customer expencee i r - qpc · becoming an omni-channel business is an improper, misguided or...

EXECUTIVE REPORT ON THE OMNI-CHANNEL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEBy Brian Cantor

Customer Experience

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The disparity between mindset and execution rears its head in all realms of contact center strategy.

It explains why organizations can recognize the efficiency and scalability of cloud solutions but still primarily rely upon on-premise infrastructure. It explains why organizations can tout customer-facing metrics like CSAT score, Net Promoter Score and Customer Effort Score as true barometers of performance yet continue to perform as if average handle time and average speed of answer are the bigger priorities. It explains why organizations can publicly aspire to “be like Zappos” but continue to overlook opportunities to improve culture and drive greater employee engagement.

More than merely applicable to channel engagement strategy, the seemingly inescapable gap between thinking and doing serves to uniquely complicate the matter for those businesses aiming to stay ahead of the curve and on the pulse of customer demand.

Per Call Center IQ’s annual survey on channel strategy, only 4% of organizations believe becoming an omni-channel business is an improper, misguided or unnecessary objective. The other 96%--an overwhelming majority—accepts omni-channel as the appropriate ambition, if not standard, for today’s businesses.

Whether the customer engagement hub is known as a call center, contact center or interaction center, today’s businesses believe it must be an omni-channel one.

Unfortunately, many of those businesses find themselves grappling with the preceding—and less aspirational—requirements of a “multi-channel” world.

Still working to introduce a substantive myriad of web- and mobile-driven channels, let alone

Channel Engagement Strategy: The Game Has Changed

with the same robustness and agility as media like telephony and email, businesses are essentially struggling to catch up to an idea that is already dramatically behind the times.

Insofar as 96% aim to become “omni-channel,” today’s businesses do not simply need to offer comprehensive, customer-centric levels of engagement in numerous channels. They need to do so in a manner that creates a unified, consistent, seamless experience for customers who define their preferences and engagement efforts not necessarily by channel but by objective.

If their action has not even risen to the ambition of the lesser, simpler approach to channel engagement strategy, can businesses realistically attain the standard created by the

“omni-channel” revolution?

If they are barely at the back of the “multi-channel” line, how can they possibly jump to the front of the “omni-channel’ one?

The task is not easy. The solution is not obvious. Businesses will not be able to plug in a system, press the on switch and rapidly transform into an omni-channel organization. Businesses unable to call themselves multi-channel in the status quo will not be able to dismiss all of their existing limitations when pursuing the newer, revolutionized standard.

But they can successfully pursue that standard.

This report, which draws upon insights from Call Center IQ’s annual study and expertise from seven experts with diverse backgrounds and varying ideologies, uncovers a course of action that will allow businesses to not only patch the holes in their multi-channel template but redraw the lines of their business to meet the demands of the omni-channel marketplace – and the omni-channel customer.

Customer Experience

ContentsChannel Engagement Strategy: The Game Has Changed ...................... 2

Contributors ................................. 3

Multi-Channel – Even Losing Races Can Be Challenging .................................. 4

SPECIAL BRIEFING: To Serve is to Provide ...................13

Omni-Channel: Defining a Revolution ................. 21

Omni-Channel: Matters of Preference ................. 28

Omni-Channel: Connecting the Dots .................. 30

Omni-Channel: People Serving People ......................32

Omni-Channel: Are Solutions the Solution? .............35

Omni-Channel: You Say You Want a Revolution, But Do You Want to Make One? ................... 36

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Contributors

Customer Experience

Mike McShea Contact Solutions

Richard Dumas Five9

John Cray Enghouse Interactive

Lonnie Mayne InMoment

Henry Eakland HP Autonomy

Ted Bray Virtual Hold Technology

Ryan Hollenbeck Verint

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In July and August of 2014, Call Center IQ conducted this research with collaboration from an audience of customer service, customer experience and contact center professionals. Representing buy-side organizations, vendor organizations and independent consultancies, respondents contributed insights via a web survey and/or targeted, one-on-one interviews.

Requests to participate were issued irrespective of company size, call center size or region, assuring that the sample represented a global customer management audience.

Participation did, however, skew slightly in favor of large organizations. 33% of respondent organizations employ at least 5,000 individuals. A total of 57% tout workforces in excess of 500 employees.

Only 24% of the surveyed organizations operate with less than 100 names on their payrolls.

That the majority of participants represent large enterprises did not, however, notably skew the data in favor of large contact centers and/

To professionals with their sights set on a seamless, consistent omni-channel customer experience, including those experts interviewed for this report, multi-channel is child’s play. It is a relic of the antiquated perspective that internal factors within the business – not the demands of the external customer base – should drive contact center strategy.

If a business is customer-centric, these professionals would argue, it is focusing not simply on where it offers customer service but how it builds an entire customer engagement framework to support the needs, expectations and desires of today’s marketplace.

or customer service functions. While 36% of businesses operate with more than 250 agents, 21% do so with less than 10.

Example respondent job titles included “Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy,” “Customer Contact Center Manager,” “Head of Customer Service,” “Director, Customer Care,”

“Vice President, Sales,” “VP, Client Solutions,” “Senior Vice President, Call Center Operations,” “Operations Director,” “Director of Support,” “Director of IT,” “Vice President of Business Development,” “Director, Customer Care,”

“Head of Digital Customer Service,” “Senior Vice President, Service Center Operations,” “Customer Advocacy Manager,” “Vice President, Customer Experience” and “Customer Success Manager.”

Representing a skew in favor of business leadership, 51% of respondents identify as either directors, vice presidents or C-level executives. A staggering 88% of respondents are at least labeled managers within their organizations. An additional 7% are analysts, while the remaining 5% identify themselves as either team members or administrative personnel.

But to the majority of organizations, even “multi-channel” represents a concept of ambitious progression rather than constricting regression.

Given a host of potential definitions, respondents most commonly selected “allow a customer to connect in his preferred channel at all times” as the proper multi-channel conception. Supported by 44% of respondents, that multi-channel definition commanded nearly three times more affirmation than any alternative.

Methodology and Demographics

Multi-Channel – Even Losing Races Can Be Challenging

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“Allow a customer to simultaneously communicate via multiple channels” and

“Allow a customer to connect in more than one channel at all times,” the next two most popular definitions, best represent the multi-channel concept for 17% and 15% of businesses, respectively.

At its linguistic core, multi-channel reflects maintaining a presence in more than one channel. That businesses are adhering to loftier standards speaks favorably to their customer management mindsets.

Unfortunately, embracing an aspirational conception of multi-channel is meaningless if the business does not establish and execute a strategy for realizing that vision.

Collectively, the aforementioned three definitions reflect how more than three-quarters of businesses approach multi-channel. For one to successfully claim that action has met idea—and that the marketplace actualized the rhetoric of the multi-channel movement— he would have to prove that three-quarters of businesses are consistently operating in accordance with at least one of those definitions.

They are not.

Only 44% of businesses believe their operations align with one of the aforementioned definitions.

Only 7%, moreover, say their existing strategy allows “a customer to connect in his preferred channel at all times,” which is the most popular conception of multi-channel.

Businesses are aware of the multi-channel concept. They believe it involves more than simply introducing a second or third channel within which they can sometimes engage with customers. They recognize that it is a concept driven as much by customer demand as it is by organizational convenience.

