Omnichannel customer experience examples and solutions for your business

Ever heard of Starbucks, Decathlon, Sephora, or Nike? Know what these brands have in common? They have different channels for customers to purchase their products. In other words, from browsing products at brick-and-mortar stores to online platforms to live chats, customers can purchase any product in whichever way they decide to. All of these are achievable by utilizing an omnichannel platform. 

A good omnichannel strategy can increase in-store visits by 80% after customers reach out to your business to research a specific product. 

What is omnichannel customer experience?

Omnichannel refers to a multichannel approach that aims to provide customers with a seamless and integrated experience across all channels. In other words, an omnichannel customer experience emphasizes a unified and consistent shopping journey that allows customers to transition effortlessly between channels while receiving the same level of service, information, and branding.

In an omnichannel strategy, businesses strive to break down the silos between different channels and departments to ensure a holistic and customer-first approach. This often involves integrating technologies, data, and processes to provide a more personalized and convenient experience for customers. The goal is to meet customers where they are and accommodate their preferences, whether they want to shop online, visit a physical store, use a mobile app, or engage through social media.

Want to know more about the basics? Explore our blog on how you can create an omnichannel marketing strategy for your business. 

Omnichannel customer experience benefits 

As many businesses strive to expand using different platforms and channels, customers expect more than just quality products and services. They demand coherent interactions that are personal regardless of the channels they choose to engage through. The omnichannel customer experience (CX) is beneficial for businesses that aim to provide seamless and integrated interaction across all available channels and touchpoints for their customers.

Below are some omnichannel customer experience benefits:

• Consistency in CX and brand outlook across channels: 90% of customers look for consistency when engaging with customer service across channels. 

• Easy transitions between different channels: a customer can start a product inquiry on a company's website and seamlessly continue the conversation with a customer service representative via live chat or phone

• Personalized omnichannel customer experience: leverages data collected from various touchpoints to customize interactions. 

• Boosted sales revenue with a competitive advantage: 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience.

• Higher customer retention with a superior omnichannel customer experience: a seamless shopping journey is more likely to retain customers, and converting existing customers has up to 70% success rate.

• Data-driven insights for a comprehensive view of customer behavior and preferences: improves CX by tailoring products, services, and marketing efforts to meet customer needs more effectively.

• Communication and support on customers’ preferred communication channels: enhances customer satisfaction and engagement.

• Analytics and continuous improvement: identify pain points, optimize processes, and refine strategies to meet changing customer expectations.

What omnichannel customer experience solutions include

No matter if you’re a fashion retailer, an online patisserie, or a beauty and wellness provider, you can customize the omnichannel journeys and customer experience for your business with these social commerce tools and features:

Click to WA ads for brand awareness

Firstly, you can get your prospects to know more about your brand. Other than setting up a Facebook Page and Instagram Business account, you can also run a series of targeted click-to WhatsApp ads to let people know about your latest collections or packages. When people click on these ads, they will be instantly directed to your WhatsApp Business account.

With a preset message set up for this click to WhatsApp campaign, your potential customer will only need to click “send” without manually typing out the message. These contacts collected can then become high-quality leads and are more likely to turn into conversions.

Find out how you can fully incorporate click to WhatsApp Ads into your business marketing strategy.

In-chat catalog/redirect to e-commerce store for product discovery

Whenever customers start a WhatsApp chat with your business, they can explore a catalog of your items or services. They can click on a product and add to cart message right in the chat, so your agents understand what the customers are interested in. Alternatively, you can also attach a product link on the WhatsApp catalog that redirects to your e-commerce website.

Chat automation for product exploration

For an ongoing marketing campaign, including click to WhatsApp ads mentioned above, you can have keyword-triggered automation set up to instantly engage the customers. This way, even if it’s out of office hours or your agents are occupied, the automated chat flow can help collect personal details and understand the potential customer’s interest. You have an AI-powered chatbot to enrich your responses and automated replies so that the messages are direct and concise for assisting customers throughout their shopping journey. 

Send out a discount code for abandoned cart

Suppose a customer shows interest by adding items to their cart but leaves without completing the purchase. On a flow builder, you can automate an abandoned cart reminder and send a customized WhatsApp message to the customer, including a discount code or a special offer as an incentive for the customer to complete the purchase.

In-chat payment link for instant checkout

For customers who are ready to make a purchase, you can take advantage of WhatsApp Pay or in-chat payment links that offer the option to complete the transaction without leaving the app. WhatsApp Pay is only limited to certain countries, so you can instead send a secure payment link that takes customers to a payment gateway, where they can enter their payment information and complete the purchase hassle-free. Customers would then receive an immediate confirmation and order summary all within the chat.

