An omnichannel customer experience coordinates social media, phone, email, and web chat, allowing all channels between your client and your company to work together for a personalised, consistent and seamless brand experience.

What is Omnichannel Customer Experience?

In a 14-month study, Harvard Business Review interviewed 46,000 customers and found 73% hop across multiple channels and devices throughout their journey with a single retailer as they researched their solution.

Customers may use smartphones as shopping assistants, scroll through Twitter reviews, turn to social channels for direct support from a customer representative or order out of stock products whilst in store.

An omnichannel customer experience means providing customers with an efficient, unified, and cohesive experience between all channels from Facebook page to email to phone. This approach keeps your brand and service quality consistent regardless of where your customer is or what device they're using.

Customers have come to expect channels to be unified and with an integrated strategy, you can dramatically increase customer ratings and turn first-time customers into return customers, worth 10x the value of their initial purchase price.

Here are 5 ways to improve your company's approach to providing a smooth omnichannel customer experience.

1. Keep your brand consistent

Brand consistency is a key element of providing an integrated omnichannel customer experience. Your branding on every channel leading back to your company should deliver a unified message of your company's identity.

Branding can allow you to communicate a consistent positive message to your target audience who in turn associate this with your company. Brand consistency throughout all channels will also make your company more recognisable.

The more recognisable you are, the more familiar you are, and the more familiar you are the greater your audience's trust in your brand. Purchasing is as much an emotional as it is a practical decision. The more trust in your company you build, the more loyal, returning customers you're likely to have.

Branding inconsistency, displaying different messages on different channels, can have the opposite effect. Apply the same message across all touchpoints to create consumer trust and therefore business coming your way in a saturated market of similar offers.

2. Invest in your mobile services

Google’s VP of Marketing, Lisa Gevelber, shared research on how consumers use devices to make decisions: 96% use their smartphone to find answers, and 70% for in-store purchases. Your company's mobile presence is pivotal to your omnichannel marketing strategy. Invest in your mobile services, apps, and how your website displays on mobile.

Incorrect displays, web pages that are difficult to navigate, and slow loading times frustrate customers and reflect negatively on your brand with 52% reporting a poor mobile experience would make them less inclined to do business.

Consider how your content displays on mobile or how you provide it through your app. Content is a great way to centre your omnichannel marketing around mobile, hitting each stage of a potential customer's journey with your company.

For example, good content such as written or video blogs can keep your customer engaged with your company long after their initial purchase. Engagement creates web traffic impacting how Google views your site and your listing in SERP and if providing content through an app, can prevent them uninstalling.

Content worth sharing can turn customers into brand advocates, resharing posts on social channels, and impacting your word of mouth marketing. A key element of omnichannel marketing is personalisation, so if using an app re-engage users with your brand with personalised push notifications.