omnichannel customer journey example

After hosting a competition in the UK, Benefit Cosmetics traveled across the region and provided brow bars to its contest winners as part of its "BrowMobile" campaign. It also hosted a beauty drive-thru where customers could receive free eyebrow waxes and product samples.

The company's former head of brand activation, Kyra White , noted that this campaign "shows customers that we're happy to go to them anywhere. Plus it's Instagrammable, which is great for a brand like ours which doesn't do traditional above-the-line advertising."

White isn't exaggerating either, as this campaign helped the company increase its market share for brow-products to 60% in the UK market.

• Making products in a way that’s mobile adds a whole new channel for marketing.

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Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping: The Ultimate Guide

In today's digital era, businesses need to ensure seamless customer experiences across all channels. Omnichannel customer journey mapping is a crucial tool for reaching this objective. Businesses may uncover pain areas, ensure better interactions, produce a consistent customer experience, decrease the abandoned shopping carts rate, and improve other KPIs by recognizing every touchpoint in the customer journey.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll discuss the significance of omnichannel customer journey mapping and offer a step-by-step process for making one. We'll provide you with the knowledge and skills business owners and marketing specialists require to improve the customer experience and raise satisfaction.

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Omnichannel Customer Journey Maps Explained

An omnichannel customer journey map visually depicts a customer's interactions with a brand across all touchpoints, channels, and devices. It presents a comprehensive picture of the customer journey, taking into account both online and offline encounters and emphasizing the possibilities, challenges, and crucial moments that might have an influence on customer satisfaction .

Understanding your potential lead or customer will help you drop the rate of  abandoned shopping carts and increase the number of valuable leads.

To create an efficient omnichannel customer journey map, businesses need to collect information on consumer interactions across all channels, including social media, websites, mobile applications, email, and in-store encounters. This data has to be thoroughly examined to identify recurring trends and patterns that can assist in extensive map creation.

The map should be done with the customer's needs, preferences, and habits in mind. All the stages of the customer journey, from awareness to loyalty, should be considered, and important touchpoints that might affect the customer experience should be identified.

Once the map has been made, it may be utilized to pinpoint problem areas and establish plans for enhancing the client experience. Businesses may use the map, for instance, to identify the precise touchpoints where a client is having trouble making an online purchase and come up with ways to streamline the procedure.

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Why Should You Adhere to a Customer Journey Omnichannel Model?

By offering a smooth and customized consumer experience across all channels, the omnichannel model may help companies stay competitive in today's digital environment. Here are some further arguments in favor of using the omnichannel strategy.

• Improved customer experience: Businesses may offer a smooth customer experience across all channels, including social media, email, chat, phone, and in-store, by employing an omnichannel approach. This might raise loyalty and boost customer satisfaction.
• Better engagement: an omnichannel strategy allows organizations to interact with consumers at every touchpoint, resulting in increased possibilities for contact and the development of stronger relationships.
• Higher conversion rates: Companies may boost conversion rates and lower customer turnover by giving customers a unified, tailored experience across all channels.
• Better data insights: By using an omnichannel strategy, organizations may gather data from many sources and better understand the behavior, preferences, and pain points of their customers. This can enhance overall business performance and provide information for future marketing tactics.
• Enhanced operational effectiveness: By integrating data, procedures, and technology across all channels, an omnichannel strategy may assist companies in streamlining their operations and lowering costs.

Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping Step-By-Step

Finding your major target customer categories and channels is generally the first step in the omnichannel customer journey mapping process. Determine the stages of the journey, which may include awareness, deliberation, purchase, post-purchase, and advocacy. Consider the exact areas you want to concentrate on and the precise results you wish to attain. This will keep you on task and help you maintain your attention. Other steps of the omnichannel journey mapping process are the following:

Identifying the Touchpoints and Micro-Conversions

Determine little actions that help website visitors achieve a bigger objective (like making a purchase). Micro-conversions are potent predictors of user engagement, purchase intent, and sales funnel performance, even if they often do not contribute to a website's total conversion rate.

List all the touchpoints where customers may interact with your brand for each channel. Examples of touchpoints include a website visit, email opening, placing an order, getting a confirmation message, and other actions. Sort each touchpoint according to the phase of the customer journey it takes place in. For instance, a confirmation letter serves as a post-purchase touchpoint, whereas an email newsletter is an awareness touchpoint.

Then evaluate each touchpoint based on how well it satisfies the requirements and expectations of the consumer. Determine the shortcomings of the touchpoints and possibilities to enhance the customer experience.

Gathering Customer Data

Gather information on consumer behavior and input from all online and offline touchpoints, including social media, email, phone, in-store, and chatbots. After gathering information from each touchpoint, arrange it in a way it is simple to interpret and visualize. Spreadsheets and customer journey mapping software are tools you may use to do this. Analyze the obtained data to find patterns, gaps, and pain points throughout the customer journey.

Creating Personas

Based on the data analysis, create customer personas that depict the various client base groups. Analyze the patterns in the information you have gathered. Group your consumers according to any shared traits they may have.

Once you have determined the traits that each group shares, make up fake customer profiles to represent each one. Give each persona a name, age, occupation, list of hobbies, and other pertinent details. Make the identities as specific as you can.

Use your established personas to guide your product development and marketing efforts. Ask yourself questions like "How would this persona react to this product?" "What channels would this persona use to find information?" or "What drives this persona to make a purchase?"

Focus on the user  – before starting your campaign, ensure that the content reflects your potential clients' needs.

Identifying Pain Points and Opportunities

Examine the customer journey map to find problems, obstacles, and areas that may be improved. Keep an eye out for points in the customer journey where your consumers are having trouble, running into roadblocks, or getting frustrated. The product characteristics, customer service, or delivery timeframes may be the source of these problems.

Look for opportunities to improve the customer experience. These possibilities can involve delivering tailored advice, enhancing communication, or providing further services.

Prioritize the discovered opportunities and pain points in accordance with how they will affect your company's objectives and the client experience.

Implementing Changes and Monitoring Progress

You'll need to create a plan to improve all the weak points, solve the problems customers face, and use all the opportunities. You can use a template action plan to get started if necessary. To ensure that your customer journey mapping and action plan stays applicable and efficient in achieving your company objectives, continually examine and update it.

Customer Journey Mapping Best Practices

Understanding the mapping process is crucial, but looking for additional solutions is still imperative to make the process easier and more efficient. Here are some valuable tips worth paying attention to.

Employ the Relevant Tools

Use digital technologies to streamline the omnichannel customer journey mapping process. Here are a few examples:

• Customer Journey Mapping Software: These products make planning out customer journeys simpler and more logical by offering drag-and-drop interfaces, pre-built templates, and other capabilities. Software for charting the customer journey includes Touchpoint Dashboard, Smaply, and CX Journey.
• Analytics Tools: Data regarding consumer behavior and interactions across many channels may be gathered using analytics tools. When utilized to identify pain points and potential improvement areas, these tools can offer insights into how customers interact with a company at various stages of their journey. Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Kissmetrics are a few well-known analytics programs.
• CRM Systems: To keep track of client interactions across various channels and touchpoints, customer relationship management (CRM) systems are utilized. Such tools help personalize customer interactions by gathering data on consumer preferences, previous purchases, and other important data points. Among the popular CRM systems are Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho.
• Social media listening: Such technologies may be used to track what clients say about a company on social media platforms. Businesses may use this to pinpoint areas where their customer experience could be enhanced and respond instantly to consumer complaints and feedback. Sprout Social, Brandwatch, and Hootsuite are a few known social media listening apps.
• User testing: Utilizing testing technologies, businesses may learn from actual customers about their interactions with their goods and services. Surveys, focus groups, and other kinds of user testing might fall under this category. User testing may offer insightful information on how customers interact with a company through various channels and touchpoints. Optimal Workshop, UserTesting, and UsabilityHub are well-liked user-testing software programs.

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Always Ask for a Customer Feedback

Your decision-making process should be guided and informed by customer feedback if you want to innovate and make improvements to your product or service. It brings wonderful possibilities that can aid in enhancing the omnichannel consumer experience.

Providing customers with a simple option of leaving feedback is essential for exceptional customer service. Thanks to the omnichannel strategy, brands can interact with customers through any channel and get feedback at each point of contact. There are several ways to get client feedback, including through websites, social media, emails, in-app surveys, and reviews. The information obtained will help you keep your strategy flawless.

Offer Self Service

Providing customers with self-service choices is another lucrative strategy, capable of enhancing the whole brand experience. One of the most crucial aspects of the customer experience is reaction speed. Customers need prompt responses to their inquiries. Through self-service portals, they may instantly access information, which also helps businesses save time and resources. Businesses can provide how-to videos, manuals, and tutorials to assist consumers in resolving their issues on their own.

Finally, omnichannel customer journey mapping is crucial for companies to comprehend customers' experiences across all touchpoints and enhance their journey. Businesses may uncover issues and opportunities for optimization and customize their marketing strategies by developing a comprehensive perspective of the customer's interactions.

In contrast to organizations with weak omnichannel strategies, which only keep 33% of their customers , companies with effective omnichannel customer engagement strategies have an average of 89% client retention. These figures show what a big difference omnichannel customer journey mapping can make to a company's bottom line.

Businesses may enhance customer experience, better understand consumer wants and preferences, and ultimately increase revenue by utilizing omnichannel customer journey mapping.

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How to Map Omnichannel Customer Journey [Steps + Best Practices]

March 18, 2024   •   7 min read

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Sounds challenging, right? 

Start with building an omnichannel customer journey map. It is the starting point to interpret customers’ digital behaviors and embrace a journey-centric design approach. 

In this blog, you will learn a four-step process to craft omnichannel customer journeys with actionable insights and potential risks. Let’s dive in.  

What is an omnichannel customer journey?

Omnichannel customer journey vs. single channel customer journey , key components of omnichannel customer journeys , how should you build an omnichannel customer journey map , step 1: internal investigation , step 2: assumption formulation, step 3: external research and validation , step 4: narrative visualization , craft memorable omnichannel customer journey with sprinklr .

An omnichannel customer journey refers to a seamless and integrated experience where customers interact with a company across multiple channels (e.g., website, mobile app, social media, in-store) to complete a task. It also implies maintaining consistency and continuity in interactions and data across all customer-brand interactions. 

Defining customer journeys this way is more accurate because: 

The landscape of devices and technologies has changed. Modern devices/technologies present brands with new opportunities to engage customers.  

The sheer volume of interaction possibilities is endless. Customers can use one device to interact with brands in a myriad of ways, increasing the chances of failure. 

Customer expectations have evolved. With expanding interaction possibilities, customers have the means to support enjoyable and cohesive customer journeys that are no longer confined to predetermined channels.  

The goal is to ensure that no matter where your customers go to “meet” your business, you meet them right there, without introducing any friction or lag, with your agents being alerted automatically every time a customer switches channels, ensuring a great experience at every step of the way. It's like having a trapeze artist catching your customers mid-air.   Micah Solomon   CX Expert & Thought Leader 

A customer journey map is the visualization of the process a customer undertakes to accomplish a task. An omnichannel customer journey map spans the process across all the interaction channels the customer uses to complete their task.  

Interaction channels and touchpoints are integral to the concept of omnichannel customer journeys an its key components. Often used interchangeably, these two differ widely. Let’s see how. 

An interaction channel is a medium where customers and brands interact, and they can be unidirectional or bidirectional. 

Bidirectional interaction channels support instant two-way communication between customers and brands on traditional lines (such as physical stores and phone calls) and digital lines (email, website/app, live chat, texting apps, social media, etc.)  

Unidirectional interaction channels are one-way initiated by customers or brands, including postal mail, TV advertisements, and print media. These channels are not real-time. 

Interesting Article: Customer Service Channels – How to Pick the Right Ones for Your Business  

Different industries patronize different channels in their omnichannel ecosystem. For instance, brick-and-mortar retailers give weightage to physical stores, while internet services may not own any physical channels at all. Companies can innovate channels to cater to their unique use cases. Amazon’s dash buttons are a prime example. These WiFi-enabled physical devices allow customers to reorder products with one long press and are a rare unidirectional channel that is channel-initiated.  

Some channels are device-specific, while some are channel-neutral. Smartphone apps and mobile websites fall in the first category, while live chat and email belong to the second category. However, the interface of these channels may render differently on different devices.   

Investment in channel integration yields growth in operating profitability . Channel integration is also a salient difference between multichannel and omnichannel ecosystems. Learn more .

Customer touchpoints are interaction instances. In a customer journey, a customer might interact multiple times with a business using different channels. Each interaction instance is termed a “customer touchpoint.” It includes three components: 

The device used for interaction. 

The interaction channel used for interaction. 

The task being completed during interaction. 

A customer journey is a series of customer touchpoints, each depicting details of that specific interaction (Refer to the figure below). 

An omnichannel customer journey map is not a wishful depiction of what a customer journey should ideally look like. Rather, it is a truthful account of pain points that drive customers to your business and friction points that drive them away.  By analyzing your journey maps, you should be able to pinpoint behavior patterns in specific customer segments and eventually predict their next move. This way, maps render a strong competitive advantage and boost customer retention and profitability.  

Start with looking at relevant data within your organization. There is often existing (though disparate) information about the journey buried throughout various past internal efforts. This data - qualitative (e.g., data from past focus groups, customer-support call logs etc.) and quantitative (analytics, customer-satisfaction scores etc.) - can give you clues about how to focus the content of your research efforts.  

Throughout a journey-mapping endeavor, you must bring stakeholders along. Without a doubt, journey mapping will reveal gaps and opportunities within the customer experience that, organizationally, are beyond the authority of the CX professional driving the mapping project. You must have buy-in and engagement from a cross-disciplinary team so that, when those issues and opportunities surface, stakeholders with decision-making authority are already convinced of the soundness of your method and able to understand the importance of resolving the problems it finds.  

Establish a network of allies who are stakeholders from relevant departments (marketing, R&D, business analytics, etc.) who play a role in the customer journey and are impacted by it or can provide vital inputs for mapping. 

Put your core team of allies to work. Together, generate a list of questions that you would like to answer, then send your allies back to their respective teams or departments to search for any available documentation or data that can help begin to answer those questions. Good places to start include: 

Market-research surveys 

Brand audits 

Call center or customer support logs 

Site surveys or VOC (voice of customer) feedback 

Outputs from client advisory board (CAB) meetings 

Customer journey analytics  

By now, you will most likely have gathered enough insight to formulate a tentative hypothesis about how certain pieces of the customer journey look and what pain points exist. Start laying out that hypothesis in a draft framework called an assumption map or a hypothesis map . 

Share the insights gained from internal research with all the concerned stakeholders and map the findings on a tentative journey map, which will be validated against external research in the next step. 

You may be tempted to use existing stakeholder data as the basis for your journey map, but beware. While this data can give you a high-level understanding of customers’ general attitudes and levels of satisfaction for specific interactions, it does not help with understanding emotions, mindsets and motivations at the level required for effectively depicting the entire journey. 

Then what? 

Conduct external research on real customers using methods like: 

⛔ Pitfall Alert: Basing Your Map on Assumptions

Research can be expensive and time-consuming, so what’s wrong with creating and using an “assumption map” based on stakeholder input and cutting out the research phase? While stakeholders do hold valuable knowledge about different areas of the customer journey, most of them do not have a broad enough perspective of the customer journey, nor a deep enough perspective of user needs at each stage, to be able to piece together a realistic, comprehensive view.  

An assumption map carries two major risks : 

It carries less weight and is more likely to be written off as “anecdotal” than seen as a compelling tool to drive change. 

Decisions stemming from such inaccurate maps are faulty, altering the experience irreparably and leading to lost conversion opportunities. 

Your takeaway? Base your maps on historical user data and primary research via interviews and customer surveys . Take a tour of Sprinklr’s omnichannel survey platform , or try it for free for a full 30 days by hitting the button below:  

At this point, you need to create a visual narrative that will communicate the journey and all the critical moments, pain points, and high points within it. A good method is to have another workshop with your ally team. Having built context and common ground throughout your research process, bring them back together and evolve the hypothesis map based on your primary research findings. 

Editor’s Choice: Customer Journey Management: Your A-Z Guide for 2024   

The experience your customer has at individual customer touchpoints impacts their ongoing relationship with your brand. Take a look at your own omnichannel ecosystem.  

What channels do you support? Across which devices? Ask yourself if there are important gaps to be filled in your channel solutions.  

Sounds like a lot of work, right? 

With Sprinklr, it isn’t.  

Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform takes the grunge work out of omnichannel journey mapping by: 

Integrating data and insights across 30+ modern and traditional channels into one unified view. 

Four interwoven tool suites for insights, marketing, sales and support for complete stakeholder buy-in and leak-proof journeys. 

Granular journey analytics and reporting to highlight behavior trends and consumption patterns in real time. 

If you want to partner with a brand that simplifies customer journey mapping and eliminates point-solution chaos for McDonald’s, Nike and Microsoft, jump aboard to Sprinklr. Explore the platform at your pace with a 30-day trial on the house: 

Frequently Asked Questions

An omnichannel customer journey provides a seamless and integrated experience across multiple channels, ensuring consistency and continuity. In contrast, a multichannel approach involves utilizing various channels but may lack the same level of integration and cohesion. 

Traditional customer surveys can gauge customer satisfaction levels and brand perceptions. However, to avoid human error, bias and skewed results, it’s advisable to use an AI-powered journey analytics tool like Sprinklr Service that generates granular metrics for all the interactions and touchpoints in a journey.  

AI enhances the omnichannel customer journey by providing personalized recommendations, predictive analytics, chatbots for instant support, and data-driven insights, ensuring a seamless and efficient customer experience across channels. 

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Mastering the omnichannel journey: Definition and strategies

Our lives are growing ever more intertwined with an increasing number of devices, such as smartphones, computers, smartwatches, smart home devices, etc. This constant interaction and ever-expanding abundance of content has shaped our purchasing behavior irreversibly.

Consumers have grown adept at making informed decisions by seeking out and evaluating trustworthy content from multiple sources. Additionally, external stimuli constantly prompt us to make buying choices.

In many cases, even substantial purchasing decisions are made through a handful of emails or phone conversations, bypassing the need for physical meetings. In the post-pandemic era, video calls serve as effective substitutes for face-to-face meetings.

This environment of vast possibilities has allowed businesses to flourish. However, it has also complicated the customer journey, resulting in the emergence of omnichannel journeys.

Omnichannel definition

An omnichannel journey represents a customer’s interactions with a product across multiple touchpoints during the buying process, the sales process, and post-sales customer support, extending throughout the customer’s lifecycle.

Omnichannel journeys allows customers to interact with a company in the way that is most convenient for them, creating a more personalized and engaging experience.

Omnichannel vs. multichannel

Understanding the difference between omnichannel and multichannel strategies is crucial in today’s dynamic business environment. The choice between omnichannel vs. multichannel is more than a debate about buzzwords; it reflects fundamental differences in how businesses engage with their customers.

