Multichannel Integration: Adapting to the New Normal

As interaction in today’s business world has become increasingly digital, companies of all types have adapted and introduced a plethora of online channels. This development allows consumers to interact with brands in multiple ways. While the use of online channels increases, however, more traditional mediums such as call centers and direct mail will never disappear completely.

With the number of online channels escalating, current systems can suffer from a sort of amnesia. Each time a consumer interacts with your brand — either through different channels or the same channel multiple times — they often need to start their dialogue from scratch. To create effective marketing campaigns in today’s multichannel world, retailers must be able to integrate consumer interactions within disparate marketing channels to ensure the best possible experience wherever and whenever the dialogue takes place.

How can retailers ensure that their customer channels are connected? In order to achieve a connected experience, companies must shift their focus from a product- or channel-centric approach to a customer-centric approach. To effectively do this, organizations need a 360° view of each individual customer, including their personal details, purchase history, services currently used and recent interaction history with the company.

This information must then be shared across the entire company, so that all departments have access to the same real-time information. Sharing information in this way creates a high-level, connected experience for customers, no matter what channel they access.

Consumers use a number of inbound service channels to contact retailers every day. In these days of opt-out-impacted marketing, this is an opportunity that organizations can no longer afford to ignore. Intelligent interaction software, fueled by powerful analytics, is a proven way for retailers to equip their employees with specific, personalized insight to facilitate relevant customer dialogues and create a positive experience. In short, intelligent interaction software provides accurate, targeted sales, service and retention offers for each customer at the specific moment of interaction.

To take full advantage of online channels, retailers must ensure that their message stays relevant and meaningful. Relevancy is achieved by employing preference management, which allows consumers to choose what they want to hear and when they want to hear it. While certain factors (e.g., cost) do affect cross-channel communication, consumers’ needs will always be the key driver. Organizations don’t need to rush out and do everything across all channels. Instead, they should leverage the channels their customers use in order to deliver the right message or offer at the right time.

In an era where online channels and social networks are the preferred communication choice of many, retailers should embrace these new channels. However, don't forget to integrate them with the more traditional mediums by applying the same relevancy principles across the board. Intelligent analytics give retailers the insight they need, which in turn leads to more upsell and cross-sell opportunities and increased customer lifetime value.

Mark Smith is executive vice president of sales and marketing at Portrait Software, a provider of customer interaction optimization software and now a part of Pitney Bowes Business Insight (PBBI). Mark can be reached at mark.smith@portraitsoftware.com.