WHY YOU NEED AN OMNICHANNEL STRATEGYCREATING A SEAMLESS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

3

33

04INTRODUCTION

12WHY IS THE

CURRENT LANDSCAPE GOOD

FOR OMNICHANNEL?

18WHAT YOU

NEED TO DELIVER OMNICHANNEL

26GET THE EDGE IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

06WHAT IS

OMNICHANNEL?

14WHAT THE

EXPERTS SAY

22GLOBAL BRANDS

DOING OMNICHANNEL BEST

08WHAT’S THE

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MULTICHANNEL AND

OMNICHANNEL?

16WHY CUSTOMER

EXPERIENCE IS KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS

IN THIS EBOOK

CONTENTS

4

5

Whether it’s on smartphone, tablet, or desktop, there are

now no shortage of ways that a potential customer can

reach out – anytime or anywhere.

And no matter if you are a start-up, a government

department, an established brick-and-mortar business or

a strictly online outfit, you are now expected to be always

open for business. Are you prepared?

You may think you have all the boxes ticked: a responsive

website, a 24/7 call centre, live chat, and a comprehensive

social media strategy.

But are these channels connecting to each other? Do you

have the technology in place for these separate platforms

to speak to each other. Because if they aren’t, you won’t be

speaking to your customer in one conversation, but many –

frustrating for even the most patient of people.

In order to not only survive but thrive in what is a fast-

changing and at-times overwhelming digital landscape, most

Australian and New Zealand businesses and government

departments will need to adopt a more all-encompassing

strategy. They will need an omnichannel approach.

In this eBook, we’ll explain the difference between the

traditional multichannel and omnichannel approach; why

you need to make the switch; how to make it happen;

which global brands are doing it best; and how to deliver a

seamless customer experience.

SECTION 01

01No matter if you are a start-up, a government department, an

established brick-and-mortar business or a strictly online outfit, you are now expected to be always open for business.”

76

02WHAT IS

OMNICHANNEL?

77

01 02 03 04 05

SECTION 02

02We’ve all felt the frustration experienced by customers who

have to re-explain their issues every time they contact a

business. On the flipside, we know the relief when a service

agent is completely aware of our history with the brand

– whether we have previously contacted them by email,

phone, SMS, via social media or in person – and is able to

get straight to the point and resolve the issue.

Unfortunately, many ANZ businesses and government

departments would fall into the former category. They

run separate systems for their various channels such as

email, phone and social media, with customer service

agents specialised in only one area. Some have separate

call centres for different parts of the business – one for

online customers and one for physical-store customers, for

instance – offering no connection between the two.

As a result, this ‘multichannel’ offering has kept information

segmented, preventing customer service agents from seeing

the full picture. It also keeps valuable intelligence separated

from other departments such as sales and marketing.

An ‘omnichannel’ approach however combines all customer

interactions, as well as purchases and other important

information from the customer on a single platform. This

enables the business to track and understand the journey as

the customer moves seamlessly between channels.

So, for example, someone can start a conversation on

online chat and move to a phone call if they need more

information. Or they can start on social media and move

to webchat. And from the business’s point of view, by the

time an agent has answered a call or begun a live chat,

they know exactly what the customer is interested in.

Such an integrated approach not only increases customer

service efficiency, it can be utilised to powerful effect for

promotional and marketing purposes.

Central to this omnichannel approach is being able to

connect all these platforms. This means having the systems

in place that will pass that person between the channels and

centralise all their information from previous conversations.

Here, technology is the key.

With a complete omnichannel offering and a future-ready

platform backed by the right technology and associated

business rules, businesses can not only compete but thrive.

It’s all about providing a seamless customer experience,

irrespective of how a customer communicates with you.

With a complete omnichannel offering and a future-ready platform

backed by the right technology, businesses can not only compete but thrive.”

Almost 50% of Australian consumers use

at least FIVE CHANNELS TO ENGAGE

WITH BRANDS including physical stores,

contact centres, mail, websites, live chat,

social media and mobile apps.