Automated update and delivery notifications for customer satisfaction

After a successful purchase, customers can continue to receive updates through WhatsApp. You can send automated order status updates, including when the order is processed, shipped, and out for delivery. As the delivery date approaches, customers will receive notifications with tracking information and stay informed about their order's progress.

CRM integration for segmentation

You can also integrate your existing CRM system such as Salesforce and HubSpot to consolidate all the customer data you’ve collected from various social platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and more so that you can access the complete customer profile right next to the chat when responding to inquiries. Detailed customer data like product interests, past purchases, and communication preferences will allow you to segment and personalize messages for future marketing campaigns and assign them to the right agents according to priority. For instance, you can send tailored promotions or new arrival announcements about product A to customers who have shown interest in it previously.

Broadcast customer survey or review

Once the delivery is made, you can blast a message asking customers to share their thoughts. You may include online surveys to ask customers to share their thoughts or simply just allow them to click to chat button that answers “Yes” or “No” to the question: “Are you satisfied with your experience?”. These positive reviews and feedback can then be shared on your social media profiles or website to build trust and credibility.

Omnichannel customer experience examples

1. IKEA

IKEA invested US $2.2+ billion in their omnichannel growth strategy in 2023.

With online ads, they noticed an impressive ratio of 18:1 in the calculation of the number of shoppers driven by online ads and their omnichannel return on ad spent (ROAS). Upon examination, it became evident that mobile platforms played the most pivotal role in generating physical store visits, yielding a staggering 80% greater offline return compared to desktop campaigns. Retail O2O omnichannel customer experience solutions like this are often effective in driving sales revenue effectively.

Other than that, IKEA's omnichannel journey has been a remarkable evolution that adapts to changing customer needs:

• An integrated system for physical and e-commerce stores: a broad range of online products accessible through the website and high-feature mobile applications.

• Analytics for assessing performance: IKEA measures the impact of online ad clicks and physical store visits from their omnichannel marketing strategy

• A frictionless O2O model: IKEA's Click & Collect service offers a seamless experience, where customers place orders online, select their preferred pick-up location, and receive notifications when their purchases are ready.

• Innovative AR application: the revolutionary IKEA Place AR app enables customers to visualize products in their homes using augmented reality which boosts confidence in online purchases.

In countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, IKEA is also allowing customers to contact them for support on their preferred messaging channel using a simple WhatsApp click-to-chat link, while in Hong Kong, WeChat and WhatsApp QR codes are provided, along with a Facebook Messenger live chat button.

2. Decathlon

Decathlon, a popular retail brand committed to making sports accessible to many, has achieved 2X of its share of online sales yearly since 2019, reaching close to 30 percent in 2021. They understood that consumers required convenient access to goods and services, especially in the context of bridging the gap between offline and online product marketing strategies. 

• Scan and pay shopping experience: empowers users to make autonomous purchases while minimizing physical interactions. Decathlon designed a step-by-step journey through their app to guide users toward a frictionless purchase process.

• Contactless pick-up from the store: offers a streamlined omnichannel customer experience, allowing users to make purchases via the app or website and then pick up their items from the nearest store, either by drive-thru or pick-up. 

Decathlon's omnichannel clientele consistently leads in frequent visits and boasts the highest customer lifetime value, culminating in a remarkable 37% surge in average order values compared to the offline customer base. Within proprietary data infrastructure, they’ve established a comprehensive, centralized perspective on customers' omnichannel interactions to refine and customize services and product offerings effectively.

Omnichannel customers purchase up to 70% more than shoppers who remain offline only.

Already on an omnichannel journey? Here’s how to improve omnichannel customer experience

Once you have successfully set up a seamless and interconnected journey for your customers across touchpoints, you must ensure consistency and improve the omnichannel customer experience for your enterprise with continuous effort:

• Keep aggregating data from a multitude of sources and sync all your platforms—website, mobile application, social media, email, telephone, and brick-and-mortar establishments—facilitating real-time data sharing

• Exploit customer data to deliver personalized recommendations, content, and exclusive propositions

• Use chatbots and AI-powered tools for swift responses and enrich your automated customized interactions from time to time

• Foster customer input via surveys, reviews, and engagement on social media platforms and act on the feedback

• Employ cross-channel analytics tools to trace customer journeys across multiple channels

• Draw out the complete customer journey for each category and identify bottlenecks and areas where customers might encounter hurdles

• Proactively keep customers informed about updates, promotions, and pertinent news through their preferred communication channels

• Continuously experiment with A/B testing to discern optimal approaches

• Refine your tactics grounded in data-driven insights