Is an Omnichannel Environment Truly Attainable?

With current efforts to offer a wide range of channels, the lack of connections and integrations often erodes performance, he adds. “Unless you have a really good system that has everything buttoned down really well, you will only succeed in doing multiple channels badly.”

There are other risks as well, Salesforce’s Pearce contends: “Omnichannel is expensive and can create a mess to manage.”

Like Kolsky, Pearce also argues for doing customer service right on one channel rather than ineffectively spreading it out over multiple contact methods. “Customers are hopping channels because companies are not able to meet and serve them where they are,” he says. “If you do one channel right, you don’t need to be on every channel.”

On the other hand, there is a school of thought that suggests companies need to be available on as many channels as possible to reach all of their customers. In the most recent Contact Center Satisfaction Index, released in early October by CFI Group, consumer sentiment was the lowest it’s ever been, and one of the big reasons was a lack of availability on multiple channels. Only 47 percent of consumers said they had a choice of communication channels when interacting with a contact center.

There are many unique instances in which the phone is preferable to text, when self-service is more useful than live chat, and so on. It is difficult to provide adequate service to all customers at all times if your company leverages only one support channel, many experts contend.

That can be a deciding factor for some industries in particular. Abiri sees early adopters of omnichannel customer service coming from telecommunications, followed by financial services, healthcare, insurance, hospitality, and travel. Each of these “will need to have so many channels because their markets are so commoditized,” he predicts. “They’ll need to differentiate in customer service.”

And then, while initial inclinations might be to rush in and try to do everything at once, experts say this is a mistake.

“This is not a trivial task. You want to take a crawl-walk-run approach,” Abiri advises. “You can always add channels as you go along.”

The bottom line is optimization. If companies can engage their customers across all channels, supported by trained agents with the right skills and tools, they will create better customer experiences. Collaborating on a system by getting everyone on board and breaking internal barriers can help ensure seamless experiences across channels.

And because technology is constantly changing, staying on top means staying flexible enough to shift and tweak processes as needed.

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Senior News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.

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