Source: SAP 2017 Australian Digital Experience Report

98

03WHAT‚S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

MULTICHANNEL & OMNICHANNEL?

99

668071120

It seems a long time ago that businesses could only be

contacted in person or by mail. Then along came telephone,

making access to a business or government department, within

business hours at least, more immediate.

As soon as businesses and government departments offered

the choice of in-person, mail and business-hours telephone

access, they became ‘multichannel’ and, for a small time at

least, customers were satisfied. But the channels and the ways

they were used were chosen by the company. Customers

simply did what they were told and used the channels they

were allowed to use. What a difference a decade makes.

With advances in technology, customers have numerous other

ways to access a brand. Email, social media platforms, apps,

live chat, SMS etc. broadened the multichannel offering

and meant customers could access the brand at any time

and from anywhere. What began as a one-way marketing

channel, these social media platforms became vital

customer experience portals giving customers 24/7 access

to the brand and its agents.

This expansion of channels created unique problems. Some

access channels, such as live chat, required immediate

response while others, such as email, came with less

customer expectation in terms of response time.

SECTION 03

111010

03Similarly, some channels, such as highly-visible social media,

offered more positive results for customers compared

to less transparent and often more frustrating telephone

conversations with call centre staff.

Most importantly, the channels rarely worked in unison,

sharing customer knowledge between each other. The social

media channel knew nothing of a specific customer’s email

history, past purchases or service issues, for instance. If a

customer had contacted a brand on live chat one day and

telephone the next, they would have to start by explaining

their issue all over again.

Omnichannel, however, brings all of the customer

interactions together in one place so the service agent can

do the job the customer now expects. At the same time,

of course, omnichannel allows the customer to choose the

channel, as well as how and when they use it.

The unique identifier of each customer which allows the

omnichannel system to aggregate all contacts across all

channels from the same customer might be a customer

number, an email address or a mobile number.

Typically, outside of an omnichannel environment, the agent

who receives the phone call has no idea that an email has

been sent unless the customer has indicated so during the

call. Inside an omnichannel environment, however, the agent

who is handling the enquiry has a complete view of prior

interactions with that customer. If other enquiries through

other channels are also in place, the agent can immediately

understand the background to then be able to respond as

efficiently as possible.

The agent has a complete view of the history … and can immediately

understand the background to then be able to respond as efficiently as possible.”

– Derick Lafleur, Salmat Business Consultant.

1110 11

9.5%

OMNICHANNEL3.4%

MULTICHANNEL

Businesses utilising advanced omnichannel customer

engagement strategies experience 9.5% YEAR-ON-YEAR ANNUAL REVENUE INCREASES as opposed

to 3.4% increases for those that do not.

Source: www.digitalcommerce360.com

SECTION 03

1312

04WHY IS THE

CURRENT LANDSCAPE GOOD FOR OMNICHANNEL?

13

SECTION 04

13

04– Simon Spong, Salmat Group Manager of

Client Engagement.

Every business, new or old and public or private, is now

in a completely new and constantly changing market,

particularly when it comes to consumer behaviour and

customer expectation. Think of the 52,117 actively trading

businesses that entered the Australian market in 2016¹ and

the challenges they face compared to those that started up

five years earlier.

The digital tsunami of the past few years has created new

behaviours and expectations in which every business is

expected to be as good at customer service, at customisation

and at individualisation as the best performers. Customer

service has become the key differentiator between brands.

At the same time, enormous advancements in technology

have meant cloud-based omnichannel offerings are now at

a level of cost and technical simplicity that is acceptable for

most businesses, not just for those at the big end of town.

Cloud hosting and subscription-based services mean brands

at any level can experience the increases in efficiency and

customer satisfaction created by omnichannel services. But

ultimately, success is all about having integrated systems in

place. This is why it is important to work with an expert in

omnichannel to work out the system logistics and to resource

your operation with trained customer experience agents.

Why is this landscape so good for the development of an

omnichannel offering? Because there are now multiple

cloud-based systems in the market and they all offer specific

advantages to particular types and sizes of businesses.

