-action suggestions to agents, ensuring a consistent experience across channels.

Because customer service requests are spread out across channels, individual agents aren’t overburdened. In-call CRM screen pops make providing contextual, personalized support a breeze. Forecasting tools optimize agent schedules across channels, eliminating overstaffing and understaffing while ensuring each shift contains agents with different skill sets.

Increased Consumer Spending

Providing an omnichannel experience has been proven to increase conversions and boost individual consumer spending. Businesses leveraging omnichannel customer engagement see annual revenue increase by nearly 10%, while brands without an omnichannel strategy see annual revenue grow by just 3.4%.[*]

Consumer spending especially increases when businesses establish a link between in-person and online shopping. 67% of customers who choose the “Buy Online, Pick Up In Store” option when shopping online add extra items to their cart, and 51% of American shoppers are more likely to make a purchase when they can buy it online and return it in-store.[*]

Effective Market Segmentation

Omnichannel customer engagement gives businesses detailed insight into how customer behavior differs across channels, optimizing market segmentation strategies and personalizing product recommendations. 80% of businesses implementing market segmentation see increased sales.[*] What’s more, 78% of consumers say they’re more likely to repurchase from–and recommend–businesses that personalize the customer experience.[*]

Personalized Interactions

89% of business leaders believe that personalization is key to their company's success.[*] Unified customer data is the foundation of omnichannel systems which are built on customer data platforms (CDPs) or CRMs. Instead of separating data by channel, individual customer profiles are built with purchase history, support history, web behavior, and more.

No matter how the customer communicates with the brand, the agent will have their profile in front of them so that they can personalize the interaction with journey aware messaging, preferred channel recognition, and other real-time customer-specific questions and comments.

Omnichannel systems also layer in machine learning so that companies can move from reactive personalization to predictive personalization.

Omnichannel Customer Engagement: Challenges and Best Practices

Here, we review the top challenges of implementing omnichannel customer engagement and provide actionable solutions to these common problems.

The Challenge: A Fragmented Customer Experience

While omnichannel communication gives your customers more ways to connect to your business, implementing too many channels without proper preparation and agent training creates a fragmented customer experience that’s inconsistent across channels. Without continuity between channels, customers end up repeating themselves, wait time increases, agents are overburdened and stressed, and customer satisfaction plummets.

The Solution: Create A Unified Customer Experience

To create a unified customer experience, determine the three communication channels that are most popular with your customers, and focus your efforts there. Scale channels gradually, one at a time–avoid adding too many new channels all at once. Review historical data and conduct surveys to ensure any channels you do add are ones your customers actually use.

Consider the best possible use cases for each specific channel, and leverage from there. For example, while SMS texting is perfect for sending automated appointment reminders or shipping updates, it’s not the best channel for providing highly detailed technical support.

A unified customer experience is built through:

• Shared inboxes: Agent-facing dashboards that streamline complete omnichannel conversation histories into a unified dashboard. Shared inboxes prevent customer repetition, sync conversations across channels in real-time, and let agents respond to all customer support/service requests regardless of channel
• Conversation history sync: Captures, stores, and displays in real time every interaction a customer has regardless of the channel.
• CRM data handoff: Surfaces relevant information from the company's CRM such as purchase history, and preferences. This data is bundled into a screen pop
• Agent notification: Alerts the agent to an incoming call or escalation- so that the agent can personalize the interaction.

Admins can assign top agents specific interactions, and available agents can seamlessly switch between channels based on real-time contact volumes. This creates a consistent customer experience across channels, and keeps wait times low.

The Challenge: Data Silos

While omnichannel communication gives your business access to a huge amount of analytics and consumer data, data silos lead to inaccurate or incomplete reports, increased operating costs, and improper staffing. Agents don’t have access to complete conversation histories, and managers can’t monitor customer sentiment and agent performance across channels.

Most of all, data silos make it impossible for businesses to get a complete, 360-degree view of their customer base and the overall customer journey.

The Solution: Streamline Analytics

Most contact center solutions automatically streamline omnichannel analytics into a single interface and let admins filter and monitor interactions by channel. If you’re using several different analytics tools, integrate as many as you can or consider upgrading to an omnichnnal platform. Consider AI-powered conversational analytics tools, which offer real-time and historical speech and text analytics across channels.

The Challenge: Low Conversion and Engagement Rates

Giving your customers more channels to shop and engage with your business on doesn’t guarantee increased conversions and higher engagement. When engagement remains low despite adopting an omnichannel strategy, profits go down, employee engagement falls, and you may have to tighten your budget.

The Solution: Automated Marketing and Proactive Engagement

Respond to low or stagnant conversion rates by implementing omnichannel proactive engagement strategies like using outbound chatbots to make automated product/service suggestions to website visitors or sending out reminder text messages to existing customers when it’s time to renew a subscription.

Proactive engagement is about anticipating customer expectations and needs, reaching out to them before they reach out to you, and suggesting products each market segment is the most likely to be. Couple this with automated marketing strategies like email cart reminders, SMS sales alerts with coupon codes, and more to increase engagement and conversions.

