How Many Channels Make an Omni-Channel Omelette?

This is the second in a series of three posts exploring the issues around becoming a multi-channel service organisation. Of course, you might prefer the language of ‘omni-channel’ if you are keen to make the point that it must all fuse together into a seamless capability.

To summarise the key points I’ve already covered in the first post:

1. Large-scale service interactions via non-voice channels are still new(ish). Therefore no brand yet has a track record in true omni-channel management
2. However, we can now expect text and video channels to grow rapidly due to wholesale changes in customer behaviour
3. Organisations will have to balance the instinct to control costs against this emerging customer expectation. Channel deflection can work, but it’s a slippery slope and customers will always find a way through to the assistance they need
4. ‘Omni-channel’ means more than just offering a choice of channels. It implies the ability to design, deliver and manage consistent service levels and experiences over any combination of channels used in a particular customer journey

I could continue. But the central point I want to get across is already made. This is not more of the same. It’s a fundamentally different leadership challenge. Adding channels to cater for choice adds cost. Unless, of course, this is counterbalanced with an ongoing determination to reduce service demand by fixing stuff and reducing repeat interactions by simplifying customer journeys.

There is a price to join this particular party!

The Journey To Omni-Channel Will Change Your Organisation (for the better)

This is no longer the world of cost optimisation by squeezing average handle time and sourcing cheaper labour. That route will most likely frustrate customers and consequently increase service costs.

The new equation needs as much ‘work smarter’ as ‘work harder’. However, getting ‘smarter’ requires reflection time outside the busyness of everyday customer service leadership.

Incidentally, that’s why I’ve teamed up with Capita’s customer management group to help the UK’s largest service organisations rethink their operating philosophy.

We are offering three master classes over this summer. Their aim will be to provide precious thinking time to help customer leadership teams escape old mindsets as they explore these new challenges.

For instance, large complex organisations that are starting to respond to the challenges of digital engagement quickly discover they need to evolve from a compliance culture into a customer culture.

This means they need to speed up their responsiveness as the arrival of real-time data disrupts decision-making timeframes. In behavioural terms, this challenges the norms of everyday corporate life. Can we transform a habit of adherence into an appetite for innovation?

This is the context within which effective multi-channel strategy is developed.

In other words, becoming great at delivering multi-channel customer experiences is about evoking the right culture. Ideally, before investing in a spanking new digital infrastructure.

Tuning Into The Voice

The best brands have discovered this transition is most powerfully fuelled by real-time customer insight. It allows the organisation to discover that most common truth – there is a significant gap between the customers’ agenda and priorities and their own.

How long it then takes for the penny to drop at leadership level all depends. But I’ll wager that Ryan Air’s conversion to customer-centricity had something to do with their recent 66% hike in profits.

Once the organisation gets into the groove of seeing things from the customer’s perspective, the so-called ‘outside-in lens’, then the enabling work for great multi-channel experiences can begin. This is to identify which customer journeys need smoothing out or simplifying.

Reducing effort is a powerful lens. Both customer and organisation win when engagement is made easier. Experientially and commercially.

Digital Customer Service Needs More Than A Few Extra Channels

To reiterate, all this begins with listening and acting on what customers are saying. Without the insight which an effective voice of the customer (VoC) programme provides, decisions on which channels should be invested in remains expensive guesswork.

Therefore the smartest way to pick new channels is to map the way customers interact with your organisation and plot their typical use of channels. This probably varies by generation. It may also vary according to the situation the customer finds themselves in.

Mapping customer journeys and then finding out how customers prefer to interact is core groundwork. Importantly, this will teach you about the nature of the service tasks that customers are undertaking and the associated challenges. These are often obscured when viewed from the organisation’s ivory tower.

For instance, I recently heard an excellent example of getting close enough to see the real issues. Oxfam’s CEO had joined his army of fundraisers and hit the streets to raise cash. He then discovered an amazing opportunity.

Oxfam policy decreed that direct debit details were needed if you wanted to donate. This did not chime with many who just wanted to make a one-off anonymous contribution. So a key source of donation was being turned away. I’m sure you can guess what Oxfam’s CEO did on returning to corporate HQ.

Understanding what the customer is trying to achieve helps us to choose the best channel mix.

For instance, is the task essentially a simple, repeatable one? In which case, self-service, with its advantages of being a 24×7 option, is likely to be popular if executed in a way that is experienced as simple and effective.

Otherwise, does the task need live assistance? Is voice best if the situation is dynamic and the topic is emotive? Would live video help make a purchasing decision easier? Is the reassurance of having a transcript of the interaction a reason that customers might prefer chat?

Each channel has unique strengths. Learning how to effectively match them to the customer task is how an optimised channel mix is developed.

In summary, becoming great at multi-channel is not just a challenge of buying the right technology. It’s about understanding customer priorities and then matching those to the most suitable means of engagement in an age in which choice is assumed yet ‘cost to serve’ still matters as a corporate priority.

This is making contact centre leadership both much more interesting and complex. Often outside normal comfort zones.

How does this chime with your observations and experience?

What do you see are the challenges as we move from managing a dominant voice channel with a few text channels added on to a fully functional omni-channel capability?

Where do you see the bearpits?