There are various types of subscription plans and pay-as-

you-go payment options that essentially mean that little or

no upfront investment is required. You’ll only pay for what

you use and your strategic investment, depending on the

level of success of the new system, can simply scale as the

business grows.

1www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8165.0

Businesses can choose which channels should be prioritised.

You can decide whether you want your customer service person to take two chats at one time.”

15

SECTION

14

QA

WHAT THE

EXPERTS SAY

MATTHEW CARRACHER, SALMAT

GENERAL MANAGER CONTACT

SOLUTIONS, TALKS THROUGH THE

OMNICHANNEL BENEFITS AND

POTENTIAL PITFALLS.

&

151505

SECTION 05

Q Why is omnichannel such a focus right now?

A It’s about getting back to basics, for starters …

offering customers the channel that they prefer to use to

communicate with you. Then it’s about optimising their

experience by having the best possible tools in place. It

ensures their experience is completely seamless.

Q Are ANZ businesses doing it well?

A Few have got their head around it, but many are

moving in the right direction. The rise of the Chief Customer

Officer is a by-product of the push to create a much better

multiple-channel outcome for customers and businesses.

Organisations are trying to understand the customer

journey, but if you don’t have the right systems and trained

agents in place, and if you don’t have a cohesive platform,

then that becomes very difficult.

Q Is it possible to get omnichannel wrong?

A Of course. Australian banks made massive

investments in what they considered to be the digital

journey, then forced people down a self-service channel

and closed retail outlets. Then they had to re-open those

shopfronts because people wanted an interaction that was

meaningful for them.

Some customer experiences are better when there is no

human contact such as automated check-in at airports.

Sometimes full automation is a great thing that indicates

excellent efficiency, but sometimes it is not. Businesses

have to be careful and fully understand the experience their

customers desire.

Q Is it worth the investment?

A It is more important than ever that a business

personalises customer interactions, and omnichannel

is one of the only ways to create the best possible

experience for its customer.

If a brand wants to differentiate itself in the digital world,

in a market where there are so many competitors and so

many similar products at similar prices, the only thing that

is left is personalisation.

Q Does this approach suit government purposes?

A Absolutely. More than 35% of our business is

government and this is expanding every day. Government

departments struggle to run an omnichannel model and to

find the right people to run it.

They tend to run their systems as separate entities.

Consumers of government services are generally forced

into different departments to answer a specific question

and clarify some aspect of a government service, however

each government agency is looking at consumer service

from the point of view of their own organisation chart.

But if they look at it from the customer perspective then

it would take a very different shape and agencies would

work together to create one experience.

16

06WHY

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS

17

SECTION 06

2020customer experience

will be the KEY BRAND DIFFERENTIATOR, more

important than price and

product.

49%

30%

27%

27%

FEEL UNAPPRECIATED

PASSED AROUND TO MULTIPLE AGENTS

NOT ABLE TO GET ANSWERS

KEPT ON HOLD TOO LONG

BY CUSTOMERS SWITCH BRAND BECAUSE:

of customers expect

absolute consistency

no matter how they

ENGAGE.

75%

53%will switch to another

brand if they don’t

receive personalised

offers.

64%WANT

personalised

offers.

Once a business uses advanced analytics to understand

customer experience, within three years they achieve:

REVENUE GAINS

COST REDUCTIONS

25% – percentage of CUSTOMERS WHO WILL DEFECT TO ANOTHER BRAND after one bad customer service

experience.DON’T WANT TO TAKE PART IN A DAMAGING PRICE WAR?

Research shows that 86% of customers are happy to pay

more for a product or service when they’re offered a better

customer experience.

Research reveals customer experience (CX)

should be the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT BRAND FOCUS as 62% of businesses now

see CX provided through contact centres as a

competitive differentiator.

OMNICHANNEL IS THE ONLY WAY TO OFFER CONSISTENT AND PERSONALISED EXPERIENCE FOR A CUSTOMER, WHICH IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE:

59% – percentage of customers who feel they have

NO RELATIONSHIP WITH BUSINESSES.