The awareness and philosophical acceptance of a particular multi-channel conception has not, however, produced universal and successful execution of that idea.

By virtue of their inability to create a successful multi-channel experience, businesses find themselves revering a dated, antiquated practice as a point of strategic aspiration. That, naturally, puts them at a significant disadvantage when it comes to adopting the more ambitious and comprehensive omni-channel approach to customer engagement.

What is the most accurate definition of multi-channel?

14.6% Allow a customer to connect in more than one channel at all times

13.4% Allow a customer to connect in more than one channel during regular business hours

43.9% Allow a customer to connect in *his/her* preferred channel at all times

2.4% Allow a customer to connect in *his/her* preferred channel during regular business hours

6.1% Allow a customer to connect in channels preferred by the majority of customers at all times

1.2% Allow a customer to connect in channels preferred by the majority of customers during regular business hours

17.1% Allow a customer to simultaneously communicate via multiple channels

Q1

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To meet even the most basic standard of multi-channel, businesses need to offer communication opportunities in more than one channel. To meet a standard that requires them to satisfy customers in their preferred media, let alone consistently do so at all times, businesses need to commit meaningfully to those channels.

“As a baseline, to provide a good customer experience, you should be able to give the customer whatever they want in whatever channel they want,” declares Contact Solutions’ McShea.

While actions like launching a Facebook page and installing a live chat application technically bring a business into multiple channels and thus give it the linguistic right to claim existence as a multi-channel provider, they do not inherently assure the business will function as one. Establishing a presence in a channel and creating platforms for legitimate customer engagement are two vastly different things.

With respect to that distinction, it is important to consider not only the channels in which businesses exist but the nature of their existence within each channel.

If an organization addresses numerous types of customer inquiries within a given channel, it is unmistakably rendering that channel more capable of accommodating customer demand. If an organization arms a channel with dedicated resources, budgetary allotment and staff, it is undeniably creating a more robust platform for customer engagement. If it actively monitors performance in that channel, it is irrefutably giving it a more fundamental role within the overall customer engagement strategy.

By declaring that they are not adhering to the most popular definition of multi-channel, today’s businesses revealed that they have not met the previous standard for channel engagement strategy.

But it is not until exploring exactly how they are approaching the multi-channel question that the marketplace can best understand why they feel disconnected from that standard and what they must do to move out from behind the multi-channel curve and get ahead of the omni-channel one.

Calling all Channels

Which definition best describes your organization’s current approach to multi-channel?

7.3% We are not currently a multi-channel business

24.4% Allow a customer to connect in more than one channel at all times

29.3% Allow a customer to connect in more than one channel during regular business hours

7.3% Allow a customer to connect in *his* preferred channel at all times

4.9% Allow a customer to connect in *his* preferred channel during regular business hours

4.9% Allow a customer to connect in channels preferred by the majority of customers at all times

12.2% Allow a customer to connect in channels preferred by the majority of customers during regular business hours

6.1% Allow a customer to simultaneously communicate via multiple channels

Q2

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The customer engagement hub might be widely known as a call center, but for today’s businesses, it is most popularly a platform for email engagement.

A whopping 96% of businesses confirm that they connect with customers via email. A lesser, but still extremely significant, 94% say the same of engagement with a live telephone agent.

Not simply the most commonly offered channel, email is also the most accommodating. 44% of businesses confirm that they handle customer service, marketing and sales requests via email. The same is true for the website/FAQ channel in 36% of cases, of the live telephone channel in only 32% of businesses and the in-person/on-site interaction forum in just 27% of them.

Used specifically for customer service by 34% of businesses, e-mail rarely functions specifically for marketing or sales purposes. No respondents said they are using e-mail exclusively for marketing, and only 4% of businesses rely on it solely for sales. A more notable 12%, however, rely on email to tackle a hybrid of support and sales inquiries.

When it comes to channels specifically geared towards customer support, the telephone IVR system is the most popular choice. Relied upon by only 16% of businesses for the full suite of inquiries, 4% of businesses for exclusively sales inquiries and no businesses for mere marketing endeavors, IVR is used exclusively for customer service by 44% of organizations.

Ultimately, 81% of organizations rely on IVR to communicate with customers.

Due to the greater flexibility provided by a human agent, live phone support plays a more diverse role within businesses. It functions exclusively as a customer service center in 30% of businesses but represents a hybrid sales and support channel in an equal 30% of businesses. 32% use it for the complete combination of marketing, sales and service.

While their application is not as versatile and varied as it is for phone and email, several other

channels represent engagement platforms for the majority of businesses.

88% of businesses—an overwhelming majority—depend on corporate websites and FAQ sections to communicate with customers. Primarily viewed as a customer service channel, it is used exclusively for that purpose by 36% of businesses. An equivalent percentage uses it for the combination of service, marketing and sales.

A communication option for 80% of businesses, the Facebook social network also represents a particularly attractive engagement avenue.

Used exclusively for marketing by 20% of businesses, Facebook is proving itself to be an increasingly popular channel for all forms of customer interaction. 17% of businesses use it for the combination of marketing, sales and support while 19% harness its power specifically for customer service tasks. It might not receive the same commitment as the phone and email channels, but it is definitely one of broad relevance to businesses.

Reflective of dramatically growing support for social media, Twitter rises above the 50% utilization threshold for the first time ever in a Call Center IQ research study. An impressive 76% of businesses connect with customers via Twitter.

While Twitter, like Facebook, is a popular marketing channel, it is actually most commonly used by the customer service function. 21% of businesses use Twitter exclusively to support customers; 18% do so exclusively to market their businesses or to engage in an all-encompassing flavor of communication.

Other engagement channels operated by the majority of businesses include web self-service (76%), in-person/on-site service (67%), YouTube (61%), mobile self-service (59%), Live Chat (57%), LinkedIn (57%) and Text/SMS (55%).

Channels struggling to gain prominence include mobile app interaction (35%), Google Plus (31%), virtual agents (27%), video chat (21%), Tumblr (16%).

Channel Offerings: Where Businesses Connect

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Yes - Marketing & Sales

Yes - All

Yes - for Marketing

Yes - Service & Sales

Yes - Service & Marketing

In which channels do you engage with customers?Q3Telephone - live agent

Telephone - IVR

E-mail

Live chat (web)

Live chat (mobile app/website)

Video chat

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google Plus

YouTube

Tumblr

Other Social Network

Web self-service

Mobile self-service

Text/SMS

Text for call back

Click for call back

In-person/on-site

Virtual agents

No

Yes - for Customer Service

Yes - for Sales

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Media like email, web pages and telephony often accommodate all—or at least multiple-

-forms of communication between a business and its customers. No longer relegated to marketing causes, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are demonstrating increased versatility and thus increased application in customer service environments.

As the multi-channel concept continues to establish footing in businesses, channels are coming to serve the more holistic purpose of

“engagement” rather than a particular type of engagement within businesses.

The growing universality of channel function does not, however, remove those channels from the organizational silos to which they have historically belonged.

71% of respondents, for instance, say that their customer service department “owns” the live telephony channel. An additional 13% leave the keys to that channel with the operations department. Even though the call center is being portrayed as a more multi-dimensional engagement center, it remains very much rooted in the traditional customer service and operations wings.