What is multichannel?

What is omnichannel, key differences between omnichannel and multichannel.

Multichannel refers to the approach of interacting with customers through various channels, both direct and indirect. These channels may include a company’s website, retail stores, mail order catalogs, email marketing, and social media.

The goal of a multichannel strategy is to enable customers to interact with a brand in the channel of their choice.

The omnichannel approach, while involving multiple channels like the multichannel approach, focuses on delivering a consistent, unified, and seamless customer experience across all channels.

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An omnichannel strategy recognizes that customers engage with brands on various platforms and touchpoints and endeavors to provide an integrated customer experience that’s both consistent and complementary across these touchpoints.

The key difference between omnichannel and multichannel lies in the customer experience.

Multichannel strategies can result in disjointed and potentially inconsistent customer experiences, as each channel may function in a silo. In contrast, an omnichannel strategy ensures that customers have a unified and consistent experience across all channels, enhancing customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Additionally, an omnichannel approach leverages data from various touchpoints to provide a more personalized and responsive customer experience.

The table below summarizes the advantages of adopting an omnichannel approach over a multichannel approach:

In summary, while multichannel strategies offer multiple avenues for customer interaction, they can result in disjointed customer experiences due to the potential lack of integration among channels. In contrast, an omnichannel strategy ensures that customers have a unified and consistent experience across all channels, enhancing customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Types of omnichannel journey

Depending on the product or services, customer interactions can vary based on the user’s needs and preferences. For instance, some customers may favor a completely digital experience when shopping for clothes, while others prefer shopping in a physical store.

Regardless of their preference, customers will still interact with the brand through multiple touchpoints, creating various omnichannel journeys. Therefore, even if your business involves selling clothes, it’s important to understand your positioning, customer preference, and presence to craft a positive customer experience and retain customers over time .

Fully digital (multiple digital touchpoints; no human interaction)

This type of journey occurs when a potential customer becomes aware of a brand’s offerings via a target medium, navigates to the website, and completes a sale without personal interaction. The customer relationship continues post-sale, maintained through interactions on the app or website.

An example includes buying clothes online, managing returns or complaints digitally, and leveraging loyalty points for future purchases to sustain a relationship with the brand.

Combination of digital and physical

This journey involves multiple interactions with the brand, both digitally and in person, creating a composite omnichannel experience.

Buying a car is a typical example of this type of journey. The customer researches the vehicle online, proceeds with the purchase via a physical or digital medium, and requires a blend of after-sales services.

Combination of digital and virtual assistant

This type of omnichannel journey proliferated in the post-pandemic era when customers began seeking assistance via a helpline, video call, or phone call to make purchasing decisions.

For example, when applying for a loan from a bank, a customer might call to negotiate terms, sign paperwork digitally, provide all necessary information online, and finalize the loan via a virtual call. In this journey, the customer interacts with the company virtually and completes tasks online rather than in person.

Omnichannel journey example

Let’s illustrate the concept of the omnichannel journey with an example that we will expand upon throughout the article to provide context. We’ll create a persona and a scenario, and follow that persona through their omnichannel journey.

Ana, a 34-year-old working mother living in a major city with her husband and daughter, decides to buy a car to streamline her commute to her daughter’s school and her own workplace. She represents a growing segment of consumers who are comfortable with online research and shopping, yet still appreciate human interaction and physical touchpoints in the buying process.

Let’s follow her journey:

Research phase

Ana begins her journey by conducting online research about the best family cars within her budget. She visits various car manufacturer websites, reads blogs and reviews, and checks out user ratings on independent websites. She also watches video reviews on YouTube and participates in online forums for additional insights.

Each of these digital touchpoints plays a significant role in Ana’s decision-making process.

Selection phase

After her extensive research, Ana shortlists a few car models that fit her requirements. She signs up for newsletters from the manufacturers of these cars to get updates on discounts or promotional offers. She also engages with the brands on social media to get a sense of their community and customer service responsiveness.

Furthermore, Ana uses an augmented reality app provided by one of the car companies to see how the car would look in her garage. These digital touchpoints contribute to her final decision.

Purchase phase

Ana decides to visit a dealership to test-drive the car model she has chosen. She appreciates the tangible experience of touching and driving the car before making a purchase.

The sales representative at the dealership provides her with additional information about financing options, warranty, and after-sales service. This physical touchpoint solidifies her decision to purchase the car.

Post-purchase phase

After purchasing the car, Ana receives follow-up emails from the dealership thanking her for the purchase and providing her with useful information about car maintenance. She also receives a survey asking about her buying experience. A few weeks later, she gets a phone call from the dealership asking about her satisfaction with the car and offering assistance if needed.

The importance of multiple touchpoints

Having multiple and varied digital and human touchpoints helps ensure a good customer relationship post-purchase.

In the previous example, Ana had several touchpoints with the bank before deciding to make a purchase. These touchpoints included:

• Ads on third-party websites
• Google searches for reviews
• The bank’s website for additional information
• Virtual interactions with bank employees for clarification
• Using the bank’s app for after-sales services and for virtual exchanges when preferred

For Ana, these touchpoints were part of a seamless customer journey because she interacted with the bank through multiple channels. However, for the bank, creating such an omnichannel experience required a consistent presence across all channels, real-time updates across all platforms, maintaining the same brand tone in all messaging, and ensuring knowledge is shared across the organization.

According to Forbes, customers typically interact with an average of six touchpoints at the start of their journey with a brand, and continue to engage with about four throughout their lifecycle. As a result, brands are expected to provide a seamless experience across all channels. With 98 percent of users switching between devices during these interactions, a brand’s failure to offer a seamless experience can drive customers to the competition.

While establishing an omnichannel presence can be challenging, it has proven more effective in achieving higher conversion rates and customer lifetime value . Customers who encounter a brand’s presence on multiple channels are 50 percent more likely to convert than if they only saw the brand on one channel.

How to create a seamless omnichannel journey

The first step in creating a seamless omnichannel journey is to identify where customers interact with your brand. This involves pinpointing the points of convenience, sale, and post-sale interactions for the customer.

In a market with varying customer preferences — some favor the convenience and speed of the internet, while others prefer physical interactions — ensuring a seamless customer experience requires brands to maintain a presence across all relevant channels. It is crucial to provide a consistent experience across these channels and empower customers to choose their preferred touchpoints.

If you choose to exclude certain touchpoints, you should guide customers through this process to prevent any confusion or disappointment that may arise from a lack of presence on specific channels.

Let’s dive deeper into some of the most important factors that contribute to a seamless omnichannel journey:

Presence across all channels

Synergy across all channels, real-time updates, data and analytics, knowledge spread across the organization.

New platforms are constantly emerging. Recognizing these new channels and establishing your brand’s presence across all relevant platforms where your customers are found is the first step in creating an omnichannel journey.

In our previous example, the bank maintains a digital presence with a comprehensive website and a useful app, and also offers virtual and physical touchpoints.

By identifying your customer’s preferences and establishing a presence across all pertinent channels, you can build trust and loyalty with your customers.

When you consistently present your company’s messaging, look, and feel across all platforms, it is easier for customers to recognize and connect with the brand.

For instance, if a customer sees an ad on social media and clicks on it but struggles to find the same campaign on the company’s website, their trust in the brand may diminish. While the customer may initially have the intent to purchase the company’s service, a lack of synergy across channels could push them toward the competition.

It’s crucial to maintain consistency across all touchpoints before launching any marketing campaign.

Customers often switch between devices and platforms when interacting with a product. If they encounter inconsistencies or outdated information across various channels, this can quickly breed mistrust in the brand, potentially pushing customers towards competitors. Thus, having an infrastructure that supports real-time updates is crucial for a successful omnichannel journey.

Analyzing customer behavior and preferences across multiple channels allows you to gain valuable insights into the customer journey that you can use to tailor your approach, thereby improving the overall customer experience and boosting satisfaction. Data and analytics can also help you identify gaps in your omnichannel strategy and make any necessary adjustments.

By leveraging these insights, businesses can make informed decisions and enhance their omnichannel journey to better meet their customers’ needs.

In large organizations, there can be gaps in information dissemination. For instance, when a marketing team initiates a campaign, front office staff should be informed. If a post-sales representative needs data or information about a service agreement made by a pre-sales executive, it should be readily available.

To achieve a seamless omnichannel experience, strategies and systems must be in place to facilitate the flow of information, minimizing the risk of gaps due to human error.

In today’s world, where consumers interact with brands through a multitude of channels, creating a seamless omnichannel journey has become vital for businesses. It involves not only maintaining a presence across all channels but also ensuring synergy, providing real-time updates, leveraging data for insights, and spreading knowledge about the customer journey across the organization. By doing so, brands can provide an integrated and cohesive customer experience, leading to higher customer satisfaction and retention.

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What an Omnichannel Customer Journey Looks Like

An overview of omnichannel customer journeys and how to implement them.

What is an omnichannel customer journey?

4 stages in a customer journey + relevant channels for each, a true omnichannel journey requires a fully integrated tech stack.

Companies that are customer-centric have been found to be 60% more profitable than those that aren’t. But what do we actually mean when we say “customer-centric”? More often than not, we’re talking about the quality of customer experiences across channels. 

Optimizing omnichannel customer journeys is essential for acquiring new customers, strengthening retention rates, and as we mentioned above, becoming more profitable. By understanding how customers move between platforms and channels, businesses gain the upper hand – gaining deeper insight into their behavior. 

Omnichannel has come to define customer journeys today: referring to how users switch between multiple channels when interacting with a brand (and expect their experience to be uninterrupted as they do so). Today, 76% of consumers expect consistent interactions across all areas of a business. 

A common example of this is with a streaming service. You could start a show on your laptop, and then switch over to your mobile device and pick up at the exact timestamp you left off at. That’s an omnichannel experience. 

Or, perhaps you start a live chat with Customer Support, are disconnected, and then decide to call their hotline instead. The Customer Support agent that picks up should be able to see your previous conversation over chat, and begin problem solving from there. 

74% of customers use more than one channel to start and complete a purchase. The following sections serve as an example of how an omnichannel customer journey can unfold. 

The customer journey begins when someone first discovers a brand, whether it’s through a paid advertisement, a blog article, or a social media post. During this stage, your brand’s primary goal is make people aware of the products or services you offer, and acquire new leads.

This isn’t the time for a hard sell. Instead, focus on how to help your prospective customers by offering valuable information, unique perspectives, and solutions to common challenges.

Content marketing

Content marketing is the creation and distribution of relevant, useful content that doesn’t explicitly promote your brand or sell your products. Examples of content marketing include:

Blog articles

White papers

Downloadable guides

The best content marketing focuses on your customers’ top concerns, pain points, challenges, and questions. By offering educational information to prospective customers, you can position your brand as a trusted authority in your industry and increase online visibility.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing is another powerful tool for the awareness stage: as its able to reach a large audience at no cost (if on organic channels). Today, 55% of consumers discover new brands through social media , such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Social media marketing includes:

How-to and educational videos

Infographics

Sponsored posts

“Shoppable” content

Active engagement is an inherent part of social media (when done successfully), so this is a great way to build a community of leads who are more likely to become loyal customers.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing involves endorsements, product placements, and sponsored content from people who have a high level of social influence or expertise in their field. Influencer marketing includes content such as:

Product unboxing videos

Brand ambassador programs

Live streaming

Influencers have cultivated a loyal audience that trusts them to share useful recommendations – an invaluable asset to your omnichannel marketing strategy. 

Consideration

Once your audience has discovered the root cause of their pain points, they move onto considering possible solutions. During this stage, a customer conducts research to determine their options: comparing aspects like pricing, available features, and customer support.

This is when you need to convince prospects to see your brand as the best choice. To do so, you need to create informative, educational content that highlights your company’s competitive differentiators (and showcase real-life success stories from current customers). 

Landing pages

Each tactic used in the awareness stage – whether it’s a blog article, a sponsored Instagram post, or an influencer’s unboxing video – should lead your audience to a landing page on your website. This creates the seamless connectivity between different platforms that enables omnichannel customer engagement . Landing page content includes:

Product demos

Gated or downloadable content

Side-by-side comparisons with your competitors

Client testimonials

Industry-specific use cases

Your landing pages should contain all the information a potential customer needs to answer their questions about your brand. Don’t forget to include details like pricing, benefits, integrations, and other features that differentiate you from your competitors.

In-app and on-page marketing

This type of marketing is developed for and displayed to customers while they are actively using your app or website. Examples include:

In-app messages

Splash pages

Modals (full-screen overlays that remain until the user dismisses them)

This is an especially powerful strategy for SaaS companies that offer a free trial of their mobile or web-based apps. When customers try your software before they commit to a purchase, you get the added advantage of marketing directly to them while they test-drive your product. By guiding their experience, you will further unlock the value of your product for the user as they compare their options.

The decision stage is where you ensure you are a customer’s final choice. Although each stage of the customer journey is crucial, this is where the magic happens: a lead completes a purchase and converts into a paying customer.

Now that you’ve guided your customers through the marketing funnel and convinced them to choose your business, you need to demonstrate how your product or service performs as promised.

Live chat marketing

Live chat enables you to engage with prospects while they’re actively browsing your website, and encourage them to take specific actions (like completing a purchase). Examples of live chat marketing include:

Personalized product recommendations

Product walkthroughs

Sales call scheduling

Live chat is your chance to deliver a tailored customer experience. With the additional context of a prospect’s previous interactions – which you gleaned from consolidated customer data – you can get straight to the point and offer solutions that are specific to their pain points.

Email marketing

Email marketing gives you direct access to your customers, and is easily testable (which drives more insights). By segmenting your audience , you can launch highly personalized, targeted, and well-timed emails, which can increase revenue by 18x .

Examples of email marketing include:  

Order confirmation emails

Follow-up emails with product recommendations

Abandoned cart emails

Drip campaigns

Support and retention

The chances of selling to an existing customer are as high as 70%. Once a customer has purchased from your brand, you don’t want to let them slip through your fingers.

During this stage, your goal is to increase the chances of a higher customer lifetime value (LTV). After each purchase, continue to engage with customers early and often to nurture loyalty, and unlock long-term revenue growth.

In-app and on-page support messaging

Similar to the in-app and on-page marketing methods we discussed earlier, this channel targets your customers while they’re interacting with your brand’s website or mobile app. However, this content is designed specifically to help paying customers get the most out of their purchases. Examples include:

Personalized promotions

Tooltips (overlays that show users how to use and navigate an app)

Cross-selling

To remain competitive, use the information gathered throughout the omnichannel customer journey to proactively reach out with personalized support messaging.

Knowledge base

A knowledge base is like a self-service customer support library. This enables customers to learn about different features and offers how-to guides to help maximize the value of their purchase. A knowledge base might include:

Case studies

Technical product documentation

Suggestions for high-impact activity

By following the routes that lead customers to your knowledge base, you can identify touchpoints in the omnichannel customer journey that need further clarification. For instance, if many users look for information about a specific feature after the onboarding process, you can add a tutorial or interactive demo to better explain that feature. 

To provide an omnichannel customer experience , you need to connect all of your data and attribute it to individual customer profiles. Look for features like:

Customer segmentation

Automated personalization

The ability to trigger interactions based on real-time data

Segment unifies touchpoints across all platforms so you can fully understand the omnichannel customer journey. Our customer data platform uses robust customer analytics to provide you with deeper insight into customer behavior. Plus, multi-touch attribution identifies all of the touchpoints that lead to a conversion, not just the last one.

Interested in hearing more about how Segment can help you?

Connect with a Segment expert who can share more about what Segment can do for you.

Frequently asked questions

What are some common channels in an omnichannel customer journey, what is an example of an omnichannel customer journey, how can twilio segment help companies implement an omnichannel customer journey.

How to Create an Effective Omnichannel Customer Journey?

• Updated Jan 04, 2024
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Or, do you see creating an effortless experience that delivers a consistent experience as it transitions across multiple touchpoints and provides both added value and access to a live agent? 

It’s natural to start creating an omnichannel customer journey with vision. 

Once a business has a vision, they jump right to functional requirements, skipping the important step of defining the actual customer experience. 

It is critical that you consider how to design a memorable experience in the customer journey that maps to the needs of your particular segment and aligns to your brand values. 

Every customer expects a seamless experience — regardless of the device or communication channel they choose. They are more likely to choose a brand that has invested in the customer journey over brands that create frustrating service experiences. 

9 out of 10 consumers want an omnichannel experience with seamless service between communication methods. 

Hence, it is vital to integrate omnichannel communications into an integrated, seamless platform. Let us discuss what is an omnichannel customer journey and how to create & optimize it effectively.

What is Omnichannel Customer Journey?

An omnichannel customer journey is defined as the one that assimilates multiple communication channels . The journey begins with the very first interaction a customer has with your organization and ends when that customer stops doing business with you. 

It involves interacting with and engaging customers on their preferred channels, creating a seamless, end-to-end customer journey regardless of the combination of touchpoints a customer uses to engage with your business during the point of sale and throughout their lifecycle. 

When businesses gain comprehensive understanding of the omnichannel customer journey, it becomes easier to harmonize the marketing and customer service efforts across interaction channels, while keeping customer needs in prime focus.

Key reasons why businesses should adopt a customer journey omnichannel model

• Clear Perspective of Customer Journey: Having an omnichannel model for customer journey gives businesses a bird’s-eye view of every stage. It streamlines all the interactions across multiple channels under one platform and gives insights into the  actions for improving your business.
• Increase Customer Retention: Focusing on omnichannel customer journey allows customers to reach out to a brand via their preferred channels with a smooth transition in the same interaction. It levels up satisfaction rate and acts as an effective customer retention strategy .
• Higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): An omnichannel customer journey model simplifies getting in touch with the company and delivers consistent experience all the time that eventually increases customer lifetime. Omnichannel customers are 30% more valuable to your business over the course of their lifetime.
• Surge Customer Satisfaction: The seamless and personalized omnichannel experiences you deliver based on user mapping lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction. As customers are being heard and responded to in a way that feels right for them. When customer satisfaction increases, so does your company’s revenue.

How to Create An Effective Omnichannel Customer Journey

In order to deliver a great omnichannel customer experience there are different strategies. Implementing the right strategy, siloed engagements can be avoided. Businesses that invest in omnichannel customer service plans witness higher customer satisfaction and retention.

Here is a quick list of the strategic ways of creating a successful omnichannel customer experience management model.

1. Research Extensively on Buyer Personas

“ Personas are the starting point ,” says Michael Hinshaw, CX strategist.

Because a journey map is the story of a customers’ experience – it explains what happens along the way. Personas represent the customers whose journeys we are mapping.

Buyer personas play an important role in the overall customer journey mapping process, it is vital that organizations create valuable personas that provide a robust platform upon which to build the maps.