19% – percentage of customers who say they lose all trust

in a company AFTER A SINGLE BAD EXPERIENCE.

5-10%15-25%

Source: www.mckinsey.com

Source: www.walkerinfo.com Source: www.newvoicemedia.com

Source: www.salesforce.com

Source: www.superoffice.com

Source: www2.deloitte.comSource: www.thunderhead.com

19

SECTION

18

07WHAT YOU

NEED TO DELIVER OMNICHANNEL

19

SECTION 07

1919

07NEED TO DELIVER OMNICHANNEL

Cloud technology means that previously expensive spends

on hardware, as well as regular upgrades, are no longer

necessary for a business to take advantage of the many

benefits of omnichannel. Providers simply funnel your

current channels – including phone, email, SMS, chat,

social media – into the cloud service so that all customer

interactions occur in the one place.

So the technical side is not as dramatic as it once was.

However, as is usually the case with technology, the

most critical elements are the operational processes

and business rules that underpin and deliver the desired

omnichannel outcomes.

DEVELOPING STRONG BUSINESS PROCESSES

Business rules and processes that define service levels for

each type of contact, particularly around prioritisation,

must be developed.

In other words, if your 10 customer service people receive

10 emails, 10 phone calls and 10 live chats at the same

time, what should they do?

When all contacts come through one system it becomes

easier for a business to develop these rules around

managing contacts. The rules, in turn, allow a business to

optimise its ability to meet various service levels.

For example, for phone calls there might be a target of

responding to 80% within 30 seconds. Email responses,

depending on the nature of the enquiry, could be anywhere

from a few hours to a day or two. Chat is more immediate and

requires quicker responses, but how many chats should your

service people handle at once? Then consider social media.

What guidelines must be set around that? Each business

needs to figure out and continually fine tune its own rules.

Bringing your channels together and putting processes in

place to take an omnichannel approach requires a deep

understanding of the escalation process from channel to

channel, and of best practice in this area. It also calls for a

thorough grasp of what the standard questions and answers

are and how agents will read and interpret the historical

information the new system will provide. It helps to have

expert advice on hand as this is being developed.

Business rules to consider include:

Desired service level targets for each channel

(eg: 80% of calls answered within 30 seconds;

100% of emails responded to within 24 hours, etc).

Real-time prioritisation of contacts during peak

periods. This should be linked to service level

targets and real-time performance against these

targets. For example, if you are exceeding your

service level target for emails but not meeting your

service level target for live chat, your business rules

should prioritise live chat over emails.

Agent resourcing strategy to manage the various

contacts coming into your centre. Skills-based

routing is an efficient way of managing multiple

contact types, and maximising the quality of your

customer engagements by matching contact types

to those agents who are strongest in specific

contact types (eg: agents who excel at written

communication should be handling the highest

percentage of emails and live chats).

A recruitment and training program that supports

and underpins your resourcing strategy.

A good omnichannel system offers data that can benefit

the business in a number of ways. One of these is around

how effective your business rules are in managing customer

experience which, most businesses agree, is the most

important ingredient of success.

21

07SECTION 07

20

74% 68%of consumers have SPENT MORE with a brand as a

result of positive customer

service experiences.

POWER OF ONE SYSTEM

Having all contacts arriving through one platform and being

managed within that system is far more efficient than having

them come through different systems. Typically, businesses

and contact centres that utilise different systems for various

forms of communication also put specific customer agents

onto each system.

These agents exclusively handle chat, email or phone calls.

There are great inefficiencies here, because people working

on one system won’t have a view into what is happening on

the others. For instance, they have no idea that a particular

email they’re processing is perhaps related to a recent

phone call.

A key benefit of omnichannel is that the business delivers a

seamless experience for the customer due to the fact that

it provides agents with better tools to handle customer

enquiries. The system allows any agent to handle any

type of enquiry, but also allows those who are better on a

particular type of enquiry, such as phone or email, to have

more of that type of contact routed to them.

Customer service agents can see a record of all interactions

no matter what type of correspondence they’re dealing

with. Success comes when those agents are trained to

interpret the historical customer data and to use it in their

correspondence with the customers.

