5 Tips for Holiday Omnichannel Success

Under an onslaught of innovation and pricing pressure from discount e-tailers, omnichannel retailers are looking for an edge. This is true coming into the holiday season, where research shows anywhere between 20 percent to 40 percent of annual revenue is generated. With that in mind, here are five tips to ensure retailer success this holiday season:

1. The experience rules. Retailers typically can gain advantage via price, exclusive products or superior customer experience. Few companies want to play the price game; if highly desired products aren't already lined up, they'll have to save them for 2014. What's left? Customer experience. According to MarketLive, customer experience is the leader in driving loyalty.

The most important aspect of the customer experience is delivering options and a consistent approach to shoppers — i.e., letting them choose how they want to shop. Retailers could introduce incentives to brick-and-mortar and digital staff referring consumers across channels, including in-store signage, ads highlighting availability of products or via mobile channels. Also, reviewing return/exchange policies wouldn't necessarily result in wholesale changes, but could provide more exceptions to make customers happy.

2. Make mobile the connector. Ever since 2005 was dubbed "the year of mobile," we've undoubtedly landed in a golden era of mobility. In fact, tablet sales will exceed sales of desktops and laptops in this year's fourth quarter. The numbers of the more personal computers (MPCs) dwarf those of desktop or laptops. More important than the numbers are what these MPCs enable. Because they empower people through the mobility of their social networks, MPCs truly have become the "always screen." Omnichannel retailers must highlight their mobile channels and create multiple links between devices and physical stores.

3. Leverage the (latent) power of data. At SapientNitro, we see omnichannel retailers are sitting on a sea of data, but not effectively using it. While there are large platform-level projects required to fully maximize this opportunity, there are a host of shorter-term approaches to gain advantage through data, now and for holiday 2014.

This isn't the time to skimp on tracking codes or short URLs, which can help determine valuable marketing channels. Investment now means greater success next holiday season. Also, email is an obvious place where data can have a big impact. Even if you don't have dynamic messaging capabilities, consider segmenting by category and crafting unique messages to make already responsive groups more productive.

4. Win through (human) service. Building on the first point that "the experience rules," it's recommended to keep the human element in service. A service-led approach could introduce a slew of new digital touchpoints, but it should also uncover new human-driven ones as well. Video and live chat are powerful tools that add humanity to an all-digital experience and have been shown to deliver higher conversion rates.

For this holiday season, consider extending phone and online-based customer service hours. If a customer is looking to shop at 10 p.m. and there's no available service representative, it's possible to lose that sale and following visits.

5. Prepare for a marathon, not a sprint. With the holiday season seemingly longer than ever, it's key for retailers to pace themselves with consistent effort from the beginning to end. A large percentage of shoppers — between 36 percent and 40 percent according to research by Consumer Reports and Deloitte — don't begin holiday shopping until after Thanksgiving. There's still time to establish a schedule of marketing and promotion cycles to generate interest across critical categories and touchpoints.

Expectations of when and how people shop have completely changed, and retailers’ expectations of their own companies are evolving. The goal shouldn't be to drive people into stores, but instead to meet them where they are and will be. Companies providing a holistic experience around multiple touchpoints and price consistency, product availability, and service across channels position themselves to succeed this holiday season and beyond.

Zachary Jean Paradis is the director of innovation strategy at SapientNitro, an interactive marketing, creative design and technology services agency.