IVR ownership is also rooted most notably in customer service (58%) and and operations

Before a business can focus on optimizing and integrating its contact channels, it must select the channels in which to focus its efforts. While a totalitarian approach to customer centricity requires that the business operate in virtually all channels—if it promises to serve a customer on his preferred terms, then it must be able to account for the terms of every individual customer—a pragmatic one allows for businesses to operate with respect to costs and benefits.

Once a business does deem a channel valuable, however, it must commit itself to offering an efficient, effective suite of engagement options within that channel. If not, it is guilty of the same idea-action disparity that undermines so many potentially valuable customer management strategies.

To identify any such disparities, the Call Center IQ study asked respondents to reveal the channels in which they feel they should be

(12%). Due to its technological nature, however, it also finds itself controlled by the IT function in 9% of businesses.

While no businesses claim to use e-mail exclusively for marketing, 13% say the marketing function owns the e-mail function. That total, however, pales in comparison to the 57% ownership rate for the customer service function. 11% of businesses allow IT to guide the email effort.

Like telephony and email support, ownership of social media is also determined by traditional party lines. Channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Tumblr most often belong to the marketing function. The owner in 33% of businesses, marketing is also the most prominent party behind web/FAQ strategy.

Save for its 19% frequency of ownership when it comes to in-person/on-site interactions, the sales or business development team rarely dictates channel strategy. While IT plays a role in guiding web, email and self-service strategy, it is not the most common owner for any communication type.

The C-level, operations and human resources functions also assume uncommon leadership preferences within the realm of channel strategy.

operating. If organizations make no attempt to actively engage within all of those channels, they are failing no matter which definition of multi-channel they embrace.

They are failing.

While the range of channels in use is the largest ever reported in a Call Center IQ survey, it still pales in comparison to the range businesses claim they should be using.

Not one of the twenty one channels presented to respondents was deemed unimportant by a majority—and only one (Tumblr) was deemed unimportant by more than 35%--but a handful are not actually being utilized by a majority of businesses.

Save for e-mail, no channel, meanwhile, is being used by every organization that feels it should be using the channel.

Channel Offerings: Who Facilitates the Connection?

Channel Offerings: Where Businesses Should Connect

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Phone (live agent), email and web self-service are all deemed important by at least 95% of businesses, but only email actually commands that level of utilization. Offered by only 76% of organizations, web self-service is subject to a particularly large gap between its utilization and its perceived importance.

At least 90% of businesses believe they should be interacting via FAQ/web pages, mobile self-service, live chat and IVR, but none represents an active channel for that percentage of businesses. While the 88% utilization rate for FAQ/web pages is close, the 58% support level for live chat and 59% level for mobile self-service trail their accompanying importance ratings by a considerable margin.

The virtual agent approach, which by virtue of its 27% utilization rate is a virtual non-factor in today’s market place, is deemed valuable by 73% of businesses. Few comparisons so

Even when judged against the simplest standard—offering some form of customer engagement—businesses are not as committed to the myriad of available contact channels as they feel they should be. Participation levels match or exceed value assessment for only one of the twenty one most common platforms for engagement.

For as damning as that picture is, it only scratches the surface of the story. Simply allowing for the possibility of engagement in a channel is not the same as committing to it wholeheartedly. Looking simply at the channels offered by businesses, therefore, presents an inflated perspective of the state of multi-channel.

While thirteen of the available 21 channels are “offered” by the majority of businesses, only 9 receive dedicated staff and/or resources from a majority.

Particularly victimized by the disparity are the mobile self-service and live chat channels. Offered by 59% and 57% of businesses, the two receive dedicated resources from only 49% and 37%, respectively.

Offered by 88% of businesses but only the subject of dedicated focus in 75% of them, the website/FAQ channel also receives a notably weaker investment level than its prevalence—let alone perceived value—would seemingly require.

notably demonstrate the disparity between thought process and action.

Believing they need to be able to accommodate customer preferences at all times, today’s customer-centric businesses naturally know they must be prepared to support a wide array of contact channels at all times.

That they are not doing so – at least not remotely to the level they believe is necessary – provides a pessimistic counter to the optimism generated by the fact that far more channels are being supported this year than last year. Businesses are moving in the right direction, but they are not moving all the way in that direction.

They are not, by their very own admission, sufficiently “multi-channel.”

The disparity is even greater when it comes to the channels for which businesses measure performance. Only 8 of the 21 channels receive performance management focus from the majority of businesses, and only two receive such attention from more than 75% of businesses.

Performance in email, one of those channels, is surprisingly measured by only 76% of businesses. Considering that it is now the most popular contact channel with penetration in 96% of organizations, its lack of universal performance focus vividly underscores the extent to which offering a channel is not the same as striving to optimize that channel.

Offered by the majority of businesses, channels like FAQ/web sites, live chat and mobile self-service receive performance management attention from no more than 50% of businesses. Mobile self-service is on the radar for only 38%.

Without measuring performance, businesses cannot possibly assure they are optimally satisfying customers within a given channel. They also cannot possibly be sure they are operating the channel with optimal cost efficiency. So whether today’s businesses feel motivated by a philosophy of customer centricity or guided by an emphasis on cost containment, they are at risk of greatly bottlenecking—or even crippling—success.

Channel Offerings: Engage Like You Mean It



Yes - All

Yes - for Marketing



To which channels do you devote dedicated staff and/or resources?Q4Telephone - live agent

Telephone - IVR

E-mail

Live chat (web)


Video chat

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google Plus

YouTube

Tumblr


Web self-service

Mobile self-service

Text/SMS

Text for call back

Click for call back

In-person/on-site

Virtual agents

FAQ/web info pages

No


Yes - for Sales



Yes - All

Yes - for Marketing



In which channels does your organization measure performance?Q5Telephone - live agent

Telephone - IVR

E-mail

Live chat (web)


Video chat

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google Plus

YouTube

Tumblr


Web self-service

Mobile self-service

Text/SMS

Text for call back

Click for call back

In-person/on-site

Virtual agents

FAQ/web info pages

No


Yes - for Sales


absolutely part of the customer experience, but insofar as they can be implemented with their own, pre-selected parameters, they do not speak as notably to an organization’s versatility.

Customer service, insofar as it at least partially hinges on the demands of the external customer base, is a far better reflection of that agility. It is thus a far better reflection of whether an organization is in position to use a channel for engagement rather than merely for communication.

As an auxiliary benefit, it also reveals the extent to which the call center, which is typically perceived as a customer service hub, is transitioning into a contact center. For the call center to warrant a broader term, the boundaries of its engagement must extend beyond “calls.” Demonstrating a legitimate commitment to customer service via channels like live chat, mobile applications and social media is one of the best way to prove deserving of the “contact center” label.

self-service or social, but if they have an actual issue, they want to talk to a live person.”

Predictable given its prevalence as a communication channel, e-mail is also a preferred support channel for businesses. 65% are in position to handle all issues; only 20% say they do not provide any form of customer service through email.

Several other channels commonly provide some form of customer service, but no others function as all-encompassing support channels for the majority of businesses.

IVR, for instance, represents a customer service channel in 80% of businesses but an all-encompassing one in only 34%. A significant 27% of businesses prefer to only use IVR to service “quick issues.”