In terms of internal processes, a business simply needs to

monitor the skills of its customer service people and always

ensure there is a good mix to meet demand. Training and

recruitment of service agents can be guided by data from the

system, which will also highlight trends in customer service

preferences – a migration towards social media, for instance.

ALWAYS STAY UP TO DATE

Best of all, thanks to the fact that the system is hosted in

the cloud, updates are typically regular and automatic as

new functionality is added or whenever the business

requires more options in terms of flexibility, number of

users or user options.

With Salmat’s Genesys PureCloud system, for example,

updates are rolled out constantly. Changes only appear once

an administrator decides they are relevant and once training

is organised around the new functionality.

A key benefit of omnichannel is that you deliver a seamless

experience for the customer because you’re providing agents with better tools to handle customer enquiries.”

say they’re WILLING TO SPEND MORE with a

business that provides

excellent customer service.

HOW GOOD CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PAYS OFF:

Source: www.americanexpress.com

– Derick Lafleur, Salmat Business Consultant.

21

SECTION07

2121

22

08GLOBAL BRANDS

DOING OMNICHANNEL

BEST

23

SECTION 08

A strong omnichannel offering is not just a perfect customer

service tool. The insight, data and functionality can be used

by sales and marketing departments to personalise various

campaigns, products and services for specific audiences.

This achieves greater brand loyalty as the customer feels

that the business knows them personally and treats them as

a valued individual rather than just a faceless purchaser.

While it is still not commonplace to take an omnichannel

approach in contact centres, there are some brands

that have adopted the philosophy into all aspects of

their business. Here are some examples of best practice

omnichannel functionality by some of the world’s leading

brands for inspiration.

STARBUCKS

The Starbucks coffee chain has long been known for the

fact that its staff are encouraged to remember customer

names and drink preferences, and now its technology is

personalising experiences too.

The brand’s rewards app, and the physical card that also

contains customer details, creates a seamless experience

for the customer and business alike by updating all channels

in real time with any changes in credit balance, rewards

balance, profile changes, special deals, social media

promotions and more.

Customers can pay with their physical card or with their

smartphone, and when they do the balance is automatically

adjusted on all platforms. Of course, with a record of all

orders and a clear picture of their preferences, Starbucks

is able to treat every customer as an individual whether via

customer service, or sales and marketing.

The app has also meant Starbucks has been able to improve

on its already renowned customer experience offering.

Rather than ordering and waiting for a coffee, the customers

in the omnichannel environment now have a new channel

through which they can order – via the app. They simply

request their usual coffee, or anything else, as they’re on the

way to the cafe. Payment is taken through the app and their

hot coffee is waiting as soon as they walk through the door.

08

24

08VIRGIN MEDIA (UK)

The brand has been synonymous with finding innovative

and industry-leading ways to cut through the noise and talk

directly with the consumer. Unifying that communication

while making its customer experience faster and simpler is at

the heart of its omnichannel approach.

For the UK-based provider of mobile phone, TV, and

broadband services, it’s all about sharing sales data between

its linked call centres, website, door-to-door sales, and retail

stores. That seamless journey to assisted channels, whether

it’s contact centre or store, is even more important as more

than 80% of potential customers initiate their search at the

website and use at least two sales channels before buying.

Every interaction on every channel is logged, and that

data is available across all divisions which allows agents to

personalise their conversations correctly. From Virgin Media’s

end, it also means being able to personalise the buying

experience even more, so customers feel they are dealing with

the same entity not purely retail, telesales or online.

ROOM & BOARD

A furniture retailer that always marketed via traditional

catalogues, Room & Board combined all of its various

customer channels, and a decade of customer data, into an

omnichannel offering.

On the website, customers can shop certain room ‘looks’.

In store, salespeople can see the looks the customer was

after and direct them immediately to pieces that match their

desired style.

After-sales customer service interactions are made easier as

agents, before they even pick up the phone, know the look

the customer has been shopping for and the pieces they

have purchased.

