Multichannel: Create a Seamless Multichannel Experience

“Letting the customer choose how to interact with your company is critical, but interactions across channels must be as seamless as possible,” said Steve Trollinger, senior vice president of client marketing for catalog consultancy J. Schmid& Associates, at his session “7 Ways to Increase Customer Value Today and Tomorrow” at the Annual Catalog Conference held in May in Orlando, Fla. Following are some tips Trollinger offered to make the multichannel experience easier on customers:

* Use common branding cues. Your Web site should look like the catalog or retail store that spawned it, said Trollinger.

* Make products easy to find. Include a catalog”quick buy” feature that allows a shopper to input a product number and buy it right on the home page, he said. Further, he noted, have a robust site-search capability for those customers who don’t know exactly what they want.

* Use a source code capture device. Whether on your Web site or in your retail store, your staff should ask customers for source codes as early as possible in the selling process, said Trollinger. A smarter Web site will allow you to match customer information to a database of recent mailings if no source code is provided.

* Maintain customer gift and wish lists. Make it easy for your customers to access their lists both online and in the retail store, noted Trollinger.