The FAQ/web page avenue represents a customer service channel for 74% of businesses, but a whopping 33%, predictably, use it strictly for outbound information sharing. 23%,

The customer experience covers more than the mere way a business retroactively responds to customer inquiries. From pricing strategy, to the quality of product utilization, to sales and marketing development, everything that affects a customer during the course of his engagement with a brand is a component of the customer experience.

A business, therefore, should not approach channel engagement specifically through the lens of customer service. Channels must always be introduced—and optimized—in accordance with how they can optimize the totality of the customer experience.

The customer service perspective does, however, paint a very vivid picture about an organization’s channel capabilities. Insofar as a multi-channel organization, let alone an omni-channel one, is striving to connect with customers in their preferred channels at all times, it naturally must be able to respond to customer inquiries in each of those channels. Outbound marketing and sales initiatives are

Viewed through the lens of customer service, the term “call center” has enduring relevance.

A staggering 74% of businesses confirm that live agent telephone support represents a service channel for all forms of customer inquiry. Only 5% of businesses provide absolutely no customer support through telephony.

Collectively, both statistics establish the phone channel as the premiere option for corporate customer service. Whether the issue is a quick, transactional one, a deeper, strategic one or anything in between, if it involves customer support, odds are strong that a business is in position to handle it over the phone.

At least a partial product of tradition, the organizational preference for telephony does not run counter to customer preference.

“Customers, even younger customers, actually prefer talking to a live person when they have a problem,” explains Virtual Hold’s Bray. “If they need to do something on their own, they’ll use

SPECIAL BRIEFING: To Serve is to Provide

Service Environment: Where Communication Evolves


nonetheless, have found a way to turn their web pages into more robust channels capable of addressing all inquiries.

While it cannot handle all issues for a majority of businesses, web self-service is most commonly used in that fashion. 65% of organizations use self-service as a customer support channel, and 28% use it to address all inquiries. No form of customer support is more popular within the web self-service lane.

The same goes for in-person/on-site care. Almost all of the 50% of businesses (and 42% of all businesses) that offer an in-person form of customer support position it to handle all forms of customer support.

Twitter, which is also a customer service option in 50% of businesses, is not as versatile. According to the survey, 21% of businesses use it specifically for quick issues. 16% use it primarily for outbound information sharing while only 5% approach Twitter as a full-service customer service destination.

Channels not commonly used for any form of customer service include mobile self-service, Google Plus, Tumblr, mobile applications (live interactions) and virtual agents. From most to least prominent, they are used as support channels in 39%, 21%, 21%, 18% and 10% of organizations.

Service for deeper issues, quick

ones routed to other channels

Service for all customer issues

Point-of-contact only -- issues

then escalated to other channels

Service for quick issues, deeper

ones routed to other channels

To what extent do you use the following channels for service?

Telephone - live agent

Telephone - IVR

E-mail

Live chat (web)


Video chat

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google Plus

YouTube

Tumblr


Web self-service

Mobile self-service

Text/SMS

Text for call back

Click for call back

In-person/on-site

Virtual agents

FAQ/web info pages

Not offered

Information-sharing only

(outbound)

Q6


Insofar as neither video chat nor YouTube is widely used for any form of customer service, let alone to handle complex issues, it is clear businesses are content with the limitations they impose on some channels. Video channels play a particularly compelling role in customer service, but businesses are very happy with what they are contributing.

Customers are less content. And businesses, interestingly, are very aware of that disparity.

In an attempt to identify any inconsistencies between an organization’s internal contentedness and performance in the external marketplace, the survey also asked respondents to rate the experience within each channel from the customer’s standpoint.

While the scores were less glowing, live phone support (4.0) and in-person/on-site (3.8) again ranked as the best-performing channels. Web self-service and FAQ/web pages again ranked as the worst channels (both scored 2.9).

YouTube and video chat, however, scored notably lower. Viewed internally as some of the best-performing channels, they were among the worst performers from the customer perspective – respondents gave both a score of 3.3/5. While that score does not reflect a terrible performance, it does reflect a notably weaker one.

It suggests that the business performance perspective is at least somewhat misaligned with the customer perspective. And insofar as that is true, business decisions about channel involvement are at risk of being corrupted by flawed data.

Channel availability makes no guarantee of performance.

In fact, insofar as a more widely offered channel is subject to a wider array of challenges and a wider pool of feedback, it is possible that it will also be subject to more frequent—and harsher—customer criticism.

While that phenomenon might not affect a channel like telephony, which has been a focus of perfection efforts for decades, it likely does impact newer, yet prominent channels like corporate websites and web self-service.

Sure enough, businesses identify the frequently used FAQ/web page channel as their worst performing. On a converted scale of 0-5, with 0 representing “completely dissatisfied” and 5 representing “completely satisfied,” the channel scored a mere 2.8.

Web self-service, which is also employed by the majority of businesses, scored a similarly low 2.9. It tied “other social networks” as the second-worst-performing service channel. Other weak performers include Google Plus (3.0) and mobile self-service (3.0).

Given its longstanding reign as the primary contact channel, telephony predictably received the highest marks from businesses. Respondents scored performance in the channel at a 4.3/5. In-person/on-site, another

“traditional” channel, also scored well – it was the second-highest-rated with a 3.9/5.

Other top performers include live chat (3.9/5), video chat (3.8/5) and YouTube (3.8/5).

Service Environment: The State of Multi-Channel Service


How would customers grade their experiences when engaging with your business in the following channels (converted to 0-5 score)? Q7

Telephone - live agent

Telephone - IVR

E-mail

Live chat (web)


Video chat

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google Plus

YouTube

Tumblr


Web self-service

Mobile self-service

Text/SMS

Text for call back

Click for call back

In-person/on-site

Virtual agents

FAQ/web info pages

How would you assess your organization’s performance in the following channels (converted to 0-5 score)?

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5


Per disparities in performance assessment, it is clear businesses and customers are not perfectly aligned on channel strategy. Businesses might declare a philosophical commitment to customer-centricity, but when it comes to making decisions, they draw from more than the voice of the customer.

But if not exclusively customer sentiment, what does dictate channel strategy? Which factors play the greatest role in determining where and how a business communicates across the spectrum of existing contact channels?

Businesses say technology and system limitations play the greatest role in determining where a business communicates. That driver scored a 3.4/5 on a scale in which 0 represented “not a factor” and 5 represented

“paramount factor.”

With a score of 3.2, concern over cost also ranked as a top inhibitor.

Customer sentiment and behavior were not, however, irrelevant to the consideration process. With a score of 3.1, existing customer behavior ranks as the third-greatest driver of channel strategy. Stated customer demand also possesses relevance—with a 3.0/5, it follows concern over staffing and resources (3.1) as the fifth-greatest driver.

Indeed, organizations’ reluctance to commit to web, social and mobile channels the way

they do telephony has some footing in actual customer data.

“There might be a lot of demand for mobile support, for chat support and for social support from the increasingly connected audience that wants to communicate with their brand on their channel of preference,” explains Five9’s Dumas.

“But when you look at some of the numbers a little bit more closely - you see that the expectations for response times on non-voice channels are not as high as they are on voice.”

And with those reduced expectations comes justification, flawed or not, for reduced focus on performance within those channels.

The weakest five drivers include outsourcer/partner recommendations (1.4/5), consultant recommendations (1.7/5), competitive offerings (2.5/5), tradition (2.7/5) and concern over privacy/liability (2.9/5).