A good customer persona typically consist of five parts:

• Goals & Objectives – What is your persona trying to do, why and by when?
• Motivations – What are the key triggers and hindrances? What influences their thinking? 
• Behaviors – Where do they find information? Is your persona spontaneous or do they research and plan every detail? What media channels do they like to use?
• Profile – Think about your persona’s demographics. It can also be useful to think about variables like price sensitivity, confidence with technology and amount of leisure time and whether your persona over- or under-indexes on them.
• Quotes & Photos – Bring your personas to life. It is important that they are stereotypes that feel real so give them a name, add comments captured through research and photos of what they look like.

The best part of a buyer’s persona is that they help in making omnichannel customer journeys smoother in the following ways:

• Enhance value propositions that align with the customer expectations.
• Boost business profits by providing customers with what exactly they are looking for.
• Provide a better understanding of buyers, their needs, and how to fix them.
• Accelerate lead generation by aligning teams around a customer-centric vision.

2. Map Your Customer Journey

Nearly 70% of online shoppers abandoned their cart. Why does a customer spend hours adding products to their cart just to close the tab? 

It is likely because you lack a clear grasp of the customer’s journey to purchasing your product or service. You also fail to understand the difference between a buyer journey vs customer journey . The omnichannel customer journey includes every moment a customer interacts with your brand across every touchpoint. 

Documenting these moments sequentially yields a sort of map, known as a customer journey map, that can be used to better understand the obstacles customers face in achieving their goals.

Customer journey maps are often divided into distinct phases to help differentiate between otherwise similar types of interactions. 

The different phases include:

• Awareness and acquisition: This phase is all about discovery. Customers coming across an ad for your business, visiting your website, calling your contact center all qualify as part of the awareness phase. Customers who commit to making a purchase enter into the acquisition phase, which then connects with the onboarding phase.
• Onboarding and engagement: This phase involves all interactions meant to guide new customers via the purchasing process, including details on how to get the most out of your product or service. It leads to the engagement phase which focuses on interacting closely with customers once they are more acquainted with your brand.
• After-purchase support: This customer journey phase includes the interactions that happen after a customer’s purchase such as reaching out to customer support via phone, visiting your company’s self-support portal or knowledge base, and contacting customer service via email, social media, or any other channel.

3. Identify the Touchpoints Most Preferred 

Touchpoints are the key to understanding your customer’s journey. They are basically the place where customer interactions occur. 

On an average it takes seven interactions with your brand before the final  purchase. Based on such interactions, customers usually create a first impression of the overall brand.

By identifying customer touchpoints , it’s possible to cultivate loyalty and improve customer experience. When you map your customer journey across multiple channels and connect them, it helps you understand customers and their requirements better.

It also enables you to gain a better understanding on how your customers are feeling at each stage of the buying process and through different channels.

How identifying touchpoints help to optimize your omnichannel customer journey model?

• Understand customers and engage them the way they want – learning about  the preferred touchpoints helps to be actively available across the channels for real time assistance.
• Personalize your interaction with clients – You can personalize your interaction at the identified touchpoints and create excellent customer service experience examples . 

4. Employ Right Tools for Omnichannel Customer Engagement

Did you know that 87% of customers think brands need to work harder to provide a seamless shopping experience?

A customer ought to spend more when there is a significant number of channels available along their customer journey. 

Ideally, it is difficult to deliver seamless experiences across diverse touchpoints without the right technology to enable it. Moreover, building the right technology model to provide excellent experience across channels is vital  to deliver hassle-free omnichannel user experience.

For any customer to be able to switch between the mobile app and chatbot conversation conveniently, businesses need to use the right digital tools that allow data flow at ease in real-time, to serve customers on their preferred touchpoints.

Some tools that can be used at different touchpoints for creating a great omnichannel customer journey model.

• Chatbots – REVE chatbots can be built and deployed easily to engage customers 24×7 and provide real time answers for simple queries.
• Live chat – Deliver real time assistance to the sales and support related queries with live chat and boost customer satisfaction.
• Visual engagement tools –  Using the co-browsing tool to collaborate with customers in real time helps in guiding through complex issues and improve first contact resolution (FCR). With a video enabled call center , you can identify issues faster and deliver personalized solutions. 

REVE Chat’s omnichannel customer engagement platform offers a complete suite of  digital tools and chatbot solutions to engage customers in real time round the clock. Sign up today with REVE Chat and offer hyper personalized customer experience.

The above mentioned digital engagement tools empower support agents to provide real time response, and effective solutions. You can also strengthen your customer relationships and increase brand loyalty.

5. Scrutinize Customer Feedback Regularly

Getting a handle on how customers view your product, support, and the company is invaluable. 

Customer feedback is essential to guide and inform your decision making and influence innovations and changes to your product or service. It brings in golden opportunities that can help you to improve the omnichannel customer journey. 

It is also essential for measuring customer satisfaction among your existing customers.

Delivering superior service means delivering real time support by being where your customers are and giving them an easy way to share feedback. 

Omnichannel approach empowers brands to engage with customers via every channel and capture feedback at every touchpoint. The different ways to ask for customer feedback are website, social media, emails, in-app, reviews, etc.

Here is how analyzing customer feedback can help to set successful omnichannel customer journey example

• Rightly use feedback to develop an in-depth understanding of  customers (their needs, pain points, wants, expectations) to serve them better.
• Implement a proper system to help you collect feedback, analyze it, and act on a regular basis.
• Reduce friction significantly and resolve your customers’ complex problems and challenges.

6. Balance Automation & Human Support Wisely

Another important aspect of omnichannel customer experience   is balancing automation and human understanding in the balance proportion.

Customers expect brands to understand them with both intelligent technology along with empathetic human experiences.

Choosing the right approach needs a comprehensive understanding of using live chat vs chatbot by learning the pros and cons of both channels. 

Having a balanced support approach of both options manages the resources on priority tasks. 

It is recommended to use chatbots as the  primary contact for customer interaction and use human support for complex conversations.

Designing both for a great customer service experience helps to maintain the right balance that eventually turns to be the real differentiator for the brand. 

Figuring out when a conversation needs to shift from a bot to a human is how the balance manifests – For example, knowing when to please the angry customer with an apology versus an offer or so.

7. Perform a Thorough Gap Analysis

Offering customers seamless, consistent, omnichannel experiences at all customer journey stages is essentially table stakes.

Performing a comprehensive analysis to identify the gaps in fragmented experiences is a vital part of improving omnichannel customer experience. 

Brands putting efforts to create a seamless omnichannel customer journey is always a work in progress as customer habits keep evolving. 

Today, social media is one of the major platforms to provide immediate assistance to customers while also scoring brownie points in full view of the entire customer community.

Evaluating the gaps will give you valuable insights into what actually your customers are looking for and take the right action steps of improvement to deliver a better omnichannel customer journey experience. 

It is recommended to keep a close eye for any data related gaps between various channels, as that may force customers to refer to different sources or channels.

8. Implement Customer Journey Analytics

Customer Journey Analytics allows you to bring your customer data from any channel you choose — both online and offline.

Businesses are increasingly benefiting from customer journey analytics across marketing and customer experience, as the results are real, immediate and have a lasting effect.

Customer journey analytics is a whole new approach to analytics that involves having a journey-based mindset and becoming customer-obsessed. Learning how to choose the best journey analytics platform is just the beginning.

The most powerful benefit of using customer journey analytics is that it connects individual customer behavior to important quantitative metrics and KPIs that you and your business are measured by. 

The key lies in selecting the right metrics and KPIs to monitor and improve, based on the insights generated by your journey analytics platform. Some key customer metrics are:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS),
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) or
• Customer Effort Score (CES)

9. Provide Self Service Options 

Research shows businesses lose nearly $75 billion a year in revenue due to poor customer service.

Creating self service options can be highly effective during the customer journey. Hence businesses are investing to develop self-service portals for improving the overall brand experience. 

As customers expect immediate answers to their queries. In fact, response time is the most important attribute of the customer journey experience.

Self-service portals provide customers with instant access to information and save time and business resources. 67% of customers prefer to use self-service options instead of speaking with a company representative.

Businesses can create tutorials, manuals, how-to videos to help customers to solve their problems on their own. 

Here is how self service portals are an important part of the omnichannel customer journey.

• Use personalized information – Such portals can maintain a record of the products or services purchased and display what is relevant to them. You can identify customer issues and take key steps to address them.
• More positive recommendations – The self service portals help to strengthen brand credibility by creating positive client interactions.
• Educate customers – These portals also help to broaden your customers’ knowledge & skills they require for solving other similar issues in the future. 

10. Offer a Safe Customer Experience 

Omnichannel retailers had to evolve dramatically during the peaks of COVID-19 to comply with public safety policies to raise customer confidence in shopping across all channels. 

As the market looks beyond the pandemic, omnichannel customers not only want an excellent customer experience, but they also want a safe customer experience. 

Focusing on omnichannel retailers and their customers, the latest research on safe customer experience (Safe CX) provides a framework for enhancing customer safety and overall CX in post-pandemic omnichannel retailing.

As illustrated in the SafeCX framework below, the study identified fourteen safety elements in omnichannel retailing. 

These safety elements are classified into three broad categories: safety elements relevant to CX at the pre-purchase stage, during-purchase stage and the post-purchase stage of the customer journey across all channels. 

The SafeCX framework positions the fourteen safety elements into relevant categories:

• Four elements are relevant to the CX at the pre-purchase stage of the customer journey: social inclusiveness, role readiness, employment policy and safety policy enforcement. 
• Six elements are relevant to the during-purchase stage of the customer journey: physical safety, personal hygiene, spatial distancing, fraud prevention, security surveillance and safety signal. 
• The remaining four elements are relevant to the post-purchase stage of the customer journey: delivery safety, safety recall, mental health and data usage.

Retail managers could focus on the fourteen safety elements when designing a seamless and safe omnichannel customer journey.

Omnichannel Customer Journey Examples

When building an omnichannel customer engagement strategy, here is the example of brands who have done so successfully: 

1. Walgreens

Walgreens, the American pharmacy, health and wellness company created a custom mobile app that makes it easier for customers to refill prescriptions, which they can then pickup in store. Their app also showcases store specific inventory making it easier for customers making a trip to decide which location they should visit.

Sephora had brought up a brilliant omnichannel customer experience program for stronger relationships between consumers and the brand.

Sephora Beauty Insiders can tap into the Beauty Bag on their phone or desktop and have access to a truckload of data. Consumers can shop, see their favorites list, any of their past purchases, and how many rewards points they have, scan items in store to see other options available online, watch tutorial videos, and find a store near them.

This extremely successful application of omnichannel marketing strategy has nurtured 11 million members , who spend 15 times more money on Sephora.com than the average user.

3. Timberland

Timberland, the US online store has combined convenience of online with the experience of the in-person customer experience through the installation of near field communication (NFC) technology. They created touchwalls in their store, which leads to further information on their shoes. 

Customers can then add these to their online shopping list or purchase in-store. In addition, Timberland utilizes a product recommendations engine to gain exposure to lesser-known products based on user preferences

Wrapping Up

Although the mechanisms in play behind the scenes of an omnichannel system might be complex, the overall effect for your users and your business is positive. Creating an effective omnichannel customer journey enhances efficiency and simplifies interactions across the board.

REVE Chat is a great customer communication platform that helps businesses to understand customer pain points, engage them in real time, and deliver a delightful experience that improves their lifetime value. Sign in today and create a smooth omnichannel experience.

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Snigdha Patel

Snigdha Patel is a customer experience researcher, author, and blogger. As part of REVE Chat, she focuses on helping organizations maximize customer experience using omnichannel messaging and conversational AI.

She creates contextual, insightful, and conversational content for business audiences across a broad range of industries and categories like Customer Service, Customer Experience (CX), Chatbots, and more.

Serving as the lead content strategist, Snigdha helps the customer service teams to leverage the right technology along with AI to deliver exceptional and memorable customer experiences.

Being a customer service adherent, her goal is to show that organizations can use customer experience as a competitive advantage and win customer loyalty.

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Mapping the Omnichannel Customer Journey in 2023

In 2023, the way in which the consumer engages with a brand has changed significantly. Marketers need to map journeys across various touchpoints and make sure they work seamlessly. This is at the heart of an omnichannel strategy.

A recent report by Arm Treasure Data and Forbes Insight in 2020 shows that 75 percent of consumers are somewhat or very likely to buy from a company based on their experience. This is regardless of price or product. In fact, 77% consider such experiences to be just as important as the quality of a company’s products or services.

Understanding and mapping consumer experience throughout the journey, then, has become an even more critical part of a marketer’s job. As the Arm, Treasure Data Global Head of Marketing Tom Treanor says: “Companies need to look hard at their customer touchpoints, both in-store and online, and understand what their customers value most and where improvements can be made.”

For consumers in the US,  a recent report  indicates that the most important factors across touchpoints are:

• Convenience
• Knowledgeable help
• Friendly service

To help you to map and design such experiences in 2023, we’re going to cover:

• Types of channels and touchpoints 
• How to map the consumer journey
• The challenges to overcome
• Some best practice examples

A 2021 survey of business professionals revealed that their top business priority for the next five years was to improve customer experience. Let’s begin our own journey towards this.

Types of Channels and Touchpoints in 2023

A customer’s journey arises from the interaction with various brand touchpoints.  In 2020 , almost 90% of retail consumers started with digital channels.

This doesn’t mean the role of offline is unimportant.  In one study , 78 percent of marketers believed that digital marketing was important to their overall marketing efforts, while 39 percent said the same about offline campaigns.

In the online space, some consumer channels for touchpoints would be social media, e-mail, and advertising.

The role of mobile in online touchpoints has become increasingly important in 2023. More than half of all web traffic is mobile, and a smartphone analytics study  predicts a 25% increase in mobile traffic by 2025.

Turning to offline, some common channels for touchpoints are direct mail, in-store interaction, and mainstream advertising. All the above should be matched with a high degree of customer service for the best results.

On a granular level, consumers can interact with product demos, checkout forms, giving feedback, signing up for subscriptions and notifications, and more.

It’s important for the omnichannel marketer to focus on providing a consistent and frictionless experience across touchpoints. Today’s consumer uses  an average of  six touchpoints. Nearly 50% regularly use more than four.

How to Map the Consumer Journey

Omnichannel touchpoint mapping consists of outlining all the consumer interactions with your brand. It identifies each step of the buyer’s journey. It allows brands to visualize and link every such experience a customer has.

There are many ways to create such maps, from connected notes to spreadsheets. The process starts with research and data gathering. Consumer questionnaires and user testing are some ways to do this.

From this, consumer profiles can be created. These are the behavioral and demographic characteristics of your main consumers. For example, younger first-time users, older loyal users, occasional users, primarily digital users, and so on.

Based on the main segments, the next step is to list out all the touchpoints that they use. Research should also indicate consumer actions, obstacles, and desired outcomes during the interactions.

After this, the omnichannel marketer will check for consistency across all of the touchpoints and try to create a seamless experience across all of them. In some cases, touchpoints can be mapped in terms of how they enable the consumer to move up the marketing funnel. There are several factors to consider, such as:

• Consideration

Gaps can now be identified and plugged. For example, is customer service lacking in a few touchpoints? Is there a missing touchpoint between sales and after-sales to create loyalty? Is there a touchpoint that does not link to the next?  Here’s a powerful way  to visualize customer journeys, identify the drop-offs and engage them from one single dashboard.

To sum up, omnichannel marketers can map consumer journeys by:

• Creating profiles
• Listing and linking touchpoints
• Identifying and plugging gaps

For more advice on real-time consumer journey mapping and how to make use of this powerful tool to influence customer experience, do  read this .

The Challenges to Overcome

As with any other marketing effort to streamline and improve activities, there are certain challenges and constraints to be overcome.  An earlier survey  of retailers and the omnichannel experience by Price Waterhouse identified some of them.

• Budgets : Linking and strengthening touchpoints involves an outlay. Often, a business case has to be made for this, competing with other spending such as infrastructure.
• Data : For an effective mapping of customer journeys, integrated data is essential. This means integrating all the information that could have been collected separately by various sales and marketing functions.
• Skills and Resources : Over half the companies in  a Forbes survey  a few years ago lacked the analytic skills and tools necessary to analyze data meaningfully. Upgrading of such skills should be a priority for the marketer who seeks to extract meaning from data to create effective consumer journey maps.

Examples of Omnichannel Journey Best Practices

Here are a few examples of companies that have mapped consumer journeys to make a significant difference:

Use-Case 1: Real-time, Personalized, and Hyper-local Alerts

1Weather is one of the top-rated Android weather apps that provides local weather predictions. It has more than 8 million active users, of which 95% are from the U.S. They had the challenge of understanding consumer behavior and providing real-time, personalized, and hyper-local alerts. The brand noticed lower page sessions within the app due to a lack of re-engagement. By mapping users’ app behavior and location preferences, they increased opens and overall engagement rate. More details  can be found here .

Use-Case 2: Integrating An Overview with Navigation Tools

For some time, Disney has been seen as extremely skilled in mapping consumer journeys for an effortless omnichannel experience.  The website  and apps give you an overview of the attractions to expect and tools to plan your stay there.

At the park, the same devices allow you to navigate your way around and offer helpful tips to get the most from your time there.

Use-Case 3: Consistency, Creativity, and Willingness to Experiment

Fashion giant Burberry has used some form of omnichannel marketing  from the start.  They have shown consistency, creativity, and willingness to experiment. They knew that consumers would be looking for Burberry signatures such as a trench coat and tartan design from the beginning of their experience and so made sure these were in focus both offline and online. In their journey mapping, they aimed for consistency. Dedicated customer service accounts and weather advice for fashion were other innovative touchpoints.

What to Keep In Mind

To sum up, omnichannel marketers should focus on providing a consistent experience across touchpoints, integrating online and offline.

There are several ways to map the journey of today’s consumers, and it all starts with research and data.

Skills and resources need to be upgraded to take full advantage of the omnichannel marketing opportunity. It’s also important to remove data silos to gain an overall picture.

An omnichannel journey is what consumers expect nowadays, and brands need to make it a fulfilling experience. That way, they can be seamlessly moved up the marketing funnel.

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Crafting the Ultimate Omnichannel Customer Journey for Enhanced Customer Experience

The omnichannel customer journey is the new frontier for businesses aiming to provide unparalleled customer experiences. Understand how your customers traverse through various channels, interact with your brand, and the touchpoints they encounter. But, why should you invest your time in understanding this? For one, it’s the cornerstone to significantly improve customer engagement, loyalty, and, ultimately, your bottom line. Dive in to learn how you can create an effective omnichannel journey for your patrons.

Table of Contents

What is an Omnichannel Customer Journey?

The customer journey depicts the entire process a customer goes through, from their first interaction with your brand to the moment they make a purchase or even when reaching out to customer support. An omnichannel customer journey extends this concept by encompassing the end-to-end customer journey regardless of the combination of channels the customer uses to engage.

