What Comes After Omnichannel?

Written by KOVA Corp

Over the last few years, businesses have gone from trying to provide customer service everywhere - from phones to chat to email to Facebook to Twitter and on and on - to focusing on a few strategic channels. Many companies who have been focusing on the omnichannel approach for several years have done so with only mediocre results. Because of this, this omnichannel approach is beginning to fall by the wayside.

So, what comes after omnichannel? The next step seems to be the adoption of a strategic, integrated approach that focuses on consumers and how companies can be relevant and different in consumers’ eyes.

What is an integrated approach?

By trying to be everywhere, companies have lost touch with what it is their customers want. Integration involves getting back to the fundamentals of your consumers’ behavior and then choosing channels based on what your consumers want. The integrated approach involves selecting the most efficient channels based on demonstrated consumer behavior. This will be different for every company and it’s certainly not about trying to be everywhere. It’s about getting focused on your target customers and determining which channels they are using and for what purposes they are using the channel.

How can you be relevant?

Being relevant is all about meeting your customers’ needs. In the eyes of your customer, if you have the best solution to their problem, then your solution is the most relevant to that customer and you will earn their business. The best way to find out if you are meeting your customers’ needs better than your competition is to ask your customers. What problems do they have? How are the products or services you are offering solving those problems? It doesn’t hurt to ask consumers about your competition too. You can learn a lot by finding out how well your competition is meeting the needs of consumers.

How can you be different?

Customers care about the experiences they have with companies, not necessarily the channel used to achieve that experience. Your customer service experience is one way you can differentiate yourself from your competition. If you can optimize your company’s customer service experience, you will be miles ahead of your competitors.

Whether or not you choose to stick with your omnichannel strategy or try a fully integrated approach, your customer service should span both the physical and virtual worlds in order to be the most effective. Enterprise Feedback Management Software from KOVA helps your company get a complete view into what people think about your company, your products and your services. To learn more about how Enterprise Feedback Management can help you improve your sales, contact us today.

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