Despite its lower overall score, tradition actually plays a paramount role in more organizations than stated customer demand or existing customer behavior do. 24% of businesses ascribe the highest possible level of influence to tradition; only 20% do the same for each customer-centric motivator.

One of the bottom five overall drivers, privacy/liability is a paramount influencer in 28% of businesses. Concern over systems and technology is a top driver in 26%.

Service Environment: Creating Limits

Paramount factor Moderate factor

Important factor

What role did the following factors play in determining service levels/offerings within each channel?Q8Tradition

Lack of familiarity/unsure how to start or measure

Cost concerns

Staffing/resource concerns

Technology/systems concerns

Privacy/liability concerns

Customers’ stated demand

Existing customer behavior

Competitive offerings

Consultant recommendations

Outsourcer/partner decision/recommendation

Not a factor

Slight factor


Some will blame it on a lack of customer demand. Others will blame it on cost and resource concerns. Others, still, will cite limitations created by existing systems and technology.

And no matter what they say, some have nothing other than laziness or organizational inertia to blame for their failure to introduce a full suite of customer contact channels.

Regardless of the reason for limitations on their channel offerings, businesses will, inevitably, interact with customers who are unable to receive service on their precise terms. Whether the channel is not offered (at least at a given time) or not robust enough to meet the customer’s needs, it will fail to deliver exactly as requested.

When that happens, a business is unequivocally falling short of any so-called commitment to customer centricity. It, through strategic routing and an overall commitment to resolution, might be able to avoid dissatisfying that customer, but it cannot claim it is giving that customer precisely what he wants.

Insofar as many businesses recognize their channel strategies are imperfect, they naturally recognize the inevitability of this shortcoming. There will come a time in which they have to tell a customer they cannot meet a precise demand.

They will, therefore, have to concede a hole in their customer centric philosophy.

Confessing the inability to serve a customer in a given channel, therefore, is more than simply making a statement about an organization’s channel offerings. It is acknowledging a gap in the business’ commitment to the customer. How it communicates that gap is, therefore, an important strategic question in and of itself.

For the largest portion of businesses—42%, in fact—failure to provide support in a given channel is no excuse to ignore inquiries in that channel. That percentage of businesses confirms that it responds to all inquiries in all channels even if the response merely involves letting the customer know the inquiry needs to be escalated to a preferred medium.

Believing it to be reasonably consistent with the omni-channel mindset, Contact Solutions’ McShea shares in that philosophy.

“Even if you’re not able to serve them [in a given channel], allow them to initiate the interaction, and then come back to them with a solution—even if that solution is to switch to a different channel,” says McShea. “That type of response is still better than not being available in a channel at a given point of time.”

Agreeing, HP’s Eakland adds, “It is probably true that a company cannot afford to staff and offer an immediate answer to a chat or Tweet 24/7. It must, however, possess the ability to give a reasonable and perhaps automatic but always friendly response that provides the customer with other options.”

Service Environment: Conveying Limits

How do you most notably assess customer demand for engagement in a particular channel?

40.9% Volume of customer inquiries in the channel

11.4% Quality/depth of customer inquiries in the channel

20.5% Customer behavior

20.5% Customer sentiment/feedback/stated preferences

2.3% Customer demographics/profiles

4.5% Competitive offerings

0.0% Channel popularity

Q9


list limitations on or within each channel. A business with a limited social media strategy might, for instance, reveal that its Twitter account is “for marketing only.”

4% of businesses passively route—and attempt to condition—their customers by ignoring inquiries in non-preferred channels.

22% of businesses that say they are currently using live chat, meanwhile, plan to significantly increase their commitments over the next 6-18 months.

Other channels for which utilization levels will grow dramatically include web self-service (38% of businesses are using and will significantly increase that use) and FAQ/web pages (23%).

Despite being one of the most prominently offered channels, the phone remains on the improvement radar. 18% of businesses say they plan to significantly increase their utilization of the telephony channel, and an additional 14% confirm that they will make slight increases over the next 6-18 months.

While 10% of businesses will at least slightly decrease email utilization, a far larger 38% say they intend to at least slightly increase use. A similar dichotomy exists for in-person; 8% will decrease utilization but 21% will at least slightly increase it.

What the majority of businesses will not be doing over the next few months is initiating fringe channels. Virtual agents and video chat, which are not used by the majority of businesses in the status quo, will remain unused by the majority 18 months from now.

Hoping to preclude the need for a response, 29% explicitly advertise internal channel preferences (and thus implicitly reveal limitations). They, for instance, will only list a customer support phone number on their websites if telephony is their preferred customer service venue.

Knowing that some customers will first visit their preferred channel, 22% of businesses

Across every 2014 Call Center IQ survey, respondents have made one thing clear: improving the customer experience is a top priority.

That commitment to improving the holistic customer experience does not, however, confirm that businesses are notably planning to improve the scope of their channel offerings. Due to a variety of inhibitive factors, many businesses will refrain from making sweeping additions to the number of channels they offer and even from making improvements to the channels within which they currently engage with customers.

Recognizing those inevitable limitations, observers should not be surprised if businesses prioritize certain channels when developing their addition and optimization strategies. Logically, the priority channels should include those deemed most important to customers and those most notably lagging when it comes to performance.

Unsurprising given the extent to which businesses feel they should be offered, the mobile app (real-time interaction) and live chat channels will be the most commonly introduced new channels over the next 6-18 months. 22% of businesses not using the channels plan to start doing so during that period.

Service Environment: Conveying Limits


Using, will slightly increase

Using, will significantly increase

Using, will slightly decrease

Using, will not change

How will your organization change its commitment to the channel over the next 6-18 months?Q10Telephone - live agent

Telephone - IVR

E-mail

Live chat (web)


Video chat

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google Plus

YouTube

Tumblr


Web self-service

Mobile self-service

Text/SMS

Text for call back

Click for call back

In-person/on-site

Virtual agents

FAQ/web info pages

Using, will stop using

Using, will significantly decrease


The previous sections of this report stress a fundamental difference between the multi-channel and omni-channel concepts. Arguing that the latter represents a more distant point on the curve of progression, they suggest that an organization struggling to meet the standards of multi-channel is even more distantly removed from earning the omni-channel label.

A logical assertion from a linguistic standpoint, in which multi-channel refers to operating in more than one channel while omni-channel involves engaging in all of them, it might seem inconsistent with the findings of the survey.

The largest share of respondents, after all, declared that multi-channel refers to satisfying customers in their preferred channels at all times. Insofar as a business would realistically have to be in all channels at all times in order

Ted Bray, Virtual Hold: Omni-channel is integration across the channels as it relates to the customer care function. Multi-channel involves providing information or solutions channel-by-channel; the channels are not necessarily integrated.

Lonnie Mayne, InMoment: If we look at multi-channel, it’s more about a transactional and operational nature. They do talk about providing some consistency, but we look at it as being more transactional and tactical. It is more about capturing the transactional information as opposed to reaching out.

Omni-channel is two-way; it involves capturing and also reaching out and getting the information. Omni is more strategic and more about the experience - is it a consistent experience at every moment of the process.

Richard Dumas, Five9: From our perspective, omni-channel has been talked as an aspirational goal – as the holy grail supporting all channels. It requires being able to share context and share transactional data and being able to maintain an institutional memory of everything that has gone on in every channel. In an omni-channel company, the customer can engage in one channel , and the system can understand what they’ve done and where they were in a previous transaction.