Imagine a shopper discovering a product on your mobile app, researching it further via your website, then making a purchase in-store, and finally calling your contact center for post-purchase assistance. This continuous, seamless journey across multiple channels exemplifies the omnichannel customer journey.

Why is the Omnichannel Experience Crucial?

The omnichannel customer experience represents a holistic view of a customer’s interactions with your brand, emphasizing the need for consistency and seamlessness. Today’s consumers want their interactions across online and offline channels, like websites, mobile apps, and physical stores, to be interconnected. A cohesive omnichannel experience fosters trust, heightens customer satisfaction, and increases customer retention. Offering a seamless experience across touchpoints ensures an excellent customer experience, boosting customer lifetime value.

Touchpoints: What are they and Why do they Matter?

Touchpoints represent every moment a customer interacts with your brand. These interactions are critical junctures where businesses can influence customer perceptions, decisions, and behaviors. By recognizing and optimizing these touchpoints, especially in an omnichannel model, companies can provide a consistent experience that meets or exceeds customer expectations. Let’s break down the wide range of touchpoints that customers might encounter on their journey:

Digital Touchpoints:

• Website: The most common touchpoint, a company’s website, is often the first interaction a customer has with the brand. This includes product pages, blog posts, and landing pages.
• Mobile App: For businesses with mobile apps, this becomes a crucial touchpoint, especially for users on-the-go.
• Email Communications: These include newsletters, promotional offers, transactional emails, and follow-ups.
• Social Media Platforms: From Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and LinkedIn, social media channels serve as primary touchpoints for engagement and communication.
• Live Chat & Chatbots: Instant communication tools on websites or apps.
• Digital Ads: Display ads, search ads, or video ads on platforms like Google, YouTube, or programmatic advertising platforms.

Physical Touchpoints:

• Brick and Mortar Stores: Physical storefronts where customers can touch, feel, and purchase products.
• Events and Trade Shows: Exhibitions, conventions, or workshops where brands can showcase their products or services.
• Sales Meetings: Direct face-to-face interactions between salespeople and potential clients or existing customers.

Customer Service & Support Touchpoints:

• Call Centers: Telephone-based support or sales interactions.
• Self-service Portals: Online sections where customers can resolve their issues or find information without direct interaction with company representatives.
• Feedback Surveys: Post-interaction or periodic surveys to collect customer feedback.
• Returns & Exchanges: The process customers undergo when returning or exchanging products.

Transactional Touchpoints:

• Online Checkout: The process customers go through when purchasing online, including cart pages, payment gateways, and confirmation emails.
• In-store Checkout: Physical purchase experience, which might include interactions with salespeople, payment counters, and kiosks.
• Invoice & Receipts: Physical or digital invoices provided post-purchase.

Content-Related Touchpoints:

• Blogs & Articles: Informative or promotional content that a potential customer might come across.
• Videos: Content on platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or embedded on a website.
• Webinars & Online Workshops: Online sessions aimed at training, informing, or promoting to potential and existing customers.

Referral Touchpoints:

• Word of Mouth: Recommendations from friends, family, or colleagues.
• Online Reviews & Testimonials: Feedback from other customers on platforms like Google Reviews, Yelp, or Trustpilot.
• Affiliate Marketing: Recommendations and referrals from affiliate marketers or influencers.

Understanding these touchpoints helps businesses tailor their strategies to improve the customer experience. By providing consistent and personalized interactions across channels, brands can boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Mapping the Customer’s Journey: A Blueprint for Success

Journey mapping is an analytical tool that helps visualize the path a customer takes with your organization. To create an omnichannel customer journey:

• Identify Touchpoints: Understand every interaction a customer has with your organization, both online and offline.
• Collect Customer Data: Harness analytics and feedback to understand customer behavior and preferences.
• Design the Journey: Construct a journey map that outlines the customer’s experience across touchpoints, ensuring a seamless omnichannel journey.

Strategies for a Successful Omnichannel Experience

businessman working with notepaper of strategy ideas.Business communication, brainstorming,meeting,plan conceptsNotepaper with male hand.Business brainstorming and communication marketing plan concepts

Creating a seamless omnichannel journey requires strategies that cater to individual customer needs. These strategies should integrate analytics, understand customer behavior, and offer consistent service, whether online or offline. Moreover, businesses must ensure that their marketing, sales, and support teams are aligned in their efforts.

Consistent Branding Across Channels:

• Example: A business ensures that its color scheme, messaging tone, and overall look and feel remain consistent, whether a customer is visiting its website, mobile app, social media pages, or even a physical store. This helps in building a memorable and easily recognizable brand image.

Centralized Customer Data Management:

• Example: A retail company uses an integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to track a customer’s interactions across its website, mobile app, and in-store. This allows sales representatives to have a holistic view of a customer’s preferences and purchase history, enabling personalized service and recommendations.

Cross-Channel Personalization:

• Example: An e-commerce store sends personalized email recommendations based on a customer’s browsing behavior on its mobile app, ensuring that the shopping experience is tailored and relevant wherever the customer engages.

Integrated Inventory Management:

• Example: A fashion retailer allows customers to check the availability of specific items in physical stores through its website or app, and even reserve products for in-store pickup, providing a seamless shopping experience.

Unified Customer Support:

• Example: A tech company offers customer support via phone, live chat, email, and social media. They ensure that if a customer switches from one channel to another, the conversation’s history transitions smoothly, so the customer doesn’t have to repeat their issue.

Leveraging AI and Chatbots:

• Example: A travel agency utilizes AI-driven chatbots on its website and mobile app to provide instant responses to common customer queries, and seamlessly redirects more complex queries to human agents.

Optimize for Mobile:

• Example: A restaurant ensures its online reservation system is as intuitive and user-friendly on mobile devices as it is on desktops, understanding that many customers might book on-the-go.

Feedback Loop Across Channels:

• Example: A cosmetic brand collects feedback on its new product through its website, social media polls, in-store feedback forms, and email surveys. This comprehensive feedback helps the brand understand customer sentiments across various touchpoints.

Reward Loyalty Across Platforms:

• Example: A coffee shop offers a loyalty program where customers can earn points for every purchase, whether made in-store, through the brand’s app, or on its website. The points can then be redeemed across any channel.

Real-time Analytics and Adaptation:

• Example: An online electronics retailer monitors customer behavior on its website and notices that many customers drop off at the payment gateway. The retailer quickly identifies an issue with its payment processor and switches to a more reliable one, ensuring minimal disruption to the customer experience.

Implementing these strategies requires effort, coordination across departments, and often an investment in technology. However, the payoffs in terms of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately revenue can be substantial. By focusing on the customer and ensuring they receive an excellent experience regardless of where and how they interact with a brand, businesses can truly harness the power of the omnichannel approach.

Using Analytics to Understand Customer Behavior

In the world of omnichannel marketing and customer journey management, analytics plays a pivotal role. Analyzing data from various touchpoints helps businesses make informed decisions, identify areas for improvement, and tailor their strategies to match the ever-evolving preferences of their customers. In this realm, there are several critical metrics that marketers can use:

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC):

• This metric calculates the average expense of acquiring a new customer. By comparing CAC across channels, you can determine which channels are most cost-effective in your omnichannel strategy.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV):

• CLV measures the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer over the course of their relationship. It’s essential to track this metric across various channels to gauge the effectiveness of the omnichannel customer experience.

Cross-channel Engagement:

• Track the rate at which customers transition from one channel to another, such as from email to mobile app or from social media to the website. It helps understand the seamless experience across channels.

Customer Retention Rate:

• This metric gauges how effectively a business retains its customers over a specific period. A high retention rate indicates a positive omnichannel customer experience.

Net Promoter Score (NPS):

• NPS measures customer loyalty by asking them the likelihood of recommending the brand to others. By segmenting NPS scores by channel, you can gain insights into which channels provide the best customer experience.

Churn Rate:

• This metric calculates the percentage of customers who stop doing business or interacting with a brand over a specific period. An increasing churn rate might suggest problems in the omnichannel user experience.

Conversion Rate Across Channels:

• Analyze the percentage of users who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, segmented by channel. This helps in pinpointing which channels drive the most conversions and where there might be gaps in the omnichannel journey.

Average Order Value (AOV):

• By tracking AOV across different channels, brands can understand where customers are spending the most and tailor their marketing strategies accordingly.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT):

• Often collected through post-purchase or post-interaction surveys, CSAT scores provide direct feedback on customer satisfaction, which can be segmented by channel for more granular insights.

Multi-touch Attribution:

• This advanced metric analyzes the various touchpoints a customer interacts with before conversion. It provides insights into the combination of channels and interactions that lead to the most conversions.
• Response and Resolution Time:
• Particularly crucial for customer support touchpoints. Measuring how quickly customer inquiries or issues are addressed across channels can provide insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of omnichannel customer support.
• Cart Abandonment Rate:
• Especially relevant for e-commerce, this metric tracks the number of users who add products to their cart but don’t complete the purchase. By understanding abandonment rates across different channels, businesses can identify pain points in the checkout process.

Leveraging these metrics, businesses can gain a deeper understanding of the omnichannel customer journey. This data-driven approach ensures that brands can create a seamless and personalized experience, leading to increased customer loyalty and higher returns on their marketing and customer service efforts.

How Does an Omnichannel Approach Improve Customer Satisfaction?

Unified Experience Across Platforms:

• Regardless of whether a customer is shopping online, through an app, or in-store, the experience is harmonized. This seamless transition across touchpoints amplifies convenience and flexibility.

Personalized Interactions:

• With data insights from various channels, businesses can offer tailored interactions. A customer’s online browsing can inform in-store product recommendations, enhancing the shopping experience.

Efficient Problem Resolution:

• An omnichannel approach ensures that support is available across multiple platforms. Whether it’s social media, phone, or in-person, this multiplicity speeds up and streamlines issue resolution.

Enhanced Engagement:

• Being present on multiple platforms allows businesses to engage customers more effectively, ensuring they can reach out wherever they are most comfortable.

Consistent Branding:

• Uniform experience and messaging across channels foster trust and establish a brand’s credibility.

Feedback Integration:

• Multiple channels also mean diverse feedback avenues. This feedback can drive improvements that resonate with customers’ real needs.

Flexibility for Customers:

• The omnichannel model respects the non-linear customer journey, catering to individual preferences at every stage.

Integrating Omnichannel Strategies Across Departments

The integration of omnichannel strategies across various departments is paramount to ensuring a unified customer experience. When every department, from marketing and sales to customer support and logistics, operates in alignment with a shared omnichannel vision, it creates a seamless customer journey that fosters brand loyalty and satisfaction.

Starting with the Marketing Department , the omnichannel approach is all about creating a cohesive brand message that resonates across all platforms. Whether a customer sees an ad on social media, reads a newsletter, or visits the official website, the messaging should be consistent. This helps in not only reinforcing the brand’s identity but also ensuring that customers receive a uniform brand perception regardless of where they engage.

The Sales Department plays a pivotal role in the omnichannel experience. They must be equipped with the tools and data to understand a customer’s history with the brand. If a customer explored a product online, the sales team in a physical store should be aware of this interest, facilitating a more personalized sales approach. This interconnectedness ensures that the customer feels recognized and valued, regardless of the touchpoint they choose to interact with.

Customer Support is another crucial area for omnichannel integration. A customer reaching out for assistance expects the support team to have a comprehensive understanding of their past interactions and purchases. This means if they’ve had a prior chat on the website, they shouldn’t have to repeat the same information when calling the support line later. An integrated system across departments can ensure that all customer interactions are logged and easily accessible, making the support process smoother and more efficient.

Furthermore, the Logistics and Supply Chain Departments are integral to delivering on the promises made by the sales and marketing teams. They must be looped into the omnichannel strategy to ensure that product availability and delivery expectations are consistently met. If a customer checks product availability online and decides to pick it up in-store, there should be no discrepancies in the inventory information provided.

Additionally, departments like R&D and Product Management can also benefit from an omnichannel strategy. Feedback and insights gathered from various channels can guide product development and innovation, ensuring products are tailored to meet customer needs and expectations.

To truly realize the benefits of an omnichannel approach, integration must be holistic. It requires technology, training, and a company culture that places the customer at the heart of every strategy. Only when every department is synchronized in its approach can a business deliver the seamless and personalized experience that today’s customers expect and value.

The Role of Mobile Apps in the Omnichannel Journey

Mobile apps have transformed the omnichannel landscape, seamlessly bridging online and offline brand interactions. With smartphones often being the initial touchpoint for many consumers, apps provide a direct, personalized channel that caters to individual preferences and behaviors.

Integrated with device features, mobile apps can enhance user experience in unique ways. Geolocation services might guide users to nearby stores or offer localized promotions, while augmented reality can provide virtual product trials. Beyond shopping, apps engage users post-purchase through order tracking and customer support features.

The data gathered from app interactions also proves invaluable. Brands can derive insights on user behavior, informing broader business strategies ranging from product placement to marketing campaigns.

Furthermore, mobile apps deftly merge the digital and physical realms. Features like “click and collect” exemplify this, allowing online ordering with in-store pickups. This interconnectedness reinforces the notion of a fluid, consistent brand experience across various platforms, solidifying mobile apps’ crucial role in the omnichannel journey.

The Future: Predictions for the Omnichannel Customer Experience

The evolution of the omnichannel customer experience has been swift and relentless, with emerging technologies and changing consumer behaviors shaping its trajectory. As we look forward to the horizon, several predictions stand out that are likely to define the omnichannel landscape in the coming years:

AI-Powered Personalization: With Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies maturing, we can anticipate a hyper-personalized shopping experience. AI will anticipate customer needs, analyzing past behaviors to offer product recommendations, content suggestions, and even personalized discounts. This means the customer journey will be curated even before the customer makes a move.

Virtual and Augmented Reality Shopping: VR and AR technologies are set to revolutionize the online shopping experience. Consumers might virtually “try on” clothes, explore a 3D model of a product, or even take a virtual tour of a hotel room before booking. This will merge the tangibility of in-store shopping with the convenience of online platforms.

Integrated IoT Ecosystem: The Internet of Things (IoT) will play a pivotal role. Smart devices, from refrigerators to wearables, will be integrated into the shopping ecosystem. Imagine your refrigerator suggesting recipes based on its contents and directly ordering missing ingredients from the grocery store.

Seamless Payment Solutions: The checkout process will become more streamlined with innovations in payment technologies. Beyond digital wallets and contactless payments, biometric solutions like facial recognition or fingerprint scans might become standard payment methods, offering both convenience and security.

Sustainability as a Core Aspect: With growing consumer awareness about environmental concerns, sustainability will be an integral part of the omnichannel experience. Brands might offer incentives for eco-friendly purchasing decisions or provide detailed supply chain transparency to assure consumers of sustainable practices.

Dynamic Pricing Models: Leveraging AI and real-time data analytics, prices might adjust dynamically based on demand, stock levels, or even a customer’s purchase history. This could mean more personalized pricing and promotions, enhancing the customer’s perception of value.

Enhanced Use of Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: Customer support will be increasingly automated. Chatbots and virtual assistants will handle a majority of queries, backed by AI to understand and respond to more complex customer needs, ensuring 24/7 assistance.

Mapping the Future of Your Customer’s Journey

The omnichannel customer journey isn’t merely a trend—it’s the new standard for brands aiming to thrive in this digital era. The melding of technology, personalization, and holistic customer experience is shaping a future where the consumer is at the heart of every strategy, and where their journey with a brand becomes more streamlined, insightful, and engaging.

But understanding and optimizing this intricate web of interactions requires more than just cursory insights. It demands a deep dive into data, an understanding of the emerging trends, and the right tools to capture, analyze, and optimize each touchpoint.

If you’re keen on understanding this in greater depth and envisioning how this could revolutionize your brand’s approach, we have something special for you. Download our case study and discover how Wizaly is empowering brands to meticulously monitor and seamlessly optimize their customer journeys. Dive into real-world scenarios, witness transformative results, and visualize a roadmap that aligns with your brand’s ambition. The future of customer experience awaits. Are you ready to navigate it?

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5 Pillars of the Omnichannel Customer Journey [+ Examples]

Picture this: A customer starts their journey by browsing your website on their laptop, adds items to their cart, but decides to make the purchase in-store . 

As they walk into the physical store, their smartphone buzzes with a personalized discount offer tailored to their preferences. They leave the store happy with their purchase and later receive a follow-up email with recommendations for complementary products. 

This seamless, integrated experience is the hallmark of the omnichannel customer journey — and understanding it is the key to building long-lasting customer loyalty and driving profitable growth.

In this article, we’ll walk through the omnichannel customer journey, giving you a better understanding of the paths the modern shopper takes to conversion. 

What is the customer journey, and why do we need to understand it?

At its core, the customer journey is the total sum of experiences that customers go through when engaging with your brand. It begins the moment they first become aware of your product or service, continues through the point of purchase and beyond into post-purchase support, and then loops back again for repeat purchases.

So why is understanding this journey important for marketers? 

Simply put, it’s all about perspective. By stepping into your customer’s shoes and anticipating their wants and needs as they move through their individual journeys, you can identify gaps and deliver exceptional experiences every step of the way.

This empathetic approach typically leads to higher customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and better business outcomes.

By mapping the customer journey, marketers can gain a bird’s eye view of every interaction and decision-making point their customers encounter. This in turn allows for better cross-functional collaboration and is an effective means of shifting from a product- to customer-centric mindset.

The 5 core pillars of the omnichannel customer journey

No matter whether they discover your brand from Google search, a paid social campaign, or a referral from a friend, almost all of your omnichannel customers will have a journey that follows these five stages:

Want to build a 1:1 omnichannel marketing strategy that i ncreases retention , customer loyalty , and revenue ?

Omnichannel customer journey example #1: in-store to online .

Now, let’s explore this further through the context of how a customer would actually experience your brand, mapped out against each of those pillars.

Acquisition: A customer walks into your brick and mortar store, looking to buy a new pair of jeans. They’ve shopped around with a few other brands, have done some research online, and are now weighing up how your product compares. The customer is approached by a member of your sales team, who helps them to find the right size and style of product to suit them. 

Conversion: The customer makes a purchase via a point-of-sale (POS) system, and the sales assistant asks for their email address in order to send an e-receipt. You use this to identify the customer in-store, revealing that they’ve made a purchase previously via your website. 

Growth: You use this first-party data to trigger an email automation that follows up with the customer post-purchase, upselling them to similar products that complement their in-store purchase. 

Retention and loyalty: Your customer has now shopped with you several times, and you want to up the engagement, so you create a CRM ad campaign, backed up by an email automation , that encourages them to download your retail app. 

Win-back: After six months, the regular orders from your customer stop. Two months pass without them visiting your website, making a purchase in-store, or viewing your app. This triggers an email automation which sends them an exclusive offer for a range of products you know they love, tempting them back to the store. 

Omnichannel customer journey example #2: online to in-store

Let’s now shift our focus to a different type of customer journey, this time from online to in-store. In this example, you’re a watch and sunglasses retailer with both physical and online stores.

