10 Reasons Why You Need To Offer Omnichannel Customer Support

We live in a world where people don’t just expect personalized messages from their favorite brands, but they want the entire shopping experience tailored to their unique needs.

Receiving the right message at the right time is a key marketing strategy for businesses. However, connecting with your customers through the right channel is equally important. That’s where the omnichannel marketing strategy comes into play.

So, why is the omnichannel strategy crucial?

It’s because customers choose various channels in their journey. They might discover your brand on social media, gather product information from your website, and initiate a chat via email. When it’s time to seal the deal, they might step into your store to inspect the product in person.

Having a solid presence across all possible communication channels is important if you want to retain your customers.

Remember, omnichannel marketing is not just about closing a deal but also about getting your customers to return to your website or physical store for repeat purchases.

According to Think With Google, an omnichannel marketing approach can result in an 80% increase in customer visits to your physical store. This shows that while your customers prefer searching for a product online, a majority of them will visit your store to feel the product in person before buying.

If you haven’t considered incorporating omnichannel customer support into your marketing strategy, we’ve rounded up ten reasons it can make a difference. Let’s take a look.

In simple words, omnichannel customer support refers to a marketing strategy that allows your customers to reach you through different support channels.

The main goal is to offer a consistent communication experience, irrespective of the channel they choose to interact with your brand.

Note that omnichannel is different from multichannel marketing. The former integrates every possible channel that your customer might choose to initiate a chat with you or learn more about your services. Multichannel, on the other hand, is adding multiple communication channels.

Omnichannel marketing strategy doesn’t only provide your customers with the option to start an interaction with you through their preferred mode of communication, but they can switch between different platforms to make a purchase.

This type of marketing strategy is important for nearly every business. Especially IT help desk outsourcing companies that offer round-the-clock support services.

Consider this stat: Companies offering omnichannel support report a 91% retention rate compared to businesses offering limited support channels.

Retaining existing customers is easier than attracting new prospects. Tailoring your services to your customer’s needs and preferences means that there’s a good chance they will stick around, not just for 1-2 products but for most future purchases.

An omnichannel support service also allows you to collect data about your customers through integrated channels. You can learn more about their behavior, shopping patterns, preferred modes of communication, and more.

Remember, people aren’t interested in investing their precious time in businesses that are not relevant to their requirements.

They expect a personalized experience that meets their needs and budget. So, if you are still sticking to mass-media advertising or a single communication channel, now is the time to consider an omnichannel transition.

Consistency is key to a good support service. You don’t want to give the impression that your business is different online and offline. Maintaining consistency across all support channels requires an omnichannel marketing strategy.

Omnichannel support service ensures that your customers get a unified experience across different touchpoints—be it your physical store, a website, social media, or a live chat system.

A consistent experience isn’t only about the look of your website and retail store, but the tone of communication and the level of support should remain the same across all channels.

When customers know what to expect from you, they will likely become loyal customers. It also improves your customer retention and engagement.

The more channels you integrate into your support system, the more customers you can target. If you offer help desk services, you can expect most of your young customers to contact you through the same channels they use to communicate with their families and friends.

Just because live chat services or in-app messaging have become common modes of interaction doesn’t mean these channels are suitable for each customer.

According to Zendesk, 60% of Millenials and Gen-Z people believe that chatbots help resolve basic issues. At the same time, they prefer a self-service portal where they can find answers to their common issues without professional assistance.

No matter how you segment your customers, you will notice that each customer has an individual preference for contacting brands. Some prefer social media, some use emails, and some prefer in-app messaging and chatbots.

Issue resolution is the most crucial aspect of your business. Your customers’ queries will come in through different channels.

To manage them effectively and ensure efficient issue resolution, you need a centralized system where each query can be collected and assigned to a qualified agent.

Here, the omnichannel system allows businesses to receive customer queries and concerns through different channels. These issues are gathered in one place, providing your IT agents with a consolidated view of different queries raised from different channels in one place.

Some CRM systems have a comprehensive ticketing module that shows the channel your customer has used to raise a query. This gives you a better idea about your audience’s most preferred communication channel.

The best part is they don’t have to switch between apps to address customer concerns. Now, some issues can be resolved through a live chat, while others might be more complex and require a video call.

An omnichannel support system will help you effectively address all concerns, resulting in a faster resolution rate. If you are in the IT industry, having a dedicated CRM solution with an advanced ticketing system that supports omnichannel service is a must.

Earlier, we mentioned how omnichannel marketing helps improve customer retention, which in turn boosts your revenue. A report by Annex Cloud shows that a 5% increase in your customer retention rate results in a 75% increase in your profits.

Customers who visit your store for a repeat purchase will likely spend more than those who make a first-time purchase. That’s because they have built trust in your brand.

It’s not just customer retention, but omnichannel support increases your organic traffic. When people find your brand, they will check the available communication channels to know whether you support their preferred option.

Your prospects are highly likely to convert into leads when they get to contact you through different channels.