John Cray, Enghouse: When people say omni-channel, they mean that their customers can cross-channels in real-time. When you have

to meet that standard for multi-channel, would it not effectively be operating as an omni-channel business? Once it meets that standard for channel engagement, does it really require more progress before it can fairly describe itself as omni-channel?

The answers to those respective questions? No and yes.

Just as businesses operate with an elevated standard for multi-channel, so too do they for omni-channel. According to the report’s expert contributors and respondents, omni-channel does not simply refer to the practice of offering all possible channels as engagement options. It refers to a strategic vision that typically regards channel universality not as an end goal but as a baseline requirement.

omni-channel communication with a customer, it spans more than a single media type. It is a full-blown interaction with a customer that, on the fly, can move from one channel to another. It is no longer the case that a customer chooses a channel and that it is it. There is an initial choice of channel, but from that point forward, it becomes an opening thing.. Both the agent and the customer can choose alternative forms of communication.

Mike McShea, Contact Solutions: Omni-channel, from our perspective, involves offering the same experience across all channels. Multi-channel simply entails providing multiple points of entry into the contact center.

Ryan Hollenbeck, Verint: There has been a shift from an multi-channel mindset to an omni-channel mindset. Now, it really is about the customer’s choice. The channels are offered by the company, but they are chosen by the customer.

Henry Eakland, HP: Multi-channel is an inside-out approach. It involves saying, ‘We’ll do the best we can with the channels in which we provide service, but we’re not really taking the longer term customer view into the equation.’

Omni-channel is more of an outside-in approach. It involves listening to customers, understanding where they are spending their time, recognizing how they are using the different channels and developing a communication strategy that has a clear view towards accommodating that sentiment and behavior.

Omni-Channel: Defining a Revolution

Omni-Channel – The Expert Perspective


For respondents, an omni-channel customer experience is most fundamentally a seamless one. Not simply a statement of where a business operates, omni-channel refers to a business’ success in connecting its channels to create a unified customer experience.

Yes, many businesses do believe operation in all contact channels is a pre-requisite to establishing an omni-channel experience. 39% of businesses say omni-channel refers to a seamless experience across all channels. An additional 2% prefer the linguistic definition: an omni-channel business is one that offers some form of engagement—not necessarily seamless engagement—in every possible contact channel.

But, at the end of the day, it is the seamless element that reigns supreme. In addition to the 39% who say an omni-channel experience is one that spans seamlessly across all channels, 12% of businesses are content to focus only on the former part of the definition. As long as the experience is seamless, they say, it does not necessarily have to cover all contact channels.

Another 34% of businesses, meanwhile, believe omni-channel refers to the customer’s perspective that the experience he receives is

“seamless, integrated and/or consistent across channels.”

While that definition provides further support for the seamless concept, it also adds another layer to the omni-channel concept. It asks businesses to stop thinking about channel strategy merely from a provider standpoint and to start thinking about it from a customer experience standpoint.

When discussing strategy in a multi-channel world, customer management professionals and advocates largely focused on the channels that were being offered by a business. Whether one required a business operate in all channels, several channels or just two channels to earn the multi-channel label, he was always concerning himself with the channels that a business offered.

A child of the age of the customer, the omni-channel concept is not a provider perspective. It is not an inside-out perspective.

It is one that rests entirely with the customers seeking to engage with the business.

It is they who, ultimately, determine whether or not the experience they are seeking is seamless. It is they who, ultimately, will create a demand for integrated channels when they start an issue in one medium and attempt to finish it in another. It is they who, ultimately, will attempt to forge organic conversation in the most timely and convenient channel – even if that particular channel is not the business’ traditional or preferred method of contact.

For an experience to be omni-channel, it must be capable of seamlessly—and continuously—engaging today’s omni-channel customers. Empowered to choose when and how they contact, they will evaluate experiences for their ability to accommodate customer autonomy. And if an experience is branded as omni-channel, customers will expect it to be wholly accommodating.

Multi-channel refers to the extent of interaction options business is offering to its customers. Omni-channel refers to the type of experience a customer receives when he interacts.

The business’ role, therefore, transforms from thinking about where and how to engage with customers into determining how it can deliver a consistent, seamless experience regardless of where and how the customer is connecting.

It must uncover—and implement—what is necessary to create perfectly seamless, consistent communication across channels. It must also develop a view of the customer that is comprehensive and singular. Instead of thinking about a customer within the terms of a given interaction or even in terms of a given transaction, it must adopt a perspective that recognizes the customer as the potentially infinite totality of all past, current and potential engagements, transactions, behaviors and sentiments.

It is in accordance with that bold directive that a business struggling to offer enough to be considered multi-channel is by no means in immediate position to label itself omni-channel.

It is in accordance with that bold directive that businesses still scratching the surface of the multi-channel movement are vastly separated from even the earliest stage of the omni-channel revolution.


To the extent that a handful of businesses acknowledged that they are not even remotely multi-channel—and many more confirmed they are just beginning to adopt a multi-channel approach—there is little reason for optimism about the status quo’s stance on omni-channel.

It might be the age of the customer, but to the extent that customers are becoming “omni-channel” and thus expecting that of businesses, it is not the age of giving customers exactly what they want.

7.3% No difference - they are synonyms

34.1% Multi-channel is the organization’s viewpoint about where a business engages customers, Omni-channel is the customer’s viewpoint about whether the experience he receives is seamless, integrated and/or consistent across channels

19.5% Multi-channel is about engaging customers in multiple channels, Omni-channel refers to establishing a singular view of the customer across all of those channels

39% Multi-channel is about offering engagement in multiple channels, Omni-channel is about offering a seamless experience across all channels

12.2% Multi-channel is about offering engagement in multiple channels, Omni-channel is about offering a seamless experience across whichever channels a business offers (not necessarily “all”)

2.4% Multi-channel is about engaging customers in multiple channels, Omni-channel means engaging them in all channels (but not necessarily seamlessly)

8.5% Multi-channel involves creating a specific experience/hierarchy for each channel; Omni-channel involves creating a singular one across all available channels

2.4% Multi-channel refers to the disparate experience offered in each channel; Omni-channel involves using multiple channels within a single transaction/issue

How does omni-channel differ from multi-channel?Q11

The State of ProgressOnly 10% of businesses currently define themselves as omni-channel; 73% of those businesses, meanwhile, still believe improvement to their channel offering is urgent.

An additional 10% declare their progress in becoming an omni-channel organization to be “significant,” which means that a whopping 80% of businesses have, at best, only made some progress in becoming omni-channel.


And insofar as 27% of businesses have made little to no progress in becoming omni-channel, if one were to randomly select an organization out of a lineup, it is more likely he will select one that has made virtually no strides towards becoming omni-channel than one that has moved significantly in the right direction.

39% of businesses have neither made much progress towards becoming omni-channel nor intend to exercise urgency in making that progress. Troubling insofar as it reveals that 35% of businesses that do believe omni-

channel is the correct customer experience approach have no immediate intention of adopting that approach, it reassuringly reveals that the majority of businesses are committed to the multi-channel revolution.

The customer service behavior of the past and the customer service behavior of the present make it very clear that thinking is not the same as doing when it comes to strategy. But with the ambitious bell of omni-channel tolling, restrained excitement can at least emerge in response to the fact that businesses are thinking about the transition to omni-channel.