Acquisition: Your customer is directed to your online store after a Google search for the term “stylish men’s wristwatch.” After browsing through watches on your site, they decide to engage via an interactive quiz which guides them toward a watch that fits their style and budget.

Conversion: The customer decides to buy the watch and completes the transaction through your website’s secure payment gateway. They share basic first-party data including an email address for confirmation and tracking.

Growth: Leveraging this data, you trigger a post-purchase email automation that thanks the customer for their purchase and encourages them to sign up to your loyalty program to receive special discounts and rewards.

Retention and loyalty: The customer signs up and adds a loyalty card to their mobile wallet . This loyalty card enables you to send geo-fenced offers to this customer whenever they are within range of a physical store. 

Winback: A few months later, your customer walks past one of your physical stores which triggers a geo-fenced push notification directly to that customer’s phone. It’s an offer on a pair of sunglasses that compliments the watch they bought. Delighted at this clever use of marketing, the customer walks into your store and buys the sunglasses on the spot.

This journey illustrates how you can leverage online engagements to effectively drive in-store traffic and conversion — omnichannel marketing at its finest.

Real-time customer lifecycle marketing is the key to cultivating loyalty

Your customers have come to expect seamless, personalized experiences at every stage of their journey, no matter which channel they engage with. If you want to keep them spending more money, more often, you need to meet those expectations with an omnichannel customer experience that demonstrates an understanding of their wants and needs. 

This is where Emarsys comes in. Our omnichannel marketing platform helps the world’s most successful brands effortlessly launch cross-channel marketing automations and achieve 1:1 personalization at scale.

Want to learn more about how Emarsys helps brands create and nurture unparalleled omnichannel customer journeys? Watch our 3-minute demo .

See how top brands drive more customer retention and loyalty using personalized, omnichannel marketing.

Dakota Davis is the Head of Global Content at Emarsys where she leads a team that is responsible for developing an integrated content marketing strategy that drives global brand consistency, sales enablement, product integration, thought leadership, and meaningful customer experiences. She and her team deliver resources that empower marketers to build, launch, and scale personalized cross-channel campaigns that drive business outcomes.

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Omnichannel Customer Experience: Benefits, Strategies, & Examples

Omnichannel customer experience means seamless unified interactions across various channels.

With the ever-growing customer touchpoints, the difference between offline and online interactions is getting smaller.

More channels mean more accessible options, but it also presents a new challenge – the need to connect them. That’s what is called an omnichannel experience.

With such an interconnected array of channels, customers can switch from one channel to another if they face issues along their journey to move toward the end of the conversion funnel. 

But before getting started on an omnichannel experience, you need to map the channels they use.

That’s why we have compiled this blog for you. We’ll break down the basics of the omnichannel customer experience, show how you can map the most important customer touchpoints, and put down steps to build a seamless experience throughout. We have also added real-life examples of brands doing it successfully.

Let’s go.

What Is Omnichannel Customer Experience: Defined

Omnichannel customer experience is defined as the ability of the customer to interact with a brand seamlessly across different channels/mediums without breaking the engagement.

It means each channel is connected to another, and the customer can start the interaction from one channel and continue it on the other without the need to start over.

Suppose a customer is talking to an agent on live chat. In an omnichannel customer journey, the agent can call the customer if the need arises to resolve the issue while creating a helpdesk ticket from the chat window and add the transcript automatically.

In this way, even after their call ends, the next agent can pick up the chat and ticket to get a hold of the situation and provide the resolution without needing the customer to repeat themselves.

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel Customer Experience 

Simply put, the difference between the omnichannel and multichannel experience is seamless interactions.

A multichannel customer experience is when a customer uses different channels to connect with a brand or business. These channels may or may not be connected.

Now if these channels are interconnected to create one seamless journey from one point to another in the conversion funnel, it becomes an omnichannel customer experience.

Do Customers Expect Omnichannel?

Well, that’s a grave understatement in a market where 80% of the top companies are building up to compete solely on the customer experience.

Let’s take a simple example of Google Docs and Microsoft Word.

Before Microsoft 365, you could only save the Word document on local device storage and share it via email. The recipient could open the doc and make the changes. Then they had to send it back to you. And this back and forth continued.

But Google Docs solved all these problems by creating a seamless omnichannel experience:

• You can share the doc with others using a simple link.
• Access the Google Doc page from any device.
• Collaborate with other team members on the same doc in real-time.

Another example is your average e-commerce website and its mobile app.

You can add a bunch of stuff to the cart from the website. Then you can log into the app on the go and continue shopping without the need to rebuild the list.

Importance of Omnichannel Customer Experience

Omni-channel customer experience directly ties down to your business KPIs, like how customers perceive your brand, retention rate, and satisfaction.

1. Seamless Integration Across Channels

Interconnecting various touchpoints lets you deliver a consistent experience across online, in-store, and social media platforms, leading to better customer satisfaction and increased brand loyalty.

2. Personalized Customer Experiences

Different customer segments have their own preferences and modes of communication. Understanding how they interact with your brand can help you build tailored experiences for these segments. You can set up personalized notifications, product offerings, and marketing campaigns along their journeys to improve engagement and increase conversions.

3. Enhanced Accessibility and Improved Support

An omnichannel approach to customer support can help businesses provide timely assistance and first-time resolution. Mapping the most used touchpoints lets you install appropriate service channels to enhance the overall experience. And since these are all interconnected, you can divert the customer to a different medium if needed for better accessibility.

4. Leveraging Data and Analytics for Improvement

Promoting omnichannel experiences also opens doors for continuous optimization. You can gather data from various channels using surveys and feedback. Identifying the areas of improvement and optimizing the processes needing attention can enhance the user experience.

5 Benefits of Omnichannel Customer Experience

1. improved customer satisfaction.

When customers can seamlessly navigate between touchpoints across their journey without facing difficulties or losing communication, they are more likely to be happy with the products and services. And even if they encounter an issue, they can quickly connect with your teams via any medium to get it resolved. Overall this helps to improve customer satisfaction and delight.

2. Increased Customer Loyalty

A well-crafted omnichannel customer experience strategy can boost customer retention and repurchase probability. Whether it’s checkout or service-related interactions, users are more likely to come back to you if they can complete their goals without losing progress or getting frustrated.

Plus, you can retarget these customers on their preferred channels via omnichannel marketing to encourage them to return for more purchases and boost long-term relationships.

3. Higher Conversion Rates

An omnichannel experience does not mean issues won’t pop up along the conversion funnel. It allows customers to use other mediums and progress toward conversion without getting stuck if they need help. This seamless approach can create a sense of effortless interactions and can lead to lower shopping abandonment, which automatically translates to higher conversion rates.

And mapping the channels lets you create personalized marketing campaigns for improved customer engagement and conversions.

4. Streamlined Customer Support

Integrating customer service channels reduces data mismanagement and delays in service. With a centralized customer data hub like a cloud contact center , businesses can promptly respond to customer inquiries and switch between mediums if needed. It also allows for better reachability to communicate with customers on their preferred channels.

5. Higher Returns on Marketing Efforts

Omnichannel marketing tends to produce higher ROI as compared to single-channel experiences.

There’s a reason for this behavior. Targeting prospects on multiple channels and allowing them to move from one medium to another without friction makes them more likely to complete their purchase.

Suppose a user sees your ad on its Instagram feed. They click on the ad and are taken directly to their mobile browser’s web app product page. They can now add the product to the cart and place the order without any hassle. It’s better than a separate page link that prompts them to download the app and place the order.

7 Practical Tips for Building an Omnichannel Customer Experience

1. map customer journeys.

The quest for true omnichannel CX starts with finding out what channels customers use to contact you.

If you want to interconnect all the interaction points, you must know where they are. That’s what customer journey mapping is for.

It helps to break the overall customer experience into small individual interactions and visualize which channels customers use at different stages of their journey, i.e., from consideration to conversion and support. 

The best thing about the customer journey map is it shows how customers feel at each of these touchpoints so you can quickly track the ones which the lowest CX scores and prioritize them.

Remove the roadblocks to interconnect each and create a seamless omnichannel experience from start to end.

2. Create a Customer Feedback Loop

Creating a customer feedback loop achieves two things:

• Provides insights into the bottlenecks and issues with your current customer channels and mediums.
• Helps you discover previously unknown channels that customers want from you.

Suppose a business wants the customer to complete their KYC (Know your customer) procedure. The process requires the customer to visit the bank and submit their documents personally.

Luckily the bank has a survey form that asks the customers about their experience to collect customer feedback . 

While sorting the data, the team finds that people are unhappy, and many have suggested implementing a system that can facilitate them to complete KYC online. So, the bank introduces a video call feature to complete the process online.

Imagine how satisfied these and future customers would be.

The same goes for optimizing the current channels. Using targeted surveys, you can collect valuable insights to see which channels require work to establish an omnichannel customer experience.

Here’s how to use insights to deliver an omnichannel user experience:

• Add surveys like NPS and CSAT to different touchpoints and collect regular feedback.

• Dig through the data to pinpoint customers’ issues and problems at these interaction points.
• Implement measures to resolve these issues.
• Rerun the surveys and monitor the CX index over time to track changes in the CX scores.
• If they improve consistently, it means your strategies are working. If not, tweak them further.
• You can also ask for suggestions to identify new mediums for connecting with your customers.

The biggest challenge while working with customer feedback is sorting through the raw data for insights. If you have large data sets, the process becomes tedious and lengthy.

Fortunately, advanced survey tools like Qualaroo offer AI-based analysis techniques like sentiment analysis to categorize the data in real time.

You can sort the data quickly and track customer sentiments along various channels to close the feedback loop.

3. Leverage Customer Data

One of the biggest reasons for the lack of an omnichannel approach is the absence of a comprehensive customer analytics platform across channels.

Just like feedback, customer data also point you toward the most-used channels by the customers and how they feel about their experience with a particular medium.

Suppose you want to focus on high-value prospects and customers. These customers tend to bring higher average revenue, so delivering them a seamless omnichannel experience makes sense.

Creating a journey map for high-value customer segments may take some time. But if you can use a robust CRM like BIGContacts to dig into the first-hand customer data and get started with your omnichannel customer experience strategy.

Here’s a cool strategy to optimize the experience for your high-value prospects and customers:

• Log into your CRM and filter the data based on spending or proposed purchase value.
• Review the client history and list the most used channels and their effectiveness.
• Pick the ones with a high usage volume but lower CSAT scores. Optimizing these will help you plug in the drop-off points for high-value prospects.
• Now, monitor the scores for these channels over time to see if your strategies are working.

4. Divert Customers to the Most Optimized Channels

Effective service communication channels between a brand and customers can range from 3 to 6 or more, depending on how many different touchpoints you offer.

If we take your social media handles into account, the number goes over 10. You may want to provide an exceptional omnichannel customer experience in all these mediums, but realistically, it’s not possible to keep the same level of engagement and satisfaction.

So, the best practice is to find and prioritize the most popular channels for optimization. Then create workflows to divert the prospect and customers from other channels to these main ones.

For example, suppose you have a SaaS-based start-up with limited call resources. In that case, you can facilitate live chat as the main communication medium and escalate only high-priority cases to call. People can handle multiple chats at once as opposed to calls. With chatbots, you can further reduce the load on your staff.

It would alleviate pressure on your service teams and lower the call waiting (one of the main reasons for customer dissatisfaction). 

In the same way, if someone leaves feedback for your brand on social media, reply to their comment or post and ask them to contact your staff over the most reliable medium for a quick response, like call, email, or chat.

5. Build Omnichannel CX Around Support Mediums

Support channels are a prominent driver for a delightful customer experience. We are not saying this. Industry leaders say this!

So weaving your support channels into your omni-channel experience strategy is necessary for any business.

It means enabling customers to connect with you from any medium and move from one channel to another without breaking the interactions.

Here are some ways to promote omnichannel customer experience on your support services:

• Map customers’ preferred service channels and optimize them.

• Integrate your live chat with the helpdesk system to let agents raise tickets during the live chat.
• Employ an AI-based chatbot to help customers at odd hours and set workflows so it can schedule call back and appointments into your CRM. Then the teams can pick it up and proactively follow up with the client.

In the same way, you can connect your feedback tools with your workspace software.

Suppose you use a feedback tool like Qualaroo.

You can integrate with Slack to parse the feedback data into Slack channels and work on them quickly.

6. Don’t Forget About Offline Stores

While digital mediums dominate the customer product discovery stage, physical stores still play an important role in the purchase phase.

In fact, 83% of people still find retail their top channel when making purchases

So, taking the offline channels with the online ones is imperative to design a truly consistent omnichannel customer experience. Simple strategies using the internet and smart targeting can help you bridge the gap between the two.

Here’s how:

• Using geo-targeting to send personalized notifications and ads based on customers’ location. When a prospect is near your store, you can send them vouchers or deals to encourage them to shop.
• E-bill is also a simple concept to move the in-store queues faster and streamline customer experience as it eliminates the need to store paper bills. You can send the bills directly to the customer’s account. It also helps to capture the contact information of new customers for marketing purposes.
• Sending smart notifications to customers who visit the offline store to update them about the products they recently browsed on the website.
• Using smart notifications to the customers about the recently browsed brand products when they visit the offline shop.

Here’s a case in point for an integrated omnichannel experience- Amazon GoStore

There’s no better example of a seamless merger between retail and online experience than Amazon’s GoStores.

In 2019, the brand launched its Amazon GoStore concept to curb checkout queues and paper bills to provide a unique experience to shoppers.

As they enter the Amazon GoStore, the customers just scan their mobile app at the entrance and start adding the items to their baskets. The products are automatically added to the shopping cart in the app, and they can pay for the order online without the need to wait at the checkout counter.

7. Use a Centralized Communication Platform

If you are engaging customers on multiple platforms, collating the data from all the mediums into one place to streamline experience management makes sense.

Say you have social handles on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. You can use a social media platform like Hootsuite to channel all the brand-related comments, posts, brand mentions, interactions, and user activity into a single dashboard to streamline management.

It would help identify complaints, promptly reply to comments and engage with your customer base without adding extra resources and staff.

In the same way, you can use a multi-channel feedback tool like Qualaroo to collect data from multiple sources in one place.

For example, you can deploy surveys on your website, app, mobile browser, social media, email, etc., to collect target feedback.

It would help analyze and visualize the fragmented data, identify the gaps across the multiple channels, and optimize the omnichannel experience.

5 Real Brand Examples That Offer Omnichannel Customer Experience

1. belron (seamless experiences from online to in-store).

Belron – a UK-based windshield manufacturer, targets drop-off points along the customer journey to design a flawless omnichannel experience for customers.

The team aims to provide the easiest experience to every customer that reaches its offline store. The company uses website exit-intent surveys to collect feedback from people who leave the website without purchasing.

The open-ended responses are then analyzed through AI-based sentiment analysis to close the feedback quickly.

The insights are used to design strategies for optimizing the crucial moments along the journey and impart a positive perception in customers’ minds.

The result: Belron maintains a stellar NPS score of 80.

2. Standard Chartered

Banks worldwide strive to merge offline and online interactions into one streamlined customer experience, and Standard Chartered is no different.

You can complete all the banking services, like transfers, investing, bill payments, etc., from the bank’s website or mobile app. It also lets you open an account easily with online KYC, raise a complaint, and submit a request for new cards.

These features cut down the hassle for customers as they don’t need to visit the branch for day-to-day services resulting in a true omnichannel customer experience.

IKEA is constantly innovating to expand its services to new channels and deliver exceptional experiences for both online and offline customers.

With features like ‘Click and Collect,’ customers can place orders online and collect the product from the nearest stores of their choice. They can track the order through the app and receive regular notifications about its status.

Effortless experiences combined with transparent policies have helped IKEA to become one of the biggest brands in the world.

4. Taco Bell

When the pandemic hit, Taco Bell came up with the concept of ‘Taco Bell Go Mobile’, where customers can place an order from their mobile app and pick it up from Taco Bell when it’s ready.

To make the omnichannel experience seamless, the brand added a second drive-thru for mobile order pickups to its stores. 

Using smart synchronization technology, the store updates the customers about their order status and points them to the most efficient way to quickly get the food.

The plan is working for Taco Bell even after the pandemic, with the demand for drive-thru pick-ups soaring by the day.

5. Burberry

Burberry’s omnichannel strategy aims to connect with people where they are. The brand partnered with Instagram to introduce Insta checkout. It’s also one of the first brands in the world to enable shopping on WeChat.

But the most brilliant strategy of the brand was leveraging social media to sell its product line. The company created a new product line, Series B, available only in a 24-hour window on the 17th of each month. These products can only be bought on Instagram and other social channels.

The limited availability and hype made SeriesB one of the most popular products on social media.

Meet the Customers Where They Are

Embracing an omnichannel customer experience is about creating seamless and personalized customer interactions across multiple touchpoints. When done right, it can increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and, ultimately, business growth.

Implementing such a system may take time and resources, but the benefits outweigh the efforts.

So start by identifying your most popular mediums and how customers use them. Then, collect customer feedback to gauge their experience at these touchpoints.

From there, you can start integrating them to streamline the in-the-moment and overall experiences. Collect regular insights to identify unknown channels and find ways to integrate them with your existing mediums.

So use the above strategies to build experiences that encourage customers to return for more.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the importance of omnichannel customer experience.

Omnichannel customer experience helps to integrate the customer touchpoints so the customers can switch between channels without losing their progress or needing to start over.

What are the three best tools for improving the omnichannel customer experience?

There are multiple tools that can be used to impart an omnichannel experience, like

• Feedback tools like Qualaroo
• Support tools like Live chat
• Service-based tools like ProProfe HelpDesk

About the author

Dwayne charrington.

Dwayne Charrington is an expert in UX design and user research, showing a strong grasp of how to improve user interfaces and interactions. He explores a wide range of topics, including lead generation, feedback management, the importance of survey accessibility, and how new technologies like AI and VR are changing how users interact with products. He shares insights on creating clear navigation, using A/B testing to make smarter design choices, and the power of storytelling in UX. Dwayne also focuses on optimizing mobile experiences and champions privacy-by-design, ensuring users feel satisfied, secure, and valued.

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Omnichannel Customer Journey: Strategies & Solutions

We live in a time of seamless shopping experiences, where customers seamlessly transition from online browsing to in-store purchases without skipping a beat. So mastering the art of omnichannel customer journeys isn’t just a strategy; it’s necessary.

Imagine browsing your favorite store’s website, eyeing that perfect pair of shoes. But wait, you’re moving, so switch to their mobile app. Later, you stroll into their physical store and seamlessly pick up where you left off. 

That’s the magic of omnichannel customer journeys—a strategic symphony of online, offline, and everything in between. Join us as we unravel the secrets behind crafting these seamless experiences, exploring key components, overcoming challenges, and unlocking the benefits, all with some help from QuestionPro CX. Let’s dive in!

