Authored by Mr. Rajdipkumar Gupta, MD and Group CEO, Route Mobile Limited
Mobile phones have had an impact on almost all walks of human life, be it business, education, health, and social life. As per research, a person spends an average of 3 hours per day on a mobile device. Today’s consumers access products and services through a variety of devices including mobile phone devices. About 72 Trillion messages were sent via chat apps in 2018. However, being able to start a conversation on one channel of communications and continue to experience it on another channel is an example of consistent customer experience. Enterprises are looking to offer a similar customer experience to ensure good customer engagement at a channel of choice. An omnichannel platform is a perfect example that offers great customer experience.
So what exactly is Omnichannel and what it does for the Enterprises? It is the seamless integration of an organization’s channels, processes and strategies to gain the ability to engage with consumers anytime, anywhere, and on any device. It further tracks conversations at relevant touch points for actionable insights. Omnichannel can also assist enterprises to move from technical complexity of multi-channel messaging across many channels or devices to a unified solution in the form of a single API.
Omnichannel is about true continuity of your experience. As a unified platform, omnichannel incorporates all existing communication modes such as SMS, emails and voice, all allowing enterprises to reach their customers on both traditional and other platforms. Following is an illustration:
For instance, a traveller opts to receive SMS notifications for itinerary changes. However, the airlines delay or cancel flights which result in changes in case of a connecting flight. Although SMS is a suitable notification channel, in case the customer doesn’t read the same, then a voice, an email or an OTT message can be triggered to fill the gap by acting as a backup or fall-back solution, to reach out to passengers unreachable by SMS.
Omnichannel has been designed to address some of the key challenges faced in the communications industry today such as hindrances associated with multi-API management, absence of inter-channel links, additional development time, and issues pertaining to documentation, invoicing, and reporting. It can also reduce the time to market, enriches data analytics, ensures easy integration, reduces dependency on multi-channel APIs with hyper-personalisation.
The omnichannel experience can compel the customer to shop more and create true brand loyalty. Implementing an Omnichannel retail strategy seems like a step in the right direction for Enterprise to leverage this major psychological shift in the mindset of an Indian consumer.
