Clear and consistent communication is the cornerstone of success for any business. It helps build a distinct brand voice and makes customers feel involved. But with diversifying communication channels, maintaining a seamless and uniform brand messaging everywhere can be challenging. This is primarily because businesses cannot control if a customer engages with them on their website, reaches out to them via social media, or shows up at their retail store. It’s totally up to the customer, but ensuring their experience is smooth everywhere is up to the business.
Omnichannel marketing bridges this gap between consumer behavior and business expression by ensuring every customer’s experience with the brand, at any stage of the sales cycle, on any channel, remains amazingly consistent.
In this article, we take a closer look at how omnichannel strategy will set businesses up for success in 2022 by creating a more customer-centric buying experience.
Overview of Omnichannel Commerce
Omnichannel has been around for some time now. Companies selling online in the early 1990s started to embrace eCommerce platforms in the 2000s. While the last decade saw the channels expanding into social media and chat platforms, video conferencing is now gaining popularity as companies are offering valuable content through webinars, LIVE learning sessions, and more.
The trend is becoming increasingly clear now – businesses are moving online, and eCommerce adoption is currently at its highest given the restrictions on face-to-face interaction due to the ongoing COVID crisis. According to a report published by Silicon Valley Bank, online sales in the US reached $200 billion in 2021, which is a 10% increase from 2012.
But despite the aggressive digitalization, traditional sales through in-person interaction with sales representatives continues to be relevant, especially when an order goes wrong. It’s been found that about 83% of consumers in the US prefer talking directly to the sales executive to resolve it, as opposed to dealing with it through 100% self-service digital channels.
According to research led by McKinsey & Company, it’s been found that only a third of customers interact with sales reps using traditional channels (in-person meetings, fax, email). A further third uses remote channels (phone calls, video conferencing, chat), and the final third use digital self-serve tools (eCommerce platforms & digital portals).
This rule of thirds only goes to show that the question is not about which sales channel businesses must leverage, but about becoming efficient at deploying them all in tandem for an enhanced customer experience.
Why Omnichannel is the Winning Formula for Your Business
94% of B2B decision-makers find the omnichannel sales model more effective than others. And if your business is not already leveraging the power of omnichannel, here are a few reasons to get started immediately.
1. Able to meet your buyers where they are
Buyer journeys are no longer linear. They interact with businesses over multiple channels in their sales journey. A recent report reveals that a customer now typically engages with the supplier on a minimum of 10 channels, as compared to just 5 in 2016. Businesses that are available for buyers when they’re looking for them are likely to succeed.
2. Improve customer retention
Omnichannel sales strategy aids businesses in reinforcing their brand by maintaining consistent messaging across all channels. This leads to increased customer retention. Forbes reported that companies with strong omnichannel engagement strategies are able to retain an average of 89% of their customers as compared to 33% retention rate for companies with weak omnichannel marketing.
3. Retaining the personal touch
Despite the increasing demand for self-serve eCommerce channels, buyers strive to maintain the personal relationship they are used to having with their suppliers. This is made possible by a strong omnichannel presence that provides consumers with the convenience of having valued personal relations while scaling their business.
4. Access to valuable consumer behavior data
Consumer behavior data is the new gold for businesses. It helps in audience segmentation while optimizing conversions. An effective omnichannel strategy will allow companies to fetch consumer behavior data from different channels that can be analyzed for critical business insights.
Challenges in taking the omnichannel route
While buyers & sellers both understand the importance of adopting omnichannel, a lot of them have held themselves back citing logistic challenges. According to a survey by Forrester Consulting, 44% of respondents mentioned back-office integration across all channels as a major barrier to going omnichannel. Other challenges include limitations by partners, franchisees, or customers (40%); conflict between channel organizations (36%); and implementation difficulty (33%).
Embracing the Right Omnichannel Strategies
With consumers seeking a seamless, convenient buying experience, suppliers are increasingly shifting towards an integrated omnichannel approach. In a survey by Forrester Consulting, 87% of B2B suppliers said that omnichannel investment will be crucial to serving customers, while 83% acknowledged that it’s instrumental to driving sales.
If you’re new to omnichannel sales, here are some of the important strategies to start on the right note:
1. Restructure Sales Incentive Model: Some sales representatives can lose their commissions as customers resort to buying online, so those reps have to be disincentivized to encourage customers to buy online. To adopt omnichannel sales, businesses must start by restructuring the commissioning model of sales reps to eliminate such conflicts.
2. Increase Business Collaboration: To succeed using omnichannel approach, every business function must work collaboratively to ensure consistency in brand experience across all sales channels.
3. Tapping into Data & Analytics: Leveraging customer behavior data to provide a high-quality, personalized buying experience is critical to omnichannel success. It’s through effective analytics that omnichannel success can be fully realized.