What is Omnichannel Customer Journey?

An omnichannel customer journey is a strategic approach businesses take to provide customers with a seamless and integrated experience across all channels and touchpoints.

This means ensuring consistency in messaging, branding, and service quality whether customers interact with the brand online, in-store, through social media, mobile apps, or any other channel.

Unlike multichannel strategies, where each channel operates independently, an omnichannel approach aims to create a unified experience where customers can transition between channels effortlessly without feeling disjointed. 

For example, customers might start browsing products on a company’s website, continue their research on a mobile app, and then purchase in-store, with all interactions seamlessly connected.

Omnichannel customer journey aims to meet customers wherever they are and provide them with a consistent, personalized, and convenient experience throughout their interaction with the brand. 

By integrating various channels and touchpoints, businesses can better understand customer behavior, preferences, and needs, ultimately driving higher engagement, loyalty, and satisfaction.

The Components of Omnichannel Customer Journey

Omnichannel customer journey comprises several key components that create a seamless and cohesive customer experience across all touchpoints. Understanding these components is essential for businesses looking to optimize their omnichannel strategies.

Here are the main components:

Integration of Channels

Integration involves connecting all business channels and systems to ensure smooth communication and data sharing. This enables customers to transition effortlessly between channels without experiencing disruptions or inconsistencies.

Personalization

Personalization entails tailoring interactions and experiences to meet customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors. Businesses can deliver targeted messages, product recommendations, and promotions that resonate with each customer by leveraging data and insights.

Consistent Branding

Consistent branding ensures that the brand identity and messaging remain uniform across all channels. This includes logos, colors, fonts, tone of voice, and visual style. Consistency reinforces brand recognition and builds trust with customers.

Cross-Channel Analytics

Cross-channel analytics involves gathering and analyzing data from various sources to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences across different touchpoints. This data-driven approach enables businesses to optimize their strategies, identify opportunities for improvement, and make informed decisions.

Seamless Customer Experience

A seamless customer experience means providing a frictionless journey for customers as they interact with the brand across multiple channels. This involves ensuring that transitions between channels are smooth, information is readily accessible, and interactions are consistent and intuitive.

Omnichannel Communication

Omnichannel communication involves engaging with customers across all channels cohesively and cohesively. This includes email marketing, social media engagement, mobile notifications, in-store promotions, and customer service interactions. Consistent messaging and timing enhance the overall customer experience.

Unified Customer View

A unified customer view refers to having a complete and comprehensive understanding of each customer’s interactions, preferences, and history across all channels. This allows businesses to deliver personalized experiences and anticipate customer needs more effectively.

Customer Journey Mapping

A customer journey map involves visualizing and analyzing customers’ entire path from initial awareness to post-purchase engagement. Omnichannel customer journey mapping helps businesses identify touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities for improvement.

Steps To Create an Efficient Omnichannel Customer Journey

Creating an efficient omnichannel customer journey requires careful planning and execution. Here are steps to help you craft a strategy that seamlessly integrates all channels and delivers personalized experiences to your customers:

1. Understand Your Audience

Start by deeply understanding your target audience. Analyze demographic data, psychographic traits, purchase behaviors, and preferred communication channels. This insight will help you tailor your omnichannel strategy to meet your customers’ needs and preferences.

2. Map the Customer Journey

Identify the different touchpoints and channels through which customers interact with your brand. Map out all the customer journeys, from initial awareness to post-purchase support. Consider the various stages of the journey and opportunities for engagement at each touchpoint.

3. Integrate Channels

Seamless integration of all channels is crucial for providing a cohesive omnichannel experience. Invest in technology solutions that enable data synchronization and communication between different platforms. This integration ensures that customers can transition seamlessly between channels without disruptions.

4. Personalize Interactions

Leverage customer data to personalize interactions across all channels. Tailor messaging, offers, and recommendations based on individual preferences, behaviors, and past customer interactions. Personalization enhances engagement and fosters a deeper connection with your brand.

5. Optimize for Mobile

With the increasing use of mobile devices, optimizing your omnichannel strategy for mobile is essential. Ensure that your website, app, and other digital touchpoints are mobile-friendly and provide a seamless experience across devices. Mobile optimization improves accessibility and convenience for customers on the go.

6. Provide Consistent Branding

Maintain consistency in branding, messaging, and design across all channels. A cohesive brand identity reinforces brand recognition and trust among customers. Ensure your brand’s values and personality are consistently communicated across all touchpoints.

7. Empower Your Team

Equip your team with the tools and training they need to deliver exceptional experiences across all channels. Foster a culture of collaboration and communication to ensure alignment across departments. Encourage employees to continuously share customer feedback and insights to improve the omnichannel experience.

8. Measure and Analyze Performance

Implement analytics tools to track the performance of your omnichannel strategy. Monitor key metrics such as conversion rates, customer engagement, and customer satisfaction across channels. Use data-driven insights to identify areas for improvement and optimization.

9. Iterate and Improve

Continuously iterate on your omnichannel strategy based on customer feedback and market trends. Stay agile and responsive to changing customer preferences and behaviors. Experiment with new channels and technologies to stay ahead of the curve and provide innovative experiences to your customers.

Benefits of the Omnichannel Experience

The benefits of the omnichannel experience are multifaceted and can significantly impact a business’s bottom line. Here are some key benefits:

• Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: By providing seamless experiences and personalized interactions, businesses can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Increased Sales and Conversions: Omnichannel strategies have been shown to drive higher sales and conversion rates by meeting customers’ needs at every stage of their journey.
• Improved Brand Loyalty: Consistent branding and personalized experiences foster stronger emotional connections with customers, leading to increased brand loyalty and advocacy.
• Better Insights and Analytics: By collecting data from multiple channels, businesses gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling more informed decision-making and targeted marketing efforts.

Challenges of Omnichannel Marketing

While omnichannel marketing offers numerous benefits, it also comes with challenges that businesses must navigate. Here are some common challenges associated with omnichannel marketing:

• Integration Complexity: Integrating multiple channels and systems can be complex and challenging, requiring significant investment in technology and infrastructure.
• Consistency Across Channels: Maintaining consistency in branding, messaging, and customer experience across all channels requires careful coordination and alignment across departments.
• Data Security and Privacy: Collecting and managing customer data across channels raises concerns about data security and privacy compliance, requiring businesses to implement robust security measures and adhere to regulatory requirements.
• Organizational Silos: Siloed departments and lack of collaboration can hinder the seamless execution of omnichannel strategies, necessitating a cultural shift towards cross-functional teamwork and communication.

How QuestionPro Cx Can Help in the Omnichannel Customer Journey

QuestionPro CX is a powerful customer experience management platform that can be crucial in optimizing the customer journey omnichannel model. Here’s how QuestionPro CX can help businesses address key challenges and enhance their omnichannel marketing efforts:

• 360-Degree Insights: QuestionPro CX provides holistic insights into customer interactions across various touchpoints, whether online platforms, mobile apps, social media, or in-store experiences. Businesses comprehensively understand customer behavior and preferences by aggregating data from diverse channels.
• Unified Feedback Collection: With QuestionPro CX, businesses can streamline feedback collection processes across all channels. Whether through surveys, reviews, or social media monitoring, the platform enables consistent and centralized data collection, allowing for a unified view of customer sentiment.
• Real-Time Monitoring and Analysis: Leveraging advanced customer journey analytics capabilities, QuestionPro CX empowers businesses to monitor real-time customer interactions. Organizations can promptly identify issues, opportunities, and emerging trends by tracking key metrics and sentiment trends across channels, enabling agile decision-making.
• Personalized Engagement: QuestionPro CX enables customized engagement at every touchpoint through robust customer segmentation and profiling features. By understanding individual preferences and behaviors, businesses can tailor interactions, offers, and recommendations, fostering deeper customer relationships.
• Omni-Channel Feedback Loop: QuestionPro CX facilitates a closed-loop feedback process, ensuring that insights gleaned from customer interactions are promptly acted upon. By integrating feedback into product development, service enhancements, and marketing strategies, businesses can continuously optimize the omnichannel customer experience.
• Agile Response Mechanisms: Agility is key in the rapidly evolving omnichannel landscape. QuestionPro CX equips businesses with agile response mechanisms, enabling them to adapt strategies, policies, and processes in response to changing customer needs and market dynamics.
• Continuous Improvement Culture: By fostering a culture of constant improvement, QuestionPro CX empowers organizations to iterate and innovate iteratively. Through ongoing measurement, analysis, and optimization, businesses can strive for excellence in delivering a seamless omnichannel customer journey.

An omnichannel customer journey is essential for businesses looking to meet today’s consumers’ evolving needs and expectations. By providing a seamless, integrated, and personalized experience across all channels, companies can enhance and boost customer satisfaction, drive engagement and loyalty, and gain a competitive edge in the market. 

While challenges exist, the benefits of implementing an effective omnichannel strategy far outweigh the obstacles, making it a cornerstone of modern marketing efforts. Embracing the omnichannel approach is not merely an option but a necessity for businesses striving to thrive in the digital age.

QuestionPro Cx provides businesses with the tools and capabilities to optimize the omnichannel customer journey. 

By collecting feedback from multiple channels, monitoring feedback in real-time, analyzing cross-channel data, personalizing customer engagement, implementing closed-loop feedback management, and mapping the omnichannel journey, businesses can enhance the overall customer experience and drive long-term success.

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Omnichannel customer experience examples and solutions for your business

Content Writer

Ever heard of Starbucks, Decathlon, Sephora, or Nike? Know what these brands have in common? They have different channels for customers to purchase their products. In other words, from browsing products at brick-and-mortar stores to online platforms to live chats, customers can purchase any product in whichever way they decide to. All of these are achievable by utilizing an omnichannel platform. 

A good omnichannel strategy can increase in-store visits by 80% after customers reach out to your business to research a specific product. 

What is omnichannel customer experience?

Omnichannel refers to a multichannel approach that aims to provide customers with a seamless and integrated experience across all channels. In other words, an omnichannel customer experience emphasizes a unified and consistent shopping journey that allows customers to transition effortlessly between channels while receiving the same level of service, information, and branding.

In an omnichannel strategy, businesses strive to break down the silos between different channels and departments to ensure a holistic and customer-first approach. This often involves integrating technologies, data, and processes to provide a more personalized and convenient experience for customers. The goal is to meet customers where they are and accommodate their preferences, whether they want to shop online, visit a physical store, use a mobile app, or engage through social media.

Want to know more about the basics? Explore our blog on how you can create an omnichannel marketing strategy for your business . 

Omnichannel customer experience benefits 

As many businesses strive to expand using different platforms and channels, customers expect more than just quality products and services. They demand coherent interactions that are personal regardless of the channels they choose to engage through. The omnichannel customer experience (CX) is beneficial for businesses that aim to provide seamless and integrated interaction across all available channels and touchpoints for their customers.

Below are some omnichannel customer experience benefits:

Consistency in CX and brand outlook across channels: 90% of customers look for consistency when engaging with customer service across channels. 

Easy transitions between different channels: a customer can start a product inquiry on a company's website and seamlessly continue the conversation with a customer service representative via live chat or phone

Personalized omnichannel customer experience: leverages data collected from various touchpoints to customize interactions. 

Boosted sales revenue with a competitive advantage: 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience.

Higher customer retention with a superior omnichannel customer experience: a seamless shopping journey is more likely to retain customers, and converting existing customers has up to 70% success rate .

Data-driven insights for a comprehensive view of customer behavior and preferences: improves CX by tailoring products, services, and marketing efforts to meet customer needs more effectively.

Communication and support on customers’ preferred communication channels: enhances customer satisfaction and engagement.

Analytics and continuous improvement: identify pain points, optimize processes, and refine strategies to meet changing customer expectations.

What omnichannel customer experience solutions include

No matter if you’re a fashion retailer, an online patisserie, or a beauty and wellness provider, you can customize the omnichannel journeys and customer experience for your business with these social commerce tools and features:

Click to WA ads for brand awareness

Firstly, you can get your prospects to know more about your brand. Other than setting up a Facebook Page and Instagram Business account, you can also run a series of targeted click-to WhatsApp ads to let people know about your latest collections or packages. When people click on these ads, they will be instantly directed to your WhatsApp Business account.

With a preset message set up for this click to WhatsApp campaign, your potential customer will only need to click “send” without manually typing out the message. These contacts collected can then become high-quality leads and are more likely to turn into conversions.

Find out how you can fully incorporate click to WhatsApp Ads into your business marketing strategy.

In-chat catalog/redirect to e-commerce store for product discovery

Whenever customers start a WhatsApp chat with your business, they can explore a catalog of your items or services. They can click on a product and add to cart message right in the chat, so your agents understand what the customers are interested in. Alternatively, you can also attach a product link on the WhatsApp catalog that redirects to your e-commerce website.

Chat automation for product exploration

For an ongoing marketing campaign, including click to WhatsApp ads mentioned above, you can have keyword-triggered automation set up to instantly engage the customers. This way, even if it’s out of office hours or your agents are occupied, the automated chat flow can help collect personal details and understand the potential customer’s interest. You have an AI-powered chatbot to enrich your responses and automated replies so that the messages are direct and concise for assisting customers throughout their shopping journey. 

Send out a discount code for abandoned cart

Suppose a customer shows interest by adding items to their cart but leaves without completing the purchase. On a flow builder , you can automate an abandoned cart reminder and send a customized WhatsApp message to the customer, including a discount code or a special offer as an incentive for the customer to complete the purchase.

In-chat payment link for instant checkout

For customers who are ready to make a purchase, you can take advantage of WhatsApp Pay or in-chat payment links that offer the option to complete the transaction without leaving the app. WhatsApp Pay is only limited to certain countries, so you can instead send a secure payment link that takes customers to a payment gateway, where they can enter their payment information and complete the purchase hassle-free. Customers would then receive an immediate confirmation and order summary all within the chat.

Automated update and delivery notifications for customer satisfaction

After a successful purchase, customers can continue to receive updates through WhatsApp. You can send automated order status updates, including when the order is processed, shipped, and out for delivery. As the delivery date approaches, customers will receive notifications with tracking information and stay informed about their order's progress.

CRM integration for segmentation

You can also integrate your existing CRM system such as Salesforce and HubSpot to consolidate all the customer data you’ve collected from various social platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and more so that you can access the complete customer profile right next to the chat when responding to inquiries. Detailed customer data like product interests, past purchases, and communication preferences will allow you to segment and personalize messages for future marketing campaigns and assign them to the right agents according to priority. For instance, you can send tailored promotions or new arrival announcements about product A to customers who have shown interest in it previously.

Broadcast customer survey or review

Once the delivery is made, you can blast a message asking customers to share their thoughts. You may include online surveys to ask customers to share their thoughts or simply just allow them to click to chat button that answers “Yes” or “No” to the question: “Are you satisfied with your experience?”. These positive reviews and feedback can then be shared on your social media profiles or website to build trust and credibility.

Omnichannel customer experience examples

IKEA invested US $2.2+ billion in their omnichannel growth strategy in 2023.

With online ads, they noticed an impressive ratio of 18:1 in the calculation of the number of shoppers driven by online ads and their omnichannel return on ad spent (ROAS). Upon examination, it became evident that mobile platforms played the most pivotal role in generating physical store visits, yielding a staggering 80% greater offline return compared to desktop campaigns. Retail O2O omnichannel customer experience solutions like this are often effective in driving sales revenue effectively.

Other than that, IKEA's omnichannel journey has been a remarkable evolution that adapts to changing customer needs:

An integrated system for physical and e-commerce stores: a broad range of online products accessible through the website and high-feature mobile applications.

Analytics for assessing performance: IKEA measures the impact of online ad clicks and physical store visits from their omnichannel marketing strategy

A frictionless O2O model: IKEA's Click & Collect service offers a seamless experience, where customers place orders online, select their preferred pick-up location, and receive notifications when their purchases are ready.

Innovative AR application: the revolutionary IKEA Place AR app enables customers to visualize products in their homes using augmented reality which boosts confidence in online purchases.

In countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, IKEA is also allowing customers to contact them for support on their preferred messaging channel using a simple WhatsApp click-to-chat link, while in Hong Kong, WeChat and WhatsApp QR codes are provided, along with a Facebook Messenger live chat button.

Generate your own WhatsApp link and QR code for free with our tool.

2. Decathlon

Decathlon, a popular retail brand committed to making sports accessible to many, has achieved 2X of its share of online sales yearly since 2019, reaching close to 30 percent in 2021. They understood that consumers required convenient access to goods and services, especially in the context of bridging the gap between offline and online product marketing strategies. 

Scan and pay shopping experience: empowers users to make autonomous purchases while minimizing physical interactions. Decathlon designed a step-by-step journey through their app to guide users toward a frictionless purchase process.

Contactless pick-up from the store: offers a streamlined omnichannel customer experience, allowing users to make purchases via the app or website and then pick up their items from the nearest store, either by drive-thru or pick-up. 

Decathlon's omnichannel clientele consistently leads in frequent visits and boasts the highest customer lifetime value, culminating in a remarkable 37% surge in average order values compared to the offline customer base. Within proprietary data infrastructure, they’ve established a comprehensive, centralized perspective on customers' omnichannel interactions to refine and customize services and product offerings effectively.

Omnichannel customers purchase up to 70% more than shoppers who remain offline only.

Don’t know where to start? Begin by creating an omnichannel customer experience.

Already on an omnichannel journey? Here’s how to improve omnichannel customer experience

Once you have successfully set up a seamless and interconnected journey for your customers across touchpoints, you must ensure consistency and improve the omnichannel customer experience for your enterprise with continuous effort:

Keep aggregating data from a multitude of sources and sync all your platforms—website, mobile application, social media, email, telephone, and brick-and-mortar establishments—facilitating real-time data sharing

Exploit customer data to deliver personalized recommendations, content, and exclusive propositions

Use chatbots and AI-powered tools for swift responses and enrich your automated customized interactions from time to time

Foster customer input via surveys, reviews, and engagement on social media platforms and act on the feedback

Employ cross-channel analytics tools to trace customer journeys across multiple channels

Draw out the complete customer journey for each category and identify bottlenecks and areas where customers might encounter hurdles

Proactively keep customers informed about updates, promotions, and pertinent news through their preferred communication channels

Continuously experiment with A/B testing to discern optimal approaches

Refine your tactics grounded in data-driven insights

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an example of omnichannel customer service?

What is an omnichannel example?

What defines a good omnichannel customer experience?

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• Customer Experience

Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping: The Ultimate Guide

As businesses continue to shift their focus toward providing an integrated customer experience, the need for effective omnichannel customer journey mapping is becoming increasingly important. The mapping helps companies analyze how customers interact with a brand across multiple channels and touchpoints, allowing them to identify areas for improvement.

This in-depth article will cover the relevance of omnichannel customer journey mapping, examine its advantages and drawbacks, and provide an easy-to-follow guide for creating an omnichannel customer journey map.

