Why Omnichannel Experience Could Prove a Lifeline for Struggling Companies
There aren’t too many industries who haven’t been negatively impacted from the results of national and regional lockdowns over the past seven months. Retail, hospitality and aviation have borne the brunt of government decision-making and almost every day we’re met with yet more depressing news from the high street, publicans, airlines and their associated supply chains of job losses, closures or long-term contraction.
GREEN SHOOTS
However, amidst all the doom and gloom green shoots are starting to show. The more agile of our larger employers have accelerated digital transformation projects including developing omnichannel experiences which, only a few months earlier, were in some cases consigned to the bottom of the ‘to do’ pile.
Large organisations such as TUI have had to move quickly to respond to rapidly changing environments, government restrictions both here and abroad and passenger sentiment around travelling. On top of that, they’ve had to preserve cash - and fast. Digital transformation and customer experience has therefore come to the fore in order to refine processes and minimise losses whilst developing a customer experience that exceeds expectations. Quite the ask in the midst of a global pandemic!
WHAT IS OMNICHANNEL EXPERIENCE?
As with Multichannel, Omnichannel experience places the customer at the heart of the purchasing process. The difference with an Omnichannel approach is that the channels through which a customer interacts with a brand are themselves integrated and designed to work together to create a seamless experience. Consider Omnichannel like a bicycle wheel; without a tyre connecting the spokes the experience would be sub-standard at best!
Omnichannel: An Integrated Approached to Customer Experience
WHAT DOES OMNICHANNEL LOOK LIKE?
Consider this. After browsing red dresses on Instagram last night, you’re visiting the associated bricks and mortar store . You enter the store and promptly receive a notification on your phone asking if you’re still looking for the red dress you ‘liked’ on Instagram last night. You tap yes and are instantly shown where the dresses are and sizes available. The In-Store Mode app from H&M does almost exactly that. Take a look at the 20 second video below for a taste of a shopping experience that cleverly combines bricks and mortar with digital.
H&M are excelling customer expectations by making their lives easier, making shopping fun and, importantly, making it easier for their customers to spend money.
INTEGRATE BRICK AND MORTAR
The key to a successful omnichannel strategy for these types of stores is to not sideline their physical locations but to integrate them in to a wider strategy. It could be something as simple as advertising a product via an app but making it an ‘in-store only’ purchase. Aldi have been taking this successful approach for some time now. As well as a strong e-tail offering through their website, app and email marketing they know that their customers tend to leave their stores with more than they came for (went in for a pint of milk, came out with a hot tub!). Creating a fear or missing out on ‘store only’ products keeps customers coming in which is why you’ll rarely (if ever) see Aldi closing a store.
Boots are another traditional high street brand to have adopted and refined a successful Omnichannel approach to their marketing. Starting with the Advantage Card back in 1997, they developed a robust understanding of their customers, what they spend their money on and how. The generous ‘4 points for every pound’ reward programme not only pleased their customers with targeted offers and coupons, Boots were using the data collected to create valuable insights into customer behaviour.
Now most customers have the Advantage Card app and are sent product launch announcements, limited time deals and personalised offers right to their sofa making it easier than ever to engage with the company.
With newer technologies such as AI and VR now becoming more common place, look out for more uses both in-store and digitally as companies such as Sephora, attract more customers with virtual effects.
The Virtual Artist App acts as a virtual mirror along with a seamless in-app purchase facility. For those visiting a physical store, Sephora have virtual mirrors which store thousands of virtual shades to try on. An Ex
AN EXPONENTIAL RISE IN OMNICHANNEL
John Lewis have announced this past week they are setting out a new strategic vision, part of which includes accelerating their ‘e-tail’ offering. As the pressure on our high streets continues, they, along with other traditional brick and mortar department stores are facing extinction unless they change the way they interact with customers.
As Chair, Sharon White sets out to, ‘expand its digital, virtual and delivery capabilities’ I would imagine that an Omnichannel approach is on the table as they widen their online offering, take a value-driven approach and expand their customer base.
They will not be the only ones. It is my view that we are going to see once digitally immature organisations adopt wide ranging and transformative approaches to creating exciting, truly Omnichannel customer experiences. Many may already have been planning such an approach anyway but Covid has seen already struggling companies having no choice but to move much earlier and faster than planned.
We can’t say what the future holds with much certainly right now but at some point life will return to something pertaining to what we had pre-March. Customers will also return but their needs, disposable income and experience expectations from both B2C and B2B retailers will almost certainly have changed.
Smart organisations are already onto it and are working hard behind the scenes to maximise the chance that Omnichannel hands them the lifeline they’ll more than likely need.