Sales show customers who use the web-based system

before coming in to a store make orders worth 40% more

than those who do not. Customer feedback has highlighted

the fact that they feel as if the brand knows them as a

unique individual.

25

SECTION 08SECTION 08

DISNEY

One of the best examples in frictionless customer service is

from the entertainment behemoth Disney with respect to its

theme parks. It has what you’d expect from this customer-

centric giant in terms of ease of booking online on its mobile-

responsive website, and mapping out your day at its parks

through its My Disney Experience app.

But it has taken CX to the next level with its Magic Band

program. With what resembles a FitBit watch (for each

passholder including the kids), the wristband incorporates your

Fast Pass which means you can use it to plan your day, tap on

rides, and get wait times on those lengthy lines.

And more interestingly, it doubles as your hotel room key,

stores holiday pics, and (something that would scare every

parent) allows you to order room service and buy merchandise.

Most importantly, the Magic Band collects user data, meaning

customer service agents can immediately see a user’s history

within a park, assisting them with the personalisation of offers,

solutions and information.

L’OREAL

After centralising all of its Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) databases related to more than 4500

items across numerous brands, cosmetics giant L’Oreal

launched an app called Make-Up Genius.

Through the use of augmented reality, customers could test

products on their own face without physically applying the

products to their skin. The app would make suggestions and

introduce them to new products.

At the same time, of course, it was gathering information

around the preferences of every single one of its millions of

customers worldwide, information that was previously lost

at the retail point of sale.

Now, when a customer communicates with the brand via

any channel, the business responds to them as an old friend,

as somebody who knows their tastes and preferences. It

also responds in a consistent voice and armed with a full

supply of information that personalises the interaction.

2726

GET THE

EDGE IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE 09

2727

SECTION 09

Omnichannel is far more than a system that keeps your

customers happy. Of course it does achieve that goal, but

it also offers a business an array of powerful benefits and

advantages that can be utilised by various departments.

As an identifier of tastes or trends, for instance,

omnichannel is a perfect tool. Technology such as Genesys

PureCloud identifies the channels of communication that

customers most prefer to utilise, therefore informing the

business around where investment will be most beneficial.

It can also be used to record and track suggestions from

customers about specific products or services, which assists

the business in product development and more market-

focussed innovation.

In creating a single platform through which customer

interactions can be tracked across virtual assistant to web

chat or social media, and then to an actual agent, it provides

a process which is painless for the customer.

So what’s the next piece in the omnichannel armoury?

Experts at Salmat say the next big things are voice and video.

Voice relates to in-home voice assistant offerings such as

Google Home and Amazon Alexa. From ordering a pizza

to booking a flight or checking your bank account details

then being put through to a customer service agent, the

technology could be a game changer in the customer

experience arena.

In terms of video calling, imagine you’ve just purchased a

product and it seems to be missing a part, or it has broken,

or you simply can’t figure out how to put it together. The

added functionality that will come with video calling, and

the ability to use a smartphone’s camera to show the agent

exactly what you are calling about, will be invaluable.

Omnichannel is a system that benefits the customers

and the entire business, from customer service to sales,

marketing, product development and more.

Most importantly, it offers a brand that all-important edge in

customer experience.

Brands employing BEST PRACTICE OMNICHANNEL customer engagement strategies experience an average

customer retention rate of 89% while those with weak

strategies languish at 33%.

0989%

33%

WHY OMNICHANNEL IS VITAL:

BEST PRACTICEOMNICHANNEL

WEAKOMNICHANNEL

Source: www.digitalcommerce360.com

PB

Level 3, 116 Miller Street,

North Sydney, NSW 2060 1300 725 628

Salmat is a marketing services business that helps clients with the constant pressure of reaching, converting and serving customers, week-in, week-out. With media, digital and customer service capabilities, we manage the fundamentals to ensure you keep customers coming through the door like clockwork.

Entrepreneurs and good mates Phil Salter and Peter Mattick established Salmat in 1979 when they spotted a gap in the market for a small letterbox distribution network. Salmat has since grown to become a full-suite marketing services company listed on the ASX with operations in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

ABOUT SALMAT