Why Turn to Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping?

Omnichannel customer journey mapping is a process of tracking every step customers take when interacting with a brand's product or service throughout their entire journey—from initial discovery to purchase and beyond.

This implies determining which channels consumers use, what product information they search for, and what actions they take at each journey stage. By visualizing it all on the map, businesses can get an overview of the customer experience with the product or service and identify gaps in their current experience that could be hindering conversions, increasing abandonment rates, or causing dissatisfaction.

By understanding these pain points better, companies can figure out how to create a seamless experience for their customers across all channels. As a result, they drive more sales, ensure conversion optimization , and keep customers returning. In other words, understanding how your customers interact with your products or services is key to ensuring them a positive experience that will lead to increased loyalty over time. Here are other reasons to conduct mapping.

Assists with Marketing Campaigns

Understanding the decision-making process of your target audience allows you to create marketing campaigns to meet your clients' needs and answer the frequent and most pressing questions. You can also identify the platforms where customers make more purchases and create promotional campaigns, encouraging users to explore your goods or services on this channel.

Provides Audience Insights

You can feel more empathetic with your customers when following their journey. The map makes it easy to maintain accurate user personas and client profiles. Yet remember that if your software doesn't automatically combine the data in real-time, customer journey maps, buyer personas, and client profiles should constantly be evaluated and updated.

Increases Retention

Since the relationship with the consumers does not end with an order, a comprehensive customer journey map also goes beyond. It has to include onboarding, brand advocacy, and upselling stages to assess and improve them and ensure better retention as a result.

Consolidates Data for the Whole Team

One comprehensive map makes it easier for stakeholders to discuss ways to enhance client experiences and puts staff from all departments on the same page.

A map directs your team's attention to what the audience is doing and how to address their problems effectively. Maintain the customer journey map's accessibility and visibility so that it can guide your business choices. The customer journey map may be a reference point for new campaign concepts, messages, techniques, and more.

Challenges of Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping

While the opportunities ensured by customer journey mapping seem very bright, there are also some challenges and limitations to consider:

Automation Challenges

Different technologies used by companies may not communicate effectively due to automation issues; this requires careful integration so that all systems work together seamlessly without any disruptions.

Data Collection and Analysis

The mapping of omnichannel customers' journeys is based on information from various sources, including social media, website analytics, past purchases, and customer interactions. A cohesive customer journey perspective can only be achieved by integrating and combining this data from numerous sources and channels. Yet, data silos, incompatible formats, and poor data quality might hinder the accuracy and thoroughness of the customer journey map.

Maintaining Consistency

A uniform experience across all channels is one of the main objectives of omnichannel customer journey mapping. Nevertheless, maintaining consistency can be difficult because every channel has different features, constraints, and user experiences. Organizations always struggle to strike a balance between the need for consistency and user expectations as well as channel-specific needs.

Organizational Alignment

Omnichannel customer journey mapping calls for cooperation and coordination between several teams and departments. In order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey, marketing, sales, customer service , IT, and other departments should work together. With complex organizational structures, it may be difficult to overcome silos, develop clear communication channels, and ensure consistent messages and experiences.

Getting Started With Mapping

The omnichannel customer journey mapping approach often begins with identifying your objectives. Think about the particular areas you want to focus on and the precise outcomes you want to achieve. This will help you stay focused and on target. The following are other omnichannel journey mapping stages:

Identify Your Customer Segments

Before you start mapping journeys, you should first identify who your target audience is to tailor experiences accordingly. This includes researching demographic information such as age range, location, gender, etc., analyzing market trends related to these segments (this could involve surveys or focus groups), understanding buying habits specific to each segment, etc.

Group your customers according to any shared characteristics you found. Create fictitious client profiles for each category after identifying the characteristics they all share. List the name, age, employment, interests, and any other relevant information for each category. Utilize your personas to direct your product development and marketing initiatives.

Define Customer Interactions

Knowing what touchpoints are there isn't enough. You should also define what interactions occur at each touchpoint—which type of content do users see when visiting your website? Are there any emails sent after making an online purchase? What does the checkout process look like on mobile devices compared to desktops?

Analyze Your Mapping

After defining all possible interactions between consumers and brands, analyze them using tools such as Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics, etc. Look at qualitative data (like user feedback) and quantitative data (like conversion rates ) to see the whole picture.

Look through the customer journey map to identify issues, roadblocks, and potential improvement areas. Seek areas throughout the customer journey where your customers struggle, encounter obstacles, or lose patience.

Search for chances to enhance the client experience. These options can include improving communication, offering additional services, etc.

Measure and Adjust

After completing an initial mapping exercise, businesses should regularly measure performance and adjust anything that needs improvement; this could involve testing different types of content, analyzing customer feedback more carefully, etc.

Mapping Tools

Consider using digital technologies to streamline the omnichannel customer journey mapping process. You can speed up the process and gain valuable insights with the help of various customer journey mapping solutions, analytics platforms, social media listening tools, user testing software, CRM, etc. Here are a few examples:

The tool combines customer journey mapping and analytics. It allows companies to analyze customer behavior, track trends in their customer base, and generate insights from surveys and feedback.

Google Analytics

It’s a powerful tool that provides insight into web traffic, engagement, and conversions. With this information, businesses can evaluate the performance of their customer journey mapping efforts and identify areas for improvement.

Kissmetrics

Kissmetric collects data from various web, mobile, email, and social media channels to provide a comprehensive overview of customer interactions. This can help companies better understand their customer journey mapping efforts and make changes accordingly.

A tool that helps businesses monitor their brand's presence online. By tracking customer engagement across different channels, companies can get insights into how people interact with their brands and use this information to optimize the customer journey.

A social media management platform assisting companies in monitoring customer engagement on social media platforms. The tool provides detailed analytics of customer preferences and identifies areas for improvement in the omnichannel experience.

Optimal Workshop

Optimal Workshop is a comprehensive user research platform that allows companies to understand their customers' needs and behaviors through surveys, interviews, and usability testing. Companies can use this information to find opportunities for improvement in their customer journey mapping efforts and make changes accordingly.

Zoho is a cloud-based platform designed to help businesses gain insights into their customer journey mapping efforts. The tool provides detailed analytics on user behavior, engagement, and conversions. This can help businesses identify areas for improvement in their customer journey and make changes accordingly.

Mind that there are many alternative tools with various capabilities and price ranges. Hence you can always find something suitable for your business.

The Bottom Line

Omnichannel customer journey mapping can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to get an overall view of how their customers interact with their products or services across all channels.

By understanding customers' journeys better, companies can create experiences tailored toward each user and identify potential gaps in the current processes, all of which lead to increased brand loyalty over time. According to statistics , annual revenue growth for businesses with great omnichannel customer involvement is 9.5%, compared to 3.4% for businesses with poor omnichannel engagement. These numbers demonstrate the significant impact that omnichannel customer journey mapping can have on a business.

Although there may be some challenges associated with this process (automation issues, data collection/analysis, etc.), they can all be overcome by following the steps outlined above.

Frequently Asked Questions About Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping

What is an omnichannel customer journey.

An Omnichannel Customer Journey is a multi-channel approach to marketing, selling, and serving customers in a way that creates an integrated and seamless customer experience. This journey encompasses all the different touchpoints a customer has with a brand, across multiple channels and platforms, such as online websites, physical stores, mobile apps, social media, and more. The primary goal of an omnichannel customer journey is to ensure a consistent and personalized experience for customers, regardless of how or where they choose to interact with the brand.

What Is Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping?

Omnichannel Customer Journey Mapping is a strategic process of visualizing the path that a customer takes across multiple channels when interacting with a brand. This mapping process involves outlining all the consumer interactions and touchpoints with your brand, from the initial discovery to the final purchase and beyond.

What Does Omnichannel Marketing Mean for Customer Journey Mapping?

Omnichannel marketing and customer journey mapping go hand in hand. In the context of customer journey mapping, omnichannel marketing means creating a unified and seamless customer experience across all channels and touchpoints.

Learn how to  deliver unique and  personalized customer experiences to increase conversions

Keep Reading on This Topic

In this blog post, we will explore nine of the most common personalization challenges and discuss how to overcome them.

In this post, we will discuss some of the best practices and tips for using website content personalization to delight your customers and enhance user experiences.

Omnichannel CX: a guide to an end-to-end connected experience

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As customer expectations continue to rise, it’s becoming increasingly essential for companies to provide a seamless and consistent experience across all their channels.

This is where omnichannel CX comes in. It’s a customer-centric approach that integrates all your most important touchpoints, creating a cohesive, unified experience for your customers.

In this article, we’ll dive deeper into the concept of omnichannel CX and make the case for why companies should be investing in this strategy. We’ll also present the most critical benefits of doing so, with examples of omnichannel solutions. Finally, we’ll provide you with a few actionable tips to improve the experience you’re currently offering your customers.

What is an omnichannel customer experience?

Omnichannel CX refers to a customer-centric approach that treats every touchpoint across different channels as one continuous experience. Its goal is to allow customers to interact with a brand in the way that’s most convenient for them, whether it's via a website, mobile app, social media platform, or in-store (or, of course, some combination of them all). 

The impact of having an omnichannel strategy for your customer experience cannot be overstated. In addition to streamlining issue resolution and reducing friction, omnichannel operability fosters personalized, efficient journeys that can be a key facilitator for long-lasting loyalty.

Why should companies invest in an omnichannel CX?

2. customers already use multiple channels throughout their shopping journey.

According to a Statista report conducted in 2022, 64% of US consumers use email to contact a brand. However, a substantial number of people also engage with companies through other channels, including websites or chat applications (47%), social media (36%), phone support (30%), and text messaging (28%). ²

This data clearly demonstrates just how varied the channels of communication are between a business and its customers, thus highlighting the importance of consistency and seamlessness across all channels, including online, in-store, and mobile. It’s also important to note that maintaining and enhancing this interoperability is not just for the benefit of the purchasing process, but the entire customer journey ( including after-sales).

By investing in an omnichannel CX, companies can ensure that customers can easily find the information they need, regardless of the channel they're using.

This improves customer satisfaction and also helps to increase sales and customer loyalty. Businesses that fail to provide an omnichannel experience run the risk of losing customers to rivals that embrace this comprehensive approach.

2. It improves workflow efficiency

According to our Customer Service Trends report , 50% of support leaders say that more efficient workflows have better equipped their teams to meet customer expectations.

By providing a unified platform to manage customer interactions across multiple channels, omnichannel customer experience solutions streamline the workflow and eliminate the need for switching between different tools or systems.

This results in faster response times, better collaboration between teams, and, ultimately, higher customer satisfaction .

Is your support team struggling with its workload? Meet Intercom’s Workflows, the mission control center for customer service automations .

What are the benefits of an omnichannel CX?

1. consistency across channels.

In an omnichannel approach, customers can engage with a business across multiple channels, such as email, social media, chat, and phone.

Consistency across these touchpoints is crucial because it ensures that the customer receives the same message and level of service on whatever channel they choose to utilize when interacting with your business.

This consistency also helps build trust and credibility with customers, as they’re able to rely on your business to deliver a consistently satisfying experience in every single interaction.

Moreover, companies that create a uniform experience across all their channels have a unified view of the customer's journey , which can help them better understand evolving needs and preferences.

Do you need help creating an instantly recognizable brand that helps your company to nurture trust, loyalty, and retention among your customers? Check out this article: Why brand consistency is key to an excellent help center experience .

2. Enhanced brand adherence and revenue

One of the key benefits of an omnichannel approach is its ability to drive revenue and brand adherence.

By creating a seamless and immersive experience across all channels, businesses can effectively engage with their customers, boost their loyalty, and continually drive sales. Through omnichannel CX, customers interact with a brand through various touchpoints and become more and more familiar and comfortable with that brand’s products, services, and communication style. 

The omnichannel strategy provides businesses with an abundance of opportunities to connect with their customers and create a personalized experience that resonates with their specific goals for that product or service. As a result, businesses can drive brand adherence and revenue; customers, meanwhile, enjoy a more convenient and fulfilling shopping experience.

3. Improved customer satisfaction

An omnichannel customer experience obviously allows people to choose their preferred channel to interact with the company. But it goes beyond increasing optionality for customers by letting them seamlessly switch channels without losing context or forcing them to repeat themselves to different agents or AI bots . This level of convenience and personalization is all but guaranteed to facilitate higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Additionally, businesses can use data collected from different channels to gain a deeper understanding of their customers' needs and preferences, which can be used to improve the overall customer experience .

Say goodbye to generic, one-size-fits-all customer experiences and hello to a tailored journey: A personal touch: Intercom’s guide to CX personalization .

4. Greater collaboration between departments

Omnichannel CX makes it possible to share customer data and insights across departments, allowing teams to work together to solve problems and provide personalized solutions to customers.

By breaking down communication barriers between interdepartmental teams, omnichannel CX fosters a culture of collaboration and teamwork. This can lead to increased efficiency, greater individual and collective expertise, and improved customer satisfaction.

For example, a customer who has a problem with their order can be quickly routed to the appropriate department for resolution. This ensures that the customer receives the best possible service and that their issue is resolved as fast as possible.

5. Efficient issue resolution

With omnichannel customer experience, businesses can gather customer data from different channels and create a more complete, all-encompassing view of their audience. This helps businesses to identify the root cause of the most prevalent and recurring issues and provide personalized solutions to their buyers.

Omnichannel CX also enables businesses to respond to customer queries in real-time, reducing wait times and enhancing customer satisfaction. Efficient issue resolution through omnichannel CX ultimately leads to increased customer loyalty, improved business reputation, and higher revenue.

Omnichannel customer experience solutions

Delivering an outstanding customer experience hinges on providing an omnichannel approach, but it's crucial to select a customer service software that genuinely supports all of your channels. Many platforms claim to integrate multiple channels, yet they often leave key touchpoints scattered and disconnected, resulting in a disjointed experience for customers and frustration for support teams.

Because so many customer service software solutions simply do not provide the omnichannel CX they claim to, Intercom's integrated i nbox is a game-changer. Powered by AI, it simplifies usage and consolidates all customer interactions in one place, irrespective of the specific communication channel. This feature ensures support teams deliver a seamless experience across email, chat, social media, and whatever other channels are core to your business. 

Our Inbox doesn't just centralize interactions; it also enhances understanding of customer preferences. This knowledge empowers support teams to personalize interactions, providing tailored solutions that meet each of your customer’s unique needs. The outcome? Businesses can cultivate lasting relationships, elevate customer satisfaction, and foster resilient, enduring loyalty.

How to improve omnichannel customer experience

As you’ve seen, an omnichannel customer experience is no longer a nice-to-have. Increasingly, it’s becoming an imperative for businesses striving to stay competitive in the market. Here are a few key strategies that you can implement to offer a memorable and well-rounded CX.

1. Understand what channels are popular among your customers

First, it's important to understand what channels your customers prefer. While it might initially seem ideal to offer support on all possible channels, sometimes it's better to focus on a smaller number of options and create more refined, customized experiences. 

Conducting surveys and analyzing customer data, meanwhile, can provide valuable insights into which channels are most popular with your customers, and where you should be focusing your efforts.

2. Map out your customers’ journey

Second, mapping your customers' journey is crucial to improving omnichannel customer experience. Delve into the dynamics of how they navigate various channels, discovering their preferences at each specific stage of their journey and other patterns that might emerge and prove actionable. These invaluable insights not only deepen and enhance your understanding of your client, but also empower you to fine-tune each channel for optimal impact .

The best-case scenario for successful omnichannel CX implementation looks something like this: your customer starting with a social media platform, for the earliest stages of engagement or support, followed by ; a seamless transition to email or phone when more in-depth communications is sought. This journey is always worth mapping out to understand – and ultimately maximize – engagement. 

3. Automate responses

Finally, automating responses is an effective way to streamline customer support and ensure a consistent experience across all channels. Workflow automation can be used to route inquiries to the most appropriate team or agent, and even provide automated responses to common queries. This not only speeds up response times, but also frees up agents to focus on more complex issues.

In conclusion, improving omnichannel CX requires companies to first possess a deep understanding of customer preferences, map out their journey, and use automation to streamline support. By implementing these strategies, businesses can provide a smooth, satisfying and highly consistent customer experience across all their channels.

Take your omnichannel customer experience to the next level with Intercom

Our platform offers key features, including real-time messaging, chatbots, and personalized messaging that enable businesses to deliver a consistent, personalized, and effective CX across multiple channels.

With our omnichannel solution, companies can easily manage customer conversations and interactions across various channels, including email, social media, and website chats. And the best part: thanks to our integrated inbox, it’s all in one place. 

We also provide powerful analytics and reporting tools that collect valuable information on customer behavior and preferences. These insights help businesses optimize their CX and improve customer satisfaction.

If you're looking to take your omnichannel customer experience to the next level, our comprehensive platform is the perfect solution. Sign up for a free trial today and see how we can help you deliver a seamless and personalized CX across all your channels.

1 . Statista , Share of retailers who have optimized their customer journeys worldwide in 2020, by omnichannel service. The research was conducted worldwide in 2020, with 300+ retail brands as respondents.

2 . Statista, Channels consumers used to contact brands in the United States as of June 2022.

Cut support volumes and make customers happier with the power of AI

What is omnichannel marketing?

Picture this: you’re browsing online for some new work clothes, and you add something to your virtual cart but ultimately decide not to buy it. Then later, you see an ad on social media for the abandoned garment. Some scratch their heads at this, but it’s actually an example of omnichannel marketing.

The prefix “omni” means “all,” and “channel” is a reference to the many ways customers might interact with a company—in physical stores, by surfing the web, on social media, and in emails, apps, SMS, and other digital spaces. And this omnichannel approach can be a powerful way to meet your customers where they are, providing them good service in line with their preferences and needs. (Note that, in this article, we use the terms “customers,” “consumers,” and “shoppers” interchangeably in referring to omnichannel marketing in both B2B and B2C contexts.)

More and more, customers move across all channels—in person, online, and beyond—to get what they want. But not every customer is looking for the same thing, and omnichannel marketing acknowledges that. Some people want more services for certain transactions; others prefer low-touch, 24/7 interactions. Effective omnichannel marketing , then, happens when companies provide a set of seamlessly integrated channels, catering to customer preferences, and steer them to the most efficient solutions.

So why is omnichannel marketing important? Research on the omnichannel experience  shows more than half of B2C customers engage with three to five channels each time they make a purchase or resolve a request. And the average customer looking to make a single reservation for accommodations (like a hotel room) online switched nearly six times between websites and mobile channels. If these customers encounter inconsistent information or can’t get what they need, they may lose interest in a brand’s products or services.

And this can translate into business outcomes. Omnichannel customers shop 1.7 times more than shoppers who use a single channel. They also spend more.

Sometimes the term omnichannel is used in the context of customer service or customer experience . And it’s also used as a descriptor of other elements that go into supporting an organization’s omnichannel efforts—for instance, omnichannel supply chains , which is shorthand for an approach in which companies ensure that their supply chains are optimally set up to support omnichannel marketing efforts.