Omnichannel marketing helps businesses offer a seamless and uninterrupted customer experience. It offers excellent consistency and personalization, both of which result in increased sales and, thus, improved revenue for your business.

Additionally, brands can use omnichannel marketing to create personalized campaigns targeting a specific audience. This allows them to send their target audience the right message at the right time.

Gone are the days when a good price point, a high-quality product, and a good support service were enough to be competitive.

Today, competition is more about keeping up with customers’ demands and the latest trends.

Omnichannel support is part of most digital marketing services, and it’s not hard to see why. In today’s competitive environment, offering a consistent customer interaction experience across all communication channels will not just boost your revenue but improve brand recognition.

The goal of this marketing strategy is to help businesses reach their target audience effortlessly. Businesses that use multiple channels for ad targeting and customer interaction can enjoy increased sales and revenues compared to those with a single-channel marketing strategy.

Omnichannel-compatible CRM software is designed to offer all vital metrics in one place. From issue resolution to customer satisfaction to customer retention, you can easily learn about your target audience and their experience on your platform.

Once you have integrated different support channels into your CRM, you can rest assured that your customer data across all channels will be gathered and organized in a unified dashboard.

Integrating customer data across different channels into one place will help you get a clear picture of the entire customer interaction. You can track all their previous issues and resolution rates, giving you a better understanding of each customer.

Here are some important metrics you can track with an omnichannel-compatible support system.

• Ticketing Metrics:
  Track the First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate to determine the number and type of issues that were resolved within a single interaction.This also includes the response rate (the time it takes for your team to respond to your customer after a concern is raised) and the resolution rate (the time it takes to resolve an issue).
• Customer Satisfaction:
  Most companies integrate a survey or feedback form into their CRM system. You can send this form to your customers after the issue is resolved. It will give you insights into their experience with your agents and what they’d like to improve in your business.
• Channel-specific Metrics:
  Omnichannel marketing lets your audience connect with your brand through their most suitable communication platform. It helps you collect channel-specific metrics.For example, you can track customer satisfaction, chat duration, and resolution time for live chat.For social media, you can collect customer engagement and interaction metrics. This also covers your customer journey through different channels.Customers can initiate their shopping journey through a chatbot and move through various channels to complete their purchases.
• Agent Performance:
  Another key indicator of your business’s success is your agents’ performance. The time they take to resolve a ticket, their response time, and their customer satisfaction score speak volumes about their performance.Likewise, tracking team performances shows how your agents work as a team to manage your customers.An effective omnichannel marketing strategy combined with the right CRM solution helps you generate real-time reporting and conduct predictive analysis.

The biggest concern with an omnichannel support system is collecting customer data scattered across different channels.

As mentioned earlier, your customers will combine multiple channels to go through the sales funnel. They might find you through Google Ads, contact you via email, visit your website to learn more about it, and make a purchase at your store.

Storing their data for future reference can be tricky when they’ve contacted you through different channels. Fortunately, the latest CRM solutions are designed with your convenience in mind. They can integrate seamlessly with third-party business apps.

This makes it easier for businesses to consolidate customer data across all channels in a cohesive system.

That way, when your agent needs to learn about a specific customer or check their entire buying history with your business, they don’t have to open email, social media, and other channels the buyer has used to make a purchase.

Some ticketing systems in a CRM solution have team collaboration features that enable your agents to seek help from their teams. Agents can work together to resolve a complex issue.

With your customer database stored in one place, it’s easier for your agents to collect their interaction history, resolved tickets, and preferences. This ensures that agents are on the same page. If a customer raises a concern, these agents can solve the matter collaboratively.

Most omnichannel systems have built-in chat, call, email, and other communication tools. If an agent cannot resolve a customer’s issue, they can invite another agent to work on it for faster resolution. Your agents do not have to leave the system.

Unlike traditional systems, where customers are asked to contact another agent, omnichannel systems are designed to create a seamless support experience for your customer through effective team collaboration.

CRM solutions support automation. This is clearly seen in the ‘ticket escalation’ feature, which allows your agents to escalate customer tickets to a higher-level support agent without losing customer information.

In fact, some IT businesses set automatic ticket escalation, which defines the time limit for ticket resolution. If the agent is unable to resolve the ticket by the pre-determined duration, it will be escalated to another agent automatically.

Another benefit of omnichannel support is proper targeting. You can gather information about how your customers move through your sales funnel through different channels.

This shows you the most preferred communication channel of your target audience. Based on this, you can target channels that drive maximum traffic.

Knowing which touchpoints are your audiences’ favorite and most used will help you allocate your resources in the right place.

So, omnichannel marketing doesn’t only increase your reach, but it makes your marketing more effective.

As you can see, omnichannel support isn’t just a new trend or an ‘extra’ that you can add to your marketing approach. You need to blend different communication channels and integrate them into one place to make interaction easier for your team and customers.

Remember, omnichannel strategy is about understanding your customers and connecting with them through their preferred channels. If you haven’t already embraced an omnichannel marketing approach, now is the best time to implement this change.