One of the big challenges right now in marketing is multichannel, cross-channel, omni-channel customer experience– the need to integrate customer outreach via mobile, the Internet, phone, SMS and the growing range of smart connected devices.
Omni-channel means different things to different people. But for me, it’s a platform, whereby I have access to the brand I enjoy, wherever I am – and the freedom that means wherever I am in the buying journey, I can do what I need at that point in time.
The omni-channel customer experience
If I’m in a shop and searching for something, is the retailer helping me via my mobile phone to find that item, for example? Better, if I am looking for something in a shop, does the retailer have an idea about the next thing I am looking for, or something else I might like (e.g. I pick up a lawnmower, should I also be directed to the right pesticides for this time of year and so on)?
This is where Marketing is right now, trying to deal with these challenges. Consumers say, what are you doing for me at each stage of my customer journey? Are you giving me choices? Are you helping me get to the next step? And when I come out the other end, are you properly tracking how your customer service, communications and operations are helping me?
Omni-channel is such a big issue right now that seasoned observers are telling brands, that if you don’t get it, someone is going to eat you for lunch. Equally certain: it’s becoming accepted that to work, omni-channel will be largely (Big) data driven. The Internet of Things is the name people are starting to give these devices and channels when connected into a coherent system.
Where does big data come in?
Let’s make all this a bit more concrete by looking at how data-driven and omni-channel would work for a utility. If you look at what customer service problems firms in this sector have, an awful lot of them centre on billing. So what is it about billing that just drives people crazy? Billing glitches drive a scandalously high amount of inbound queries to utility call centres. Billing problems get customers irate and poison the consumer-company relationship.
Omni-channel could really help. Increasingly, the utility company wants to be able to say, ‘We’re not just about giving you the power, we’re going to help you manage power and conserve energy through the use of smart meters’. The reality is, smart meters are not just one device in the garage, it’s 5, 6, 10 sensors all over your house quietly amassing data about your electricity/gas use in specific detail (from your kettle habits to when the washing machine is on to when you turn the radiators on at night).
This is less ‘Big Brother’, more ‘Mr & Mrs Customer, we see you put the washing machine on at nine in the morning. But if you did it at seven, before the rate went up, you could save £x.’ The utility company stops being a mere delivery mechanism but helps the householder heat their homes the most economically they can. Soon, your meter will smile at you when you are doing well – and frown at you when you are doing badly, conservation wise (think, practical ‘nudge’ psychology).
What’s more, being able to interact through the device or the home computer might be yet another option — as would being able to connect to a social network or community of users. Think about it: would you rather go on-line and find out if others in your area are experiencing problems, or would you prefer to phone up? The utility will have to provide both these options, which is why omni-channel again comes to the fore.
And all the devices and sensors and all the measurements means the data used to manage that relationship will become bigger and more important. For the householder, it means better and more efficient heating, yes – but for the utility, that can only get delivered by the effecting handling of an avalanche of data that has to be meaningfully connected to the customer experience.
This is just one example of where the Big Data is going to be make a huge contribution to making omni-channel a reality – and start helping customers too.
More
5 Tips for Omni-Channel Success
+44(0) 20 358 243 60