Imagine walking into a busy clothing shop. You’re immediately greeted by a friendly salesperson.
“Hi, welcome to Coats&More. We’re having a 15% sale today!”
You thank the salesperson and head to a different part of the shop. A few minutes later you wander back and are greeted by the same salesperson.
“Hi, welcome to Coats&More. We’re having a 15% sale today!”
That’s weird.
And it keeps happening. Every time you walk past the salesperson in the front of the store they greet you the same way.
“Hi, welcome to Coats&More. We’re having a 15% sale today!”
Don’t they remember that they’ve already seen you multiple times? Don’t they know you already heard about the sale? It starts to get annoying, and eventually, you avoid that part of the store altogether. You leave with a bad taste in your mouth and think twice about shopping there again.
What went wrong?
It wasn’t bad messaging. It wasn’t that the salesperson was rude. They were just acting like a robot instead of a person.
Treat your customer like a real person
This would be pretty silly to interact with someone like this in a brick-and-mortar store, but how often does this happen in an online shopping experience?
In a physical store, you would change how you interact with a customer if you saw them several times in one trip. You wouldn’t treat a customer like it was their first time talking to you if you had just spoken to them five minutes ago. Similarly, you shouldn’t necessarily treat a customer like it’s the first time you’ve ever interacted with them if they just visited your site five minutes ago.
We need to change how we interact with customers based on how they’re interacting with us.
How do we fix this? One way is by implementing omnichannel content.
Omnichannel content helps your customers interact with content in a way that is unique to them. And it builds on their experiences, allowing you to grow your relationship and gain trust.
Omnichannel is one way to tell a customer, “Hey, I’ve seen you here before. Let’s pick up where we left off.”
Omnichannel vs multichannel
Omnichannel can be kind of hard to wrap your head around, because it’s not necessarily a ‘thing”, it’s more of an overall strategy and structure.
Simply put, omnichannel is all about creating seamless customer experiences between all the channels they interact with. Multichannel, on the other hand, is more about pushing the same message throughout different channels.
Here’s how it works
Customers tend to interact with your brand in several different ways before making a purchase. A customer might check out your social media pages, then visit your website, then make an in-store purchase. All three experiences need to be cohesive and move your customer further along the buyer's journey.
Omnichannel takes into account both multiple channels and multiple interactions. Instead of pushing out the same message on every channel, omnichannel changes the messaging for the customer based on their interaction history.
The experience is highly personalized, leaving the customer feeling more like they’re interacting with someone who knows them and less like they’re interacting with a machine.
Omnichannel is for the future
AI is becoming more and more a part of our lives, and technology is only getting smarter. People are starting to expect machines to function more like real people in how they interact with us. And since, according to Mckinsey & Company, 2 out of 3 customers prefer to interact via remote channels or digital self-service, we need to make sure these digital channels are ready.
In order to compete in this digital market, we have to move away from generic, one-size-fits all kinds of messaging and interaction. Omnichannel can give your business a leg up in this, and your customers will thank you.
