The other day, I ordered a new pair of running shoes from a popular sportswear brand’s app.
A few hours later, I had a question about the delivery date, so I tried their live chat. The bot provided a generic response and then redirected me to the homepage.
I tweeted them, and there was no response.
I finally called their helpline, only to be told, “We can’t see your app order here. You’ll need to raise a separate ticket.”
At that point, I didn’t want the shoes. I wanted my sanity back.
That experience, unfortunately, is not unusual. Brands proudly claim to be omnichannel, but without a true omnichannel contact center software, they end up delivering a fragmented and disjointed experience
True omnichannel isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about being cohesive everywhere.
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More channels are equivalent to a better customer experience (CX)
There is no bigger myth in customer experience than this. However, this is the route that most organizations take.
Let me give you an example.
A friend of mine was running a traditional South Indian restaurant serving specific delicacies.
They were doing very well and had half a dozen branches.
A few years later, they opened a Tandoori kitchen in response to customer requests for Tandoori cuisine. A few months later, they opened a Chinese kitchen because some of their customers had requested Chinese items on the menu.
90% of their clientele came for the South Indian delicacies, while the remaining 10% preferred Tandoori and Chinese cuisine.
However, they were running three full-fledged kitchens with full-time chefs. This added to their costs, and the efficiency of their South Indian operations also declined.
Eventually, they had to shut down the Tandoori and Chinese kitchens and focus on their traditional South Indian varieties. This came at a very high cost and a lot of lost time.
Likewise, most businesses interpret omnichannel as:
Let’s be on chat, WhatsApp, phone, email, mobile, Instagram, and Telegram.
It takes effort and cost to manage so many channels. It becomes a game of chasing channels, where no one wins.
Being everywhere without being effective anywhere is a recipe for frustration.
How do you get your omnichannel right?
Step 1: Align omnichannel with customer behavior
Ask these questions.
- Where do your customers naturally engage with you?
- What are their expectations of each channel?
- Do they want speed, empathy, or self-service?
One of our fintech customers noticed that most of their users preferred Instagram DMs and in-app chat. So instead of doubling down on their voice helpline, they focused on social DMs, added in-app FAQs, and live chat support.
This reduced their tickets by 30% and resulted in higher satisfaction.
You should look at building your omnichannel presence around your customers.
Step 2: Choose a platform that supports contextual continuity
Most businesses get this wrong. They utilize different tools for each channel they are present on, such as voice, email, and chat.
They don’t talk to each other, and every customer interaction is treated like a fresh ticket.
A loan aggregator had separate platforms for call support and email. A customer who emailed about an offer later called in, and the agent had no visibility on the email interaction. It took the agent 30 minutes to resolve the query without the necessary context.
Then they moved to our cloud platform, where every interaction across all channels was displayed on a single dashboard. This reduced the average handling time and improved their customer satisfaction scores.
Step 3: Curate channels based on value
Omnichannel isn’t about the volume of channels. It’s about the value each channel delivers in the customer journey.
An insurance company analyzed its customer interactions and decided to focus on voice and WhatsApp, as 90% of their conversations took place on these channels.
They made these two channels delightful with faster responses, clear updates, and bot-assisted first-level answers.
Their NPS rose 2X within a quarter.
Don’t go omnichannel for the sake of it; instead, go omnichannel for the sake of experience.
What does good omnichannel look like?
Let us break this down for better understanding.
Day 1: A customer chats with your bot, asking about a product
Day 2: They call to clarify the specifications of the product and their significance to their needs
Day 3: They emailed about return policies
Day 4: They follow up on WhatsApp about their order.
The agent on WhatsApp sees the entire history, refers to the chat, phone, and email conversations, and updates the ticket in real time. The customer feels seen.
That’s a real win.
How not to approach omnichannel
Let us look at the dark side. Even the most well-intentioned omnichannel efforts can backfire when done wrong.
Look at these four scenarios.
Adding bots doesn’t make you omnichannel
You add a bot to your website and WhatsApp, and start calling it an omnichannel solution. However, the bot provides generic replies and fails to escalate.
Customers get stuck.
Bots without escalation paths kill your CX.
Ignoring the human handoff
A bot collects details about your query. Then a live agent joins and asks you for the same set of details. The transition feels robotic and redundant.
Omnichannel should feel like one conversation, and not a fragmented one.
Measuring by tickets, not journeys
If your KPI is focused on the number of tickets closed, you’ll never see the broken journey across channels.
Track customer journeys, and not isolated interactions.
Leaving agents out of the loop
You deploy omnichannel technology but don’t train your agents to use it effectively. They revert to old tools or ignore context cues.
Technology is only as good as the people using it.
How do you bring all of this together to create better experiences?
Here’s the deal. Does your omnichannel initiative follow these?
- A strategy that aligns with your customer behavior
- A strategy that aligns with customer behavior, a unified cloud contact center software that brings together data, context, and routing
- A thoughtful approach to channel selection
- A culture that values context over contact count
- Simplicity over complexity
Omnichannel is no longer a differentiator anymore; it’s table stakes.
The goal isn’t to be everywhere. It’s to make the customers feel like they’re talking to one intelligent and helpful entity, irrespective of how they choose to reach you.
When omnichannel works, the customers don’t notice it. They simply feel heard, understood, and cared for.
It’s not about being “Omni,” it’s about being “One.”