What are examples of omnichannel?

Omnichannel approaches are commonly used in retail  (both B2B  and B2C ), but you’ll also find it in healthcare and other spaces. Medtech companies , for instance, use a variety of channels including digital marketing, inside sales, portal and e-commerce, and hybrid sales-rep interactions to engage with healthcare professionals.

Several omnichannel examples  can illustrate various approaches:

• Best Buy typically focuses on commerce (both in store and online), but boosted its in-store experience by creating offerings for customers to explore smart home-technology solutions, pairing them with free in-home advisory services. And its mobile app lets customers “scan to shop” from catalogs and curbside, or buy online and pick up merchandise in the store itself, smoothing the end-to-end journey for customers with the 24/7 tech support from its Geek Squad. Best Buy’s Totaltech support offer was compelling to customers—it launched with 200,000 memberships in 2018, which climbed to two million within a year.
• Beauty retailer Sephora emphasizes omnichannel personalization, relying on rich in-app messaging, personalized push notifications, and easy ways for customers to book in-person consultations. Its in-store technology is a powerful complement that allows employees to access customer favorites and suggest products they might try next. Its loyalty program also plays an important role. The efforts are already driving value for Sephora: data showed that customers visiting the retail website within 24 hours of visiting a store were three times more likely to make a purchase, and orders were 13 percent higher than for other customers.
• Nike takes an ecosystems view of omnichannel, extending the brand experience and offering customers an ever-growing platform of content, offers, and community interactions. Its SNKRS and Run Club apps, for example, facilitate in-person meetups, running groups, and events. It also has an app for delivering individual workouts and fitness programs, creating experiences that go far beyond shoe and apparel lines to meet customers in their day-to-day routines.

Learn more about our Retail  and Growth, Marketing & Sales  practices.

How has omnichannel been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Omnichannel rose during the COVID-19 pandemic as more consumers turned to e-commerce. Due to the increased demand for contactless shopping during the height of the pandemic, US grocery stores saw 20 to 30 percent of their business shift to online . Before the pandemic, e-commerce accounted for just 3 to 4 percent of total sales for grocers.

The shifts made during the pandemic are likely to persist . In the pandemic, people gravitated to curbside pickup, “buy online, pay in store” models, and self-checkout at higher rates than in the past. And recent research indicates these behaviors are “sticky”—indeed, about 70 percent of people who first tried self-checkout in the pandemic say they’ll use it again.

Introducing McKinsey Explainers : Direct answers to complex questions

What do customers want out of the omnichannel experience.

Customers want a compelling and personalized omnichannel user experience with robust digital capabilities, both online and offline. About 60 to 70 percent of consumers research and shop both in stores and online . More concretely, over one-third of Americans  made omnichannel features—think buying online and picking up in store or curbside—part of their regular shopping routines since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Nearly two-thirds of those individuals plan to continue doing so. And younger buyers, like Gen Zers, embrace omnichannel enthusiastically; these customers don’t think in terms of traditional channel boundaries, and they expect brands and retailers to provide a seamless experience, no matter where they are.

In a sense, all customers are omnichannel customers now, McKinsey partner Tiffany Burns  explains in an episode of the McKinsey on Consumer and Retail podcast :

“Many retailers still think, ‘There are omnichannel interactions and store interactions, and I’m optimizing those two things separately. I have two different teams working on and thinking about those experiences.’ But as a consumer, when I go on the retailer’s website or app, I expect to see availability, a connection to what’s in the store, and a way to order things that I can pick up in store. I also expect to be able to stand in the aisle in the store and research a product. Today, consumers are figuring out workarounds to do all those things: they’re switching over from the app to Google, looking up the product, and searching for reviews.”

Organizations that make shopping a seamless omnichannel experience , or provide an app that helps customers find their way or see what’s in stock in the store, are already creating experiences that are a win for omnichannel customers .

Is omnichannel the same thing as phygital? And what is phygital, anyway?

Omnichannel is a business strategy, while “phygital” (a portmanteau that combines the word “physical” and “digital”) refers to the integration of the physical and digital worlds.

The term suggests a completely connected world that is both physical and digital at the same time . While fewer consumers are visiting brick-and-mortar stores and choosing to use e-commerce instead, more than 80 percent of retail sales still occur in a physical location . By 2030, the shopping experience will be highly personalized , and some activities may even take place in the metaverse . According to a recent survey, 80 percent of US adults  want personalization from retailers with multiple, personalized touchpoints , which can include a mobile app, digital displays, interactive screens, tech-enabled associates, and point of sale.

What about omnichannel vs multichannel?

When it comes to omnichannel vs multichannel, the key difference is the focus at the center of all efforts. Omnichannel is a customer-centric approach in which all channels are integrated so the customer has a unified and consistent experience whether they are at a physical store, using an app, or on a website. Multichannel, in contrast, tends to revolve around products instead of customers. It aims to inform as many people as possible about the product or brand, and the channels are not linked, so the customer experience is often different for each channel.

An interview with an insurance executive, Eric Gewirtzman of BOLT , makes that distinction relatable: “Insurance customers are already moving between various channels,” Gewirtzman says. “But there’s a big difference between being multichannel and being omnichannel. Just because carriers have, say, an exclusive agent channel, an independent agent channel, and a website, doesn’t mean they’re omnichannel. Too often, consumers will get a different experience and different results depending on which channel they use. This has to change. If there is no awareness between the channels, sales are lost.”

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What is omnichannel personalization?

Omnichannel personalization refers to the way organizations might tailor the customer experience for individuals across physical and digital channels. This includes multiple touchpoints that cater to the customer’s preferences pre-visit, during the visit, and post-visit. Customers receive products, offers, and communications that are unique to them as individuals.

Efforts to personalize the omnichannel market can have a big payoff. Indeed, getting omnichannel personalization right  could help companies increase revenue by 5 to 15 percent across the full customer base.

While companies recognize the power of omnichannel personalization, they may face roadblocks in implementing these efforts for a variety of reasons:

• Omnichannel personalization requires a lot of investment in technology  (both software and hardware). Personalizing physical spaces often starts from scratch because it requires enabling digital touchpoints such as screens, kiosks, or tablets for store associates, which may not exist.
• It is difficult to deliver a seamless customer experience and train employees. The front line needs training to understand and reinforce the customer journey.
• Traditionally, companies operate their digital and physical channels independently. Omnichannel personalization requires companies to rethink their organizational structure across both the digital and physical parts of the business .

These barriers, however, can be overcome. Five steps can help companies achieve omnichannel personalization :

• Define the omnichannel personalization strategy and learning agenda. It’s crucial to develop a clear view on key moments of influence in the customer journey , and then identify what outcomes are desired at each step of that journey. Finally, an organization needs to prioritize use cases to test, looking at their ability to deliver business benefits and value to customers.
• Address five digital touchpoints to activate personalized experiences in physical environments. Companies need to connect digital and physical footprints to drive omnichannel personalization, especially at touchpoints where these worlds converge. Five are particularly important: mobile apps, digital displays, interactive screens, tech-enabled associates, and point of sale.
• Use an omnichannel “ decisioning engine ” to deliver experiences and measure performance. This can help organizations identify, quickly and accurately, the next best action to take with each customer.
• Implement agile operating practices. Personalized marketing goes beyond mere technology; it requires new ways of working, and agile marketing teams  can help in this regard.
• Activate omnichannel personalization in the field. To bring all these elements together, a company’s sales force must be fully aligned and well trained. In-person teams could make your customer’s day, so frontline personnel need to support personalization efforts, understand their value, and use digital tools to deliver the complete experience.

What is omnichannel strategy?

An omnichannel strategy for marketing is a way of ensuring that your efforts drive tangible business value. Rather than rushing blindly into the space, or haphazardly approaching it, organizations should step back and think about underlying business value drivers. Excelling in omnichannel depends on a laser focus on value creation, looking at both strategic and customer priorities to craft the omnichannel strategy that will be most effective for their unique circumstances.

The most successful companies set their omnichannel strategy by leading with their strategic ambition and aspirations for customer experience. There are three primary omnichannel strategies :

• Commerce. This prioritizes cross-channel shopping experience both in store and online.
• Personalization. This strategy focuses on tailored, targeted, and relevant cross-channel engagement at scale.
• Ecosystem. Here, the strategy aims to provide rich cross-channel platforms integrated with consumer needs and lifestyles.

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What’s involved in omnichannel operations?

Organizations can build leading omnichannel operations , spanning a variety of areas. By strengthening the foundation of your omnichannel operations and focusing on strategy, structure, and processes, you could gain a performance edge.

Topics to explore include mastering omnichannel supply chains , creating a customer-centric supply chain strategy , designing the omnichannel distribution network of the future , reimagining the role of physical stores , and more.

What should I know about B2B omnichannel?

Omnichannel has become a permanent part of B2B sales , with e-commerce, face-to-face, and remote videoconference sales all a necessary part of buyers’ experience. According to a 2021 McKinsey survey of US-based B2B decision makers, 94 percent of respondents view today’s B2B omnichannel reality  as being as effective or more effective than before COVID-19. The findings also revealed that B2B customers regularly use ten or more channels to interact with suppliers, up from five in 2016.

B2B omnichannel efforts can be a path to grow an organization’s market share, but loyalty is up for grabs, with customers more willing than ever to switch suppliers for a better omnichannel experience. B2B decision makers use more channels than ever before to interact with suppliers, and being attuned to those channels will be important.

There are five must-dos for B2B companies seeking to retain customer loyalty and succeed in omnichannel:

• offer a performance guarantee (nearly 80 percent of B2B customers say it’s crucial)
• show product availability online
• enable purchases over any channel
• provide customer service in real time
• ensure the customer experience is consistent as buyers toggle between channels

While B2C omnichannel efforts might be the first to spring to mind, omnichannel experience is crucial to giving all customers a better and more seamless journey.

For more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s insights on marketing and sales —and check out omnichannel-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced include:

• “ The new B2B growth equation ,” February 23, 2022, Arun Arora , Liz Harrison , Max Magni, Candace Lun Plotkin , and Jennifer Stanley
• “ Omnichannel: The path to value ,” April 30, 2021, Holly Briedis, Brian Gregg , Kevin Heidenreich, and Wei Wei Liu
• “ Omnichannel shopping in 2030 ,” April 9, 2021, Praveen Adhi , Eric Hazan , Sajal Kohli , and Kelsey Robinson
• “ Redefine the omnichannel approach: Focus on what truly matters ,” June 22, 2020, Jorge Amar , Raelyn Jacobson , Becca Kleinstein, and Allison Shi
• “ The end of shopping’s boundaries: Omnichannel personalization ,” February 10, 2020, Gal Gitter, Meg Raymond, Kelsey Robinson , and Jamie Wilkie

Want to know more about omnichannel marketing?

Related articles.

Omnichannel: The path to value

The new B2B growth equation

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9 Best Real-life Customer Journey Map Examples

April 4, 2024

The customer journey mapping process is a visual representation of the experiences and interactions customers have with a company, from initial awareness to post-purchase evaluation.

These maps utilize infographics to showcase touchpoints across the customer-brand relationship, revealing strategies for personalized experiences that enhance consumer success and engagement.

By aiding businesses in understanding the customer journey, identifying pain points, and enhancing overall experiences, journey mapping contributes to increased sales, loyalty, cost savings, and team alignment.

How Customer Journey Maps Impact Business Performance?

Customer journey maps serve as invaluable tools for enhancing business performance by facilitating a smoother path to customer satisfaction.

They provide insights into the customer experience, allowing businesses to empathize with customers, identify pain points, and address challenges they encounter along the way.

By pinpointing inconsistencies between touchpoints, such as communication gaps across platforms or departments,  customer journey mapping aids in improving service quality and retention. Leveraging customer journey contact center data, these maps optimize genuine customer engagements across all communication channels.

Key Elements of a Customer Journey Map

Numerous customer journey mapping software options exist in the market, each offering unique features. Here are the key elements that characterize these customer journey map templates.

Customer Personas

To create a customer journey map, you first need to know who your potential customer is. This begins with developing customer personas, which are fictional representations of typical customers based on demographics, behaviors, and customer needs.

For instance, Uber has two primary personas: passengers seeking seamless rides from A to B, and drivers desiring flexibility and supplemental income.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints encompass every interaction a customer has with your brand throughout their buying journey. When creating a customer journey map, it's essential to outline these points of contact, information gathering, or interactions with your brand. Typical touchpoints include:

• Marketing emails and newsletters
• Phone calls, service and support lines, online chatbots
• Store staff, checkout registers, service points
• Website, apps, social media platforms
• Packaging, shipping, delivery

Customer Emotions

In this step, you map out the specific emotional experience of the customer at each touchpoint. What are they thinking? What actions do they take? How are they feeling?

Avoid guesswork by gathering real feedback from customers through surveys and, ideally, direct interactions with your customer support team.

Critical Moments

Critical moments are the touchpoints that significantly influence the overall customer experience, whether positively or negatively. These moments of truth provide opportunities for innovation and growth as they represent instances, such as pain points, where people are willing to invest in addressing their critical needs.

Channels and Platforms

Channels and platforms encompass the diverse mediums through which customers engage with your business. These may include traditional channels like in-person visits or phone calls, alongside digital channels such as websites, social media, or mobile apps. Understanding the preferred communication channels of different customer segments helps in effectively engaging with your customers throughout their journey.

From Concept to Reality: Creating Your Customer Journey Map

Customer journey maps are not one size fits all; however, there are fundamental steps that you can take to create your own.

Step 1: Define customer touchpoints

Identify all customer interactions, from ads to website visits, forming the core of your user journey map, illustrating the path from awareness to purchase and beyond.

Step 2: Create customer buyer personas

Develop fictional representations of your target audience, considering demographics and behaviors.

Step 3: Set goals

Establish goals for each touchpoint on your map, whether it's increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or fostering customer loyalty.

Step 4: Conduct user studies and surveys

Conduct user studies and surveys to understand how customers discover products, interact with your brand, and identify pain points or challenges they encounter.

Step 5: Analyze your customer journey map

Evaluate key metrics such as repeat purchases, sales, and customer satisfaction to assess the effectiveness of your customer’s journey map. Use the data to optimize touchpoints and enhance the overall  digital customer experience .

Real-life Application: 9 Customer Journey Map Examples Across Industries

Example 1: consumer saas- spotify.

Spotify, a leading audio streaming service, utilized a customer journey map to enhance its music-sharing experience for users. The objective was to determine the optimal integration of music-sharing features within the customer journey.

The map detailed the user experience from opening Spotify on a mobile device to interacting with shared songs. By analyzing each stage and touchpoint, including user actions, thoughts, and emotions, Spotify identified pain points and implemented improvements for a smoother music-sharing experience.

This comprehensive journey map prioritized customer engagement, considered user behavior, and aimed to enhance overall user satisfaction, ultimately encouraging more frequent music sharing among users.

Example 2: Entertainment - Netflix

Similar to Spotify, Netflix's customer journey map incorporates stages, emotions, and thoughts, albeit with a different approach. In Netflix's map, each touchpoint is described in a more goal-oriented manner, focusing on addressing the goals through rows such as 'motivations', 'pain points', and notably, 'opportunities'.

Additionally, this customer journey map is tailored with a clear target persona in mind, likely detailed in their marketing materials, along with a predefined scenario. This approach makes Netflix's customer journey more actionable and focused on achieving its objectives.

Example 3: E-commerce - Amazon

Amazon, a global e-commerce giant, employs sophisticated technology and custom systems to guide customers through the sales journey. While its customer journey map is complex and extensive, it can be broken down into manageable parts for analysis.

For instance, Amazon's customer conversion funnel illustrates how its products facilitate the customer journey, driving engagement and maximizing sales. When conducting your  customer journey mapping , remember to incorporate key metrics to monitor success and gain deeper insights into the overall customer experience.

Example 4: B2B - Hubspot

HubSpot opted for a linear design for their customer journey map, organizing common experiences along a timeline and using color coding to denote pain points or moments of delight. This format made the map easy to interpret and actionable for other teams.

Additionally, they incorporated testimonials from customers, categorized based on their position in the journey, to provide firsthand perspectives on interactions. These stories humanized the map, making the identified issues feel more relevant and pressing to employees.

Example 5: SaaS- Zendesk

This customer journey map example from Zendesk uniquely emphasizes customer churn and reconsideration. While it doesn't delve into the specifics of customer activities, thoughts, or emotions, it distinguishes itself by accounting for a range of outcomes, including churn and reevaluation.

For teams prioritizing these aspects, this format offers a valuable framework for gaining deeper insights into the customer's mindset at each stage of their journey.

Example 6: Toy- Lego

LEGO has innovatively crafted a Customer Journey Map using a tool called the "experience wheel." This wheel analyzes a flight to New York City in a simplified manner.

At its core are the persona's characteristics, surrounded by three levels of experience representing the journey's goal achievement. The outer circle details each step of the journey, marked with emoticons reflecting positive, neutral, or negative experiences. This straightforward format allows for easy creation, making it suitable for discussions and idea-generation sessions. It offers a quick way to view products or services from the customer's perspective.

Example 7: SaaS - TurboTax

TurboTax, a leading online tax preparation software, developed a customer journey map to launch its new product, Personal Pro.

The map, created through a blend of data research, customer surveys, and discussions with tax professionals, tracks the  customer experience  from website entry to tax filing completion. By identifying and addressing customer pain points, the map enables TurboTax to enhance the overall experience, ensuring smoother and more satisfactory interactions.

Example 8: Transport - Uber

Uber's customer journey map not only includes clearly defined stages, emotional waves, and thoughts at each touchpoint but also incorporates additional visuals from their app and descriptive elements.

For instance, the persona is well-defined, eliminating the need to reference external marketing documents for details. Moreover, the critical analysis for action section provides a clear assessment of both positives and areas for improvement at each step of the journey.

Example 9: Retail - Starbucks

Starbucks’ customer journey map, using a timeline style, highlights diverse touchpoints and aims to enhance customer experience. It gathers feedback from outlet visits and categorizes experiences into three components:

• Poached experience: Customers are asked about their overall impression of the outlet they visited, particularly during peak hours.
• Enhanced experience: Starbucks also assesses any negative experiences encountered by customers and seeks resolutions to prevent their recurrence.
• Touchpoints: This refers to the level and extent of interaction the consumer has experienced with the brand, whether in person, through the website, app, etc.

How to Implement Customer Journey Maps Using Five9

Implementing customer journey maps using  Five9 is a simple process. With Five9, agents gain access to a unified view of customer history, including interactions from email, web chat, and phone calls.

By integrating all channels into a single interface, Five9 ensures that agents have a clear understanding of the customer journey, enabling them to respond effectively at every stage.

Discover how using  Five9 customer journey mapping can boost customer service, helping agents understand and meet customer expectations, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

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