Businesses today are grappling with the complexities of an multi-channel world. As customers move fluidly from one channel to another – browsing online, say, then popping in-store to chat to a salesperson – they want the experience to be fluid and seamless too. Yet, often, it’s not.

Delivering a seamless multi-channel experience can be hard, particularly if you don’t have visibility across all the marketing channels and touchpoints you use, and if your platforms don’t talk to each other. Yet it’s worth the effort, as it can become a true point of difference for your business.

The good news? There are some easy and impactful things you can do to deliver seamless customer experience (CX) across all your channels and leave your customers smiling. Let’s take a look.

1. Define your ideal customer experience

In the same way that you’d develop a brand strategy to shape everything from your website’s look and feel to your in-store fit-out and advertising, you need to develop a strategy for CX. How do you want your customers to feel when they interact with you? And what can you do to create that feeling?

If you’re selling something fun – like fashion accessories – then you’ll likely want the experience to be feel-good, too. A quirky note in your eCommerce packaging could help inject the fun-factor, as could some more cheeky, conversational copywriting on transactional emails. But if you’re selling something a little more serious, like insurance, then you’ll want to deliver a more trustworthy and reassuring experience – such as making sure you’ve got knowledgable call centre staff at the ready to discuss your products to prospects, or sending out timely messages when following up on claim enquiries.

Clearly communicate your CX strategy to all stakeholders involved in customer service. From your call centre staff to your social media manager, everyone should understand their role in nurturing a great CX.

2. Map out all of your customer touchpoints

Your next job is to identify all the possible ways that customers can interact with your brand. As part of this, make note of the platforms and systems you use to capture customer data. Don’t just look to the obvious ones, like calling, SMS, email, web, digital marketing, TV advertising, social, mobile marketing, out of home, and face-to-face. Also think about ERPs and finance systems, if you use them – as these could contain customer data.

This step can feel overwhelming. Businesses use an average of 25 different data sources to generate customer insights and engagements; and many businesses quickly realise there are gaps and siloes holding them back.

In fact, 97% of executives say that data siloes negatively impact their business, and many businesses are juggling disparate platforms that don’t talk to each other. Problem is, when there’s no visbility or sharing of data between platforms, then you’ll never be able to leverage powerful tools like AI to make strategic decisions about customer data.

3. Get each platform to talk to each other

With your map of customer touchpoints in hand, it’s time to join the dots, break down those data siloes, and gain full visibility across channels.

Your goal here is to make it as painless as possible to collect data from your customer channels. If you feel overwhelmed here, you’re not alone. Almost half of marketers (43%) spend a week or more each month collecting and cleaning their data sets.

Automating this process will give you the ability to tap into real-time insights, and the good news is that there are cost-effective, easy-to-implement options available today that will simply plug in to your existing tech stack. Choose a platform that has integration at its heart – that is, the ability to easily pull data in from all your existing platforms, so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel – and delivers clear visibility via easy-to-read dashboards of all your channels and campaigns.

4. Measure, monitor and adapt

Once you have the ability to collect data in real time from all of your channels, you’ll be in a powerful position to be able to analyse your customers’ behaviour and measure each channel’s effectiveness as part of a holistic multi-channel experience. You’ll be able to state with confidence where your visitors come from, what they do once they arrive, and where they go next.

Armed with these powerful insights, you’ll be in a better position to make business decisions about each channel – and continually adapt them to improve the CX even more.

5. Use data insights to drive powerful personalisation

Once you’ve completed the steps above, you’re ready to deliver the level of hyper-personalised care that today’s customers expect. This is where the fun begins, particularly if you’re exploring new technologies like AI to enhance the experience even more.

For example, you could send helpful product recommendations via text message to a customer who’s spent some time browsing on your online store. Or you could use a chatbot to answer a customer’s common questions or offer tips as they explore your pricing or packages page. With the right tools in place, the opportunities are endless.

Want to learn more?

Fone Dynamics has published an eBook on the topic of CX integration, which you can download now for more insights on the value of integrating SMS, call data and analytics into your CRM.

If you’d like to chat about your CX integration needs, or see a demo, call Fone Dynamics on 1300 794 674 or info@fonedynamics.com