3.7% Little to no progress; By design, we do not feel “omni-channel” is the right approach

12.2% Little to no progress; Improvement is not urgent

11% Little to no progress; Improvement is urgent

26.8% Some progress; Improvement is not urgent

25.6% Some progress; Improvement is urgent

4.9% Significant progress; Improvement is noturgent

6.1% Significant progress; Improvement is urgent

2.4% We are already an “omni-channel organization;” Improvement is not urgent

7.3% We are already an “omni-channel organization;” Improvement is urgent

How would you describe your progress towards adopting that view of omni-channel? Is doing so a priority?Q12

“Omni-channel has to really look like a unified experience for the customer and for the agent,” says Enghouse’s Cray. “It has to be easy and obvious for customers to peruse the different channels.”

Effort is the enemy of satisfaction in today’s customer management environment. Conditioned to believe that organizations are committed to satisfying their needs and accustomed to instant gratification, customers

All Channels, Zero Effortanticipate virtually no hassle in the engagement process. They anticipate receiving the greatest possible return on the smallest possible personal investment.

“The culture of your contact center has to be one around reducing customer effort,” declares Virtual Hold’s Bray. “I think customer effort is the next Net Promoter Score. It is very clear that if you can reduce customer effort, you will differentiate your business and customers will remain loyal.”


Perpetually “connected” through their mobile devices, today’s customers are not in the business of seeking out appropriate service channels. Omni-channel experiences—those committed to serving customers on customers’ terms—adapt to the customer’s pre-existing communication preferences.

“If you look at it from the consumer’s perspective, they don’t look at it from all these channels,” explains Contact Solutions’ McShea.

“They have a preferred device, and all of these channels converge there anyway. That’s how they use it for everything else in their life.”

More than a mere transformation in how businesses approach channels, omni-channel, McShea argues, is the realization that channel is an archaic concept. Customers think about the type of engagement they require and then attempt to establish that engagement via the most readily available mechanism.

While a customer’s behavior in each scenario might constitute a de facto channel

“preference,” it is an entirely organic one. In McShea’s vision, the customer is not thinking,

“I prefer live telephony agents handle my billing issues.” He is thinking, “I noticed a billing issue, I have my phone in my hand, so I am going to call for assistance.”

That behavior will change in accordance with the circumstance. But insofar as the customer considers himself perpetually connected to the

brand, he should not encounter any additional hurdles or challenges when organically engaging via a new channel. He should not expect a greater imposition.

Just as the customer will organically determine whether to establish initial contact, he will also organically determine when and how to span channels. While that might subject him to knowledge gaps and additional effort in a multi-channel universe, it should produce no burden in the omni-channel world.

“We see that customers are continuously channel hopping,” says Verint’s Hollenbeck. In an omni-channel world, “there is an expectation that the organization will respond to them in an effective and personalized way while still maintaining the context of how they want to engage.”

Instead of meeting customer demand on a channel-by-channel basis, omni-channels businesses are better served focusing on meeting customer demand for low-effort, hassle-free experiences. Channel strategy should stem not from a flexing of muscles regarding capabilities but from an ability to accommodate customers’ organic preferences and behaviors. Omni-channel is not simply about being everywhere—it is about being where the customer is when the customer needs a business to be there.

For an omni-channel framework to sufficiently satisfy customers in their organic channel of choice, it must be consistent.

For an omni-channel framework to sufficiently satisfy customers as they move from agent to agent and channel to channel, it must be seamless.

But what exactly do those terms mean in a practical context?

Insofar as Twitter is a vastly different medium than e-mail, which is vastly different from live chat, which is different still from live telephony, are customers truly expecting the exact same experience within each channel?

And insofar as customers are obviously aware that they are moving between channels when they do so, they are inherently aware of some seams in the process. It is not as if a business can operate completely devoid of channel gaps. What, therefore, do they truly expect when anticipating a seamless customer experience?

On Seamlessness, ConsistencyConsistency, in the eyes of the customer management world’s best-in-class organizations, refers to demonstrating a unified commitment to results across each channel rather than assuring the channel experiences are all carbon copies.

In fact, failing to account for the unique intricacies of each channel—and the unique ways in which customers will communicate within those channels—would actually undermine its efficacy. It would prevent the organization from offering a consistent commitment to resolve and satisfaction across all channels.

“If you’re giving a long, complicated answer on Twitter, you’re probably not giving the customer what he’s looking for,” says InMoment’s Mayne.

“I do believe you have to be very careful in how you communicate and what types of people and technology you put in between the business and the customer in each channel.”


Expanding on Mayne’s assertion, Enghouse’s Cray adds, “You don’t necessarily want [the experience in every channel] to be the same. If we’re having an hour long call, maybe that’s comfortable for us - maybe we’re dealing with a complex issue. But if we were instant messaging for an hour, we would probably have an awful experience.”

Consistency is not about creating carbon copies or mirror images. It is not about operating with no consciousness of the distinctions between specific touch points and forms of engagement.

It is about thinking about the core of an experience. It is about recognizing what drove a customer to connect and what, ultimately, he intends to gain from that connection.

“Consistency ultimately becomes a brand issue,” says HP’s Eakland. “The tone of voice needs to be consistent so that the soul of the brand, which is integral to differentiation, is clear in every channel.”

It is then about determining how most appropriately and successfully make good on that customer’s demand within the customer’s chosen communication parameters.

Consistency, at the end of the day, means delivering a response that is effective, efficient and contextually valuable. A business must remain committed to that ideal regardless of when and where the conversation takes place, but it must also be willing to tailor its execution of that ideal to the customer’s precise situation.

“I’m not saying you have to offer all of the same functionality in each channel,” declares Five9’s Dumas, “but you need to satisfy the customer’s needs, respond quickly and offer great service.”

To create a contextually seamless interaction in an omni-channel world, “you have to be

able to join all the disparate information into a story - and make it digestible for the next agent,” says Enghouse’s Cray. “Previously, if you were involved in complex customer service and had multiple people involved, you ended up repeating yourself a lot.”

Damaging enough at face value, that repetition also chews up valuable bits of the customer’s time and effort. It reduces the value of the customer experience and thus places a bottleneck on the loyalty the customer will develop for the brand.

“I completely agree - it’s important that customers aren’t repeating themselves and that their transaction history is available to whichever agent they reach in whichever channel they connect,” adds Five9’s Dumas.

Rather than processing interactions as channel-specific transactions, customers think of their engagements as pieces of a broader, singular customer experience journey. They desire to move through that journey without encountering obstacles and interruptions, and the responsibility rests with business to create the most fluid landscape possible.

Customers know when they are switching between channels or agents, but do not expect that fact to have any bearing on the experience. When cycling through different media, a customer should endure no changes in the business’ efficacy, resolve, efficiency and familiarity with his sentiment, transaction history and engagement objective.

“When I first engage via the web and then call the contact center, I expect them to know about that,” says Verint’s Hollenbeck. “You want the organization to understand what you’re trying to accomplish, regardless of where the specific interaction is taking place.”

Yes, the majority of businesses are committed to going omni-channel. But with so much evidence to suggest they are not even

“multi-channel,” is there really a chance that commitment gets fulfilled?

In short, yes.

