Did you know more than 70% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on experiences alone? It's no wonder to find customers moving away from a brand after just one bad experience. One-third of consumers agree they would change brands after one bad customer experience. Clearly enough, Customer experience is becoming a fundamental competitive differentiator, making it essential for businesses to prioritize their customer services. 

Your customers likely use more than one channel to reach out to you. One of the key ways to achieve excellent customer experiences is by providing adequate services across multiple customer touchpoints with the help of knowledge management software. All these various channels for customer support, including email, social media, website, physical store, or your call center, provide an opportunity for your business to attract, delight, and retain customers. It depends on your CX strategy and how well it is oriented to achieve your brand objectives. 

While it is vital to provide your customers with as many channels as possible to engage with you, it is equally important to map your customers' journeys and measure their satisfaction across every touchpoint. Therefore, having a multichannel approach to CX is essential but not enough in itself. In an age of growing digitalization, brands can combat all their CX challenges and even thrive by adopting an omnichannel customer support strategy.

Before we delve into how omnichannel customer support boosts CX, it is crucial to understand what it exactly is.

What is Omnichannel customer support?

Like multichannel CX, omnichannel customer service includes several channels customers use to communicate with brands. The critical difference is the integration and relatedness between different channels that omnichannel customer support provides. When these multiple channels integrate, customers get seamless experiences across all touchpoints.  

Having multiple channels for your customers to communicate with you is not enough. Providing seamless customer experiences across all the channels is the key. Here is why omnichannel customer support is the best way to boost CX.

Seamless customer engagement

When customers interact with your brand on one channel, they expect the same services from you on another one. They do not like it when your customer support agent gives them information that is different from the one they see on your website. Customer engagement, therefore, depends on providing consistent information across all channels.  

An omnichannel customer service connects all the channels to make it easy for your customers to switch from one channel to another while completing a purchase. If a customer makes an initial purchase offline and does not want to revisit your store for further assistance, your agent should rise to provide appropriate support through digital channels and make it easy for the customer. In this case, having a robust knowledge management system in place could be of great assistance.

The customers need not think which channel is best suited to their needs. Instead, they should be convinced of the adequate support your brand will provide them, irrespective of the channel they use. Omnichannel customer support tracks customer journeys across multiple channels to provide the right engagement at the right time to your customers.

Integrated channel approach

As the discipline of Customer Experience continues to evolve with new technologies like AI-backed knowledge base software, brands must focus on providing exceptional CX that creates an impact in customers' minds. 

Unlike the multichannel approach, where different channels operate separately, omnichannel customer support integrates all the channels under one centralized location. All the channels coordinate with one another to improve customer experiences.

During a particular customer journey, a customer using a live chat knowledge base management system to solve a problem may shift to a voice call with an agent for better clarity. Since the information is retrieved from the channel last used by the customer, there is no need to repeat the problem. 

The agent, therefore, is aware of the challenge faced by the customer and resolves the issue quickly. This reduces the average handle time (AHT) an agent takes to resolve a customer query and improves the quality of customer support across all touchpoints. 

An integrated channel approach gathers customer data from different channels, which gives you insight into your customers' specific needs. This can help you customize experiences for your customers and increase customer retention.  

Assistance through the customer journey

To boost your CX, you should be ready to support your customers wherever they are. It is undoubtedly beneficial to increase engagement by giving your customers multiple options to communicate with you. However, the quality of support you provide them at each platform is more important. An omnichannel CX tracks customer journeys from beginning to end and ensures that customers receive assistance through every stage.  

There are certainly newer sets of challenges that CX poses for brands every day. However, as long as your customers feel valued, they will stay with your brand. The key, therefore, is to strengthen the foundation of your CX strategy, which should prioritize your customers' satisfaction & having next-gen knowledge management software can be of great help. An omnichannel customer experience removes friction across multiple platforms so customers can move seamlessly from one channel to another and receive quality support throughout their journey. 

Improved Brand trust

Exceptional customer service ranks number one in creating customer loyalty for brands. 

To retain your customers' trust, you need to value their time and care for their convenience at every step. An omnichannel strategy with the help of a knowledge management tool uses data integrations to unify customer information. You can leverage this customer data to create personalized experiences for your potential and existing customers. The unified customer data also increases your agent productivity, enabling them to resolve customer queries at the first go.    

Customers trust brands that are clear and consistent with their message across all channels. Being omnipresent across all channels can help you increase brand awareness among your customers, and consistent brand messaging can help you strengthen brand-customer relationships for improved CX. Omnichannel customer service focuses on improving customer satisfaction by tracking customer interaction at every touchpoint. 

When customer needs are taken care of at their desired channel, it elevates customer experiences and increases brand loyalty.  

Conclusion

An omnichannel customer service equips you to utilize opportunities that data holds, empowers your customers to communicate with you through their preferred channel, and creates a consistent and solid brand image across multiple channels. With the right knowledge management software that promotes omnichannel support, you can enhance the resilience of your CX strategy to embrace challenges and improve customer experiences across all touchpoints.