We've talked a lot about multi-channel in 2016, primarily because it centers around consumers, their experiences and preferences, and the way businesses can communicate with their customers using this multi-faceted strategy. Leveraging multi-channel varies by industry and specific businesses, depending on their goals and capabilities. Don't get left in the dust; find out how your business can leverage multi-channel in this blog post!
Consumer preferences continue to evolve in the lightning-fast modern business communication landscape, and as a result, the role of multi-channel communications is becoming increasingly more complex. The average consumer began to utilize more than one channel when looking for customer service in 2013, and the percentage has only risen since then, as have the number of viable channels to use for the practice.
Companies are held to a high standard by customers now more than ever.
42% of people looking for customer care on social media expect a response from a business in less than an hour.
However, businesses are only responding to the call 68% of the time, even considering the improvements in multi-channel communication. The companies that succeed with their customers are invoking these communications in unique ways, including the following:
Business Integration
Most "first call resolutions" that fail are due to the customer service representative with the particular business not knowing about previous attempts to fix the problem. Customer service reps also have a problem accessing dire information in real time. Many companies also use too many SaaS applications and invoke needless complexity into the process.
Multi-channel communications is used to unify the otherwise disparate data points and apps that a company uses, including WFM, CRM, WFO and billing apps. The platform helps to create a full view of the customer so that representatives know how to find and use the information that they have for more effective problem resolution.
Unified Communications Strategy
Multi-channel communications are used to unify the communications strategy in a business, contrary to what the language may imply. Contact centers in most businesses have their resources split between customer service, marketing, IT and operations.
As multi-channel communications continue to be adopted by more companies, they will naturally become a more unified and centralized service that will exchange information between nodes more effectively and provide a fuller solution that can be implemented more holistically instead of the piecemeal solutions that are currently used.
Training
Although communications is becoming more automated in each business cycle, the overall success of a communications strategy will always depend on the people who are running the system. If a company implements a fully integrated strategy, then oversight of ground level reps becomes another aspect of multi-channel communications that businesses must leverage.
Holistic multi-channel strategies with a strong sales team helps a company to deliver a superior customer service experience regardless of the channel a customer chooses to engage with. As customers begin to receive the same experience no matter the channel, the business gains a reputation that it can leverage for future campaigns.