The next few sections of this report will identify the elements essential to an omni-channel experience and advise practitioners on how to begin implementing and optimizing those tenets.

But as many stress over the inherent dilemma of introducing ambitious action to a business division not known for its ambition, it is important to recognize that factors responsible

From Struggle Comes Opportunityfor bottlenecking progress in a multi-channel world would be inherently mitigated by the adoption of an omni-channel mindset.

Consider, for instance, a respondent’s open-ended explanation regarding why he deems performance within certain channels to be unsatisfactory.

“Currently some of the channels (and therefore customer requests) are handled by other department, which means they sometimes offer different (worse or better) solutions than the customer rep can,” says the respondent.

“The customer rep is not informed about these contacts, which creates a discrepancy.”


That viewpoint, which was supported by several other open-ended responses, reveals that the segmentation of channels plays a major role in undermining performance. Insofar businesses approach different channels with distinct commitment levels (or no commitment at all), they are unable to provide a consistent service level to employees. That inconsistency fosters dissatisfaction, which ultimately minimizes the return on contact center investment.

Under a multi-channel philosophy, businesses would attempt to address the issue on a channel-by-channel basis. Aware that they have to elevate channel within each performance to the level offered by their best channels, they would potentially tackle the channels with the same sense of disjointed segregation that created the problem in the first place. Performance might improve, but the required effort would be excessive and the ultimate outcome would prove less than optimal.

An omni-channel philosophy, however, would drive businesses to consider a holistic approach to the experience across channels. Thinking like customers, businesses would design an experience to efficiently and effectively meet customer needs at each possible touch point. They would also assure that customers could move seamlessly—and without hassle—between those touch points. Effort and investment would then be delineated as part of a centralized approach to improving the total customer experience. The drain on resources would be minimal, and the return on investment would be as strong as possible.

“Becoming truly omni-channel can actually improve performance,” declares Enghouse’s Cray. “Personnel within seamless organizations can better collaborate with agents and better optimize the conversation.”

Businesses trapped in the multi-channel philosophy, which is a “provider” mindset, approach their challenges as disparate questions of capability. If they need to add or optimize a channel to better account for customer demand, they might do so, but they do so from an inside-out perspective. The result is an experience that is neither valuable to the customer nor to the customer service function that wants to justify its investment to stakeholders.

When a business transitions to omni-channel, it adopts a unified vision for its entire customer experience function. It will still need to address bottlenecks on capability, but it will do so from a different perspective.

“Instead of thinking about a bunch of different channels that have to be integrated together, design your contact center strategy to have an integrated perspective with access to all those channels,” says Contact Solutions’ McShea. “Instead of trying to figure out how to cram those changes into an existing way of doing business, I would look at how I need to transform my business to accommodate the transforming expectations about the way customers want to interact today.”

Instead of considering the different ways to extend its palette of channel offerings, it will think about ways to bolster its single offering. Its single, omni-channel customer experience.


Judged outside of the proper context, the notion of being able to serve a customer in his preferred channel is not an omni-channel ideal. It is a decidedly multi-channel one.

It, after all, speaks to capabilities. The more channels a business provides, the more likely it is to provide the one requested by a given customer.

Omni-channel requires businesses to transition from considering the type of service they provide to the experience their customers receive. Simply offering the channel a given customer wants makes no assurance that the experience inside—and outside—that channel will meet the customer’s more fundamental demands.

Meeting the totality of those demands, however, would seem very difficult if the business were not even meeting the customer’s intermediate demand regarding channel.

The majority of businesses agree.

52% of businesses say their organization currently views serving a customer in his preferred channel to be either a very important or essential piece of the customer experience puzzle. An additional 21% declares the endeavor “moderately important,” while only 5% say it is irrelevant to their business.

Roughly consistent with the view documented in last year’s Executive Report on Multi-Channel Customer Management, today’s businesses—even those adhering to a provider mindset—do not view channel decision as something they can impose on customers. It is one that belongs with the customer; the business’ role is to assure its overarching customer experience accommodates the customer’s ultimate decision.

“They want to talk to the businesses and they want to do so on their terms,” explains InMoment’s Mayne. “The power is in the customer’s hands: ‘I really wish they would communicate with me in the way I want to communicate.’”

Optimistically, businesses are beginning to demonstrate strength—albeit strength of the conditional sort in some cases--when it comes to accounting for customer channel preference.

5% of businesses say they can always engage a customer in his preferred arena. An additional 32% say they can usually do so. Before even taking into account the statements of conditional capability, the percentage of businesses capable of accommodating customer channel preference exceeds that of last year.

Per last year’s Multi-Channel report, only 30% of businesses were able to honor channel preference with regularity.

Beyond the 37% of businesses who can usually or always engage customers in their preferred channel, an additional 14% say they can do so during business hours. While that is unlikely to be deemed wholly sufficient in today’s always-on customer management marketplace, it surely represents a step in the right direction for businesses that are still juggling customer demands with resource limitations.

23% can honor a customer’s channel preference if that preference includes one of the business’ priority channels. Certainly not a sign of an agile, robust omni-channel offering, the capability also reflects a step in the right direction for businesses. They are still imposing limitations at the provider level, but they are at least giving the customer a choice within that limited framework. They are at least of the opinion that telling a customer precisely where he can engage with a given issue is not a customer-centric philosophy.

16% of businesses take the same mindset but limit it to business hours.

The remaining 12% say they can rarely or never honor a customer’s preference for channel engagement.

Omni-Channel: Matters of Preference


4.5% Not at all important

22.7% Slightly important

20.5% Moderately important

27.3% Very important

25% Essential

4.5% Always

31.8% Usually

22.7% Only if customer’s preference is one of our priority channels

13.6% Only if customer connects during business hours

15.9% Only if customer wants to connect in priority channel during business hours

9.1% Rarely

2.3% Never

Rate the importance your organization places on being able to serve a customer in his preferred channel?

To what extent can you comply with a customer’s channel preference?

Q13

Q14


Inherent to the notion of a singular, unified customer experience are the concepts of seamlessness and integration. If a business’ channels—and employees and systems within those channels—are not all in perfect harmony, it stands no chance of successfully creating an omni-channel experience. No matter the business’ commitment to the philosophy, its cracks will show, and the customer will endure the disjointed, inconsistent experience he ascribed to previous eras of brand engagement.

The idea of seamless, instantaneous, endless cross-channel communication is nothing new. Even before grappling with a myriad of web and mobile channels, businesses had to execute—or at least had to consider executing—strategies for communicating information from an in-person channel to a telephone channel. They had to determine how information captured via the telephone IVR system could be passed to a live agent.

Failure to create those cross-channel pathways, unfortunately, is also not something new. The concept of customers entering their phone number, account number and social security number into the IVR menu only to then be asked for the same information from the live agent is a routine target of mockery. The notion of providing that information to an agent and then having to repeat it when transferred to another agent is almost too sad—yet, sadly, all too real—for mockery.

What is new, however, is the challenge of integrating a complete suite of channels at a time when customers fully expect such integration.

Forget simply passing along information that the customer shared during an earlier moment in the interaction. Cross-channel communication, in today’s environment, involves recognizing when and where a customer got stuck during the online ordering process and providing him with support personalized to his sentiment and his scenario. In today’s environment, it involves recognizing that a customer inquired about a billing issue in a