5 Benefits of Omnichannel Customer Service Techniques

Over the past few years, there has been the hype for “omnichannel customer service”. Since multichannel services already existed on the market in every industrial sector, how has omnichannel been different from multichannel? Let’s explore the two concepts. To explain the difference, let’s start with the concept of multichannel customer service. A multichannel system includes different channels where companies interact with their customers, be it on the website, email, chats, social media sites, retail outlets, or via voice call. While, the omnichannel system is defined as the layer that connects all channels where customer interactions can be accessed across multiple channels while ensuring a consistent and seamless customer experience.

Why do companies prefer omnichannel customer service?

Let’s assume that a company has not adopted any other modes of communication apart from phone calls. Today, it might work fine, but with the ever-changing consumer behavior and technological advancements, only voice will not be enough to provide a seamless customer experience. A recent ICMI survey says that 53% of customers prefer live chat over phone calls while reaching call center executives. It means that if the company’s product is a good fit and this feature has not been used, then probably half of the customers are not tapped. It leads to a smaller number of delightful experiences in terms of customer service.

Benefits of Omnichannel Customer Service

While the most obvious benefit of an omnichannel customer support system is to provide a seamless customer experience, other advantages are much deeper than this.

Better Customer Insights

Omnichannel such as social media, chat, forums, or webinars leave a record of the customer trace and their interactions. Depending on how the companies are using this data, this customer information is very useful that can give a wider scope of how the customers are interacting with the brand. This information allows businesses to tweak while improving their customer experience.

Maximize customer care executive’s productivity

A customer service executive can attend one customer at a time over phone calls. While the other channels like forums, chat, social media, etc., can serve the customers to hundreds and thousands at a time. However, they can handle complex issues if simple customer queries can be solved in live chats and social media. Thus, the efficiency of the call center executives is increased in the shortest period.

Automated Pathways

The automated pathways of the omnichannel methods not only increase the experience of the customers but also reduce the amount of work of the executives. The automated pathways lead to less wastage of time while identifying the correct way of dealing with customer queries. It may include various workflow processes like claim assessments, business lending, dispute management, etc. Where cost-efficiency can be gained with the proper use of omnichannel communication.

Outcome Focused

Back-office complexities can be reduced by optimizing the efficiency of the interactions of the customers. Complete automation of repetitive situations enhances the enormous opportunity of freeing up customer service officers while promoting digital customer self-service. Simpler and integrated customer interaction can happen only when the companies use the data from the omnichannel modes of communication.

Cost-efficiency

Although the term omnichannel may sound costly and time-bound, it is cost-efficient and the customer care agents can dedicate themselves to complex issues rather than solving minor queries. The self-help channels reduce the operational bulk of the customer care executives thus leading to lesser hiring and let technology do the delight in customer service.

Hence, it can be said that omnichannel is the future of customer service. But that does not mean that companies need to reinvest in bulk for developing the omnichannel modes of communication. Existing digital channels like mobile apps, websites, CRM, etc. Can be linked together that can lead to seamless customer service.