The Challenge: Understaffing and Overstaffing

Understaffing increases customer hold times and exhausts agents, while overstaffing drives up operating costs and increases agent idle time. Creating a balanced schedule that ensures each channel has enough available agents to provide quality customer service–without having to hire additional agents–is a huge challenge for omnichannel contact centers.

The Solution: Omnichannel Forecasting

Omnichannel forecasting evaluates historical and real-time contact volume data across channels and leverages predictive analytics to forecast future contact volumes. Admins can access automated optimized schedules for specific channels, adjust schedules in real-time, monitor contact volume trends, and better prepare for peak times.

Forecasting tools come with a variety of customizable algorithms, and even ensure each shift/channel has enough available agents with a diversity of skill sets.

The Challenge: Consumer Trust and Privacy

While the majority of customers are excited about personalized marketing messages and support, there is such a thing as over-personalization. About 42% of consumers don’t think companies are using their data responsibly, and many are concerned about how much access businesses have to their personal information.[*] Over-personalisation can feel creepy, off-putting, and destroy consumer trust in your business.

The Solution: Opt-Ins and Communication Preferences

First, always look for WFM and contact center solutions that redact sensitive customer data, offer custom data retention policies, and use automation for TCPA compliance. Since close to 90% of customers say they want companies to ask their permission before collecting sensitive data, make your opt-in and opt-out process as simple as possible–and let customers set their own notification preferences.[*]

The Challenge: Increased Handle Times

In most cases, implementing omnichannel solutions decreases average handle times and makes customers support/sales processes more efficient. Sometimes–especially for smaller contact centers that can’t afford to hire more agents–handle times increase when new channels are initially added.

Customers must wait longer for available agents, support teams are forced to rush through customer interactions, and support quality decreases.

The Solution: Omnichannel Self-Service

Implementing automated customer self-service options across channels is an essential part of effective omnichannel customer engagement. AI-powered chatbots, Conversational IVR, online knowledge bases, and automated SMS or social media messages all enable 24/7 omnichannel customer self-service while freeing up live agents.

Omnichannel routing automatically connects customers to the best available live agent regardless of channel, creating a seamless experience. Agents even have time to review customer conversations with automated support chatbots before taking over the interaction.

How To Create An Effective Omnichannel Customer Engagement Strategy

Below, we’ve outlined a step-by-step process for successful omnichannel customer engagement:

1. Research Your Customer Base

First, identify your customer base’s favorite communication channels and determine if they usually access them on desktop and mobile devices. Use historical analytics to evaluate how contact volumes and buying patterns shift across channels throughout the year, and segment your current clientele into different buyer personas and customer profiles.

2. Conduct Customer Journey Mapping

Once you’ve chosen your channels, integrate them into a single interface and conduct omnichannel customer journey mapping. Evaluate how different customers behave across channels based on their intent (researching your company, buying products/services, seeking customer support, etc.) Doing so makes it easier to identify roadblocks, find key touchpoints, and determine which channel is best suited for a specific intent.

3. Build an Omnichannel Internal Knowledge Base

Creating an internal knowledge base with agent scripts, canned responses, communication guidelines, product guides, and more is the best way to ensure consistent messaging and a unified customer experience across channels. Ensure the knowledge base is well-organized, frequently updated, and searchable.

Tools like Agent Assist use Natural Language Processing and machine learning to evaluate customer intent and make automated, in-conversation next-best-action suggestions to agents from knowledge base data. Automated chatbots and virtual agents also integrate with your knowledge base, providing high-value and accurate customer support without involving a live agent.

4. Train Agents and Optimize Staffing Strategies

Leverage Workforce Management and forecasting tools to optimize the training, onboarding, and staffing process. Create and assign custom training modules, use call recordings to create playlists of successful interactions, and monitor live customer-agent conversations, jumping in when necessary.

Optimize agent schedules and keep all channels adequately staffed by using different forecasting algorithms, enabling adherence monitoring, and allowing agents to bid and swap shifts.

5. Review Analytics and Feedback, Adjust Accordingly

Once you’ve implemented your omnichannel engagement strategy, monitoring key metrics and identifying areas for improvement is essential. Create customer surveys, use performance management tools like live coaching and agent scorecards, and identify trends in agent and customer behavior via conversational analytics. Insights from analytics optimize agent schedules, omnichannel routing strategies, IVR menus, chatbots, marketing team strategies, and more across different channels.

How to Measure Omnichannel Engagement Success

Measuring the success of an omnichannel engagement strategy requires looking at the entire customer lifecycle from acquisition/conversion through retention. Here are some important metrics to monitor:

• Retention Rate: Measures the percentage of customers that are retained for 30, 60, 90, or 180 days. To measure omnichannel engagement specifically, compare retention rates for customers who used 3+ channels to those who only used a single channel. This is your omnichannel lift story
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): This is the total value that is expected from a customer over the duration of the relationship. Cross channel customers typically show a higher CLTV than single channel customers, and some platforms such as Salesforce and Azure will predict CLTV for each customer, allowing you to intervene before churn happens
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures how likely a customer is to recommend your business- usually obtained from a survey where the customer gives a ranking from 0-10. In omnichannel systems, NPS should be journey-triggered, tracking the NPS by journey stage and channel so that you can see where the pain points are
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Tracks how satisfied a customer was with a particular interaction, transaction, or experience by asking the customer for a score from 0-5 and then calculating the percentage of positive experiences. In omnichannel systems, CSAT should be tracked at the handoff point so that you can see if transitions are truly seamless
• Channel Attribution: Assigns credit to each channel that contributed to a sale, resolution, etc., sometimes weighting first touch or last touch channels with all of the credit. For omnichannel systems, it is best to use a multi-touch attribution method such as linear (equal weight to different channels), time decay (more credit given to channels closer to conversion), or data driven (credit distributed based on statistical analysis of actual conversion patterns)
• First Contact Resolution (FCR): Measures the percentage of interactions that are resolved at the first touchpoint without needing escalation or a call back. In omnichannel, FCR should be measured at the issue level, so that if two touchpoints are used but there is no repeat of the issue, the resolution will still be tracked as a first contact resolution
• Customer Effort Score (CES): Measures how much effort a customer must put forth in order to get their issue resolved. High effort experiences such as redundant authentication, repeating information across channels, and being transferred multiple times, are what omnichannel software is designed to eliminate, making CES a critical diagnostic

Examples of Companies Using Omnichannel Strategies

Below are three real-world examples of successful omnichannel customer communication:

Home Depot

Home improvement giant Home Depot offers superior omnichannel customer service, providing a variety of agent-led and self-service options. Customers can reach out via phone, SMS, email, chatbot, live chat, review online FAQ pages, or shop in-store.

Using the automated website chatbot, users can check product inventory levels at nearby stores, schedule at-home deliveries, or have items shipped directly to the store for in-person pickup at a later date. If products are unavailable, Home Depot makes alternate recommendations.

All users receive email order confirmations, but can also opt to receive order updates via SMS. It even provides a “Visualizer” tool to let customers see what flooring or other decor options will look like in their homes.

Ulta Beauty

Cosmetics and skincare retailer Ulta is another example of omnichannel engagement done right. Their mobile app lets users review their customer loyalty program status, apply coupons, check product inventory at nearby stores, and review recommended products.

Ulta sends segmented marketing emails, offers SMS notifications, and makes it easy to connect with customer support via in-app chat messaging, or email. Best of all, it provides virtual skin analysis, virtual makeup and hair color try-ons, and even an online foundation shade-matching tool.

eBay

Online auctioneer and e-commerce site eBay also provides excellent omnichannel engagement. Users receive custom SMS/email notifications about watched items, seller offers, sales, or new listings that might interest them. All sellers have access to the on-demand customer and seller knowledge base (shown below) with tutorials, best practice guides, and more.

Customer support is available via 24/7 chatbot, voice calling, or email. Users can message other sellers directly, ask for discounts or make offers on an item’s listing, and leave or read verified reviews from a seller’s past customers.

Tools and Technologies for Omnichannel Customer Engagement

The most important tools to add to your tech stack for effective omnichannel communication are:

Omnichannel Contact Center Software

Omnichannel contact center software enables agent-led support and customer self-service across voice and digital channels. Admins can configure AI-powered website chatbots, use IVR to direct voice callers to the best available agent, and leverage Agent Assist for automated in-call agent support.

Conversational speech and text analytics offer insight into live and historical customer sentiment and intent, popular support topics, call volume trends, and channel usage.

AI capabilities such as predictive routing means that customers are handed off to the correct agent sooner, with less transfers, and no repetition for the customer. AI-powered sentiment analysis and real-time transcription offer deep insights into customer behavior and pain points, and AI-powered agent assist means that human agents have the information they need in real-time allowing them to focus on the customer relationship and personalization.

CRM Solutions

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software collects essential customer data like contact information, current CSAT score, omnichannel conversation histories, past/open orders, shipping/tracking updates, account value, agent notes, and more. CRM systems like Salesforce, Zendesk, and HubSpot integrate with popular call and contact center software to provide agents with real-time, in-conversation access to relevant customer data.

Workforce Management Platforms

Workforce Management (WFM) solutions provide tools that optimize the employee experience, monitor agent performance, and improve the scheduling process. Omnichannel forecasting tools use predictive analytics and historical data to create suggested agent schedules that can be updated in real-time according to current contact volumes. Agents can request PTO, swap or bid on shifts, and review performance scores and assigned training modules from anywhere.

Workforce Optimization (WFO)  tools like gamification and wallboards increase employee engagement, recognize and reward top performers, and boost productivity.

Implementing Omnichannel Customer Engagement: Next Steps

How can your business implement a successful omnichannel customer engagement strategy? The first step is to evaluate your current business communication tools and determine if they enable truly omnichannel communication, or if they limit your business and customers to siloed multi-channel messaging.

Look for all-in-one omnichannel customer engagement platforms that streamline voice and digital communication into a unified dashboard, integrate with your third-party marketing and CRM tools, provide custom real-time and historical analytics, and include workforce management features that optimize agent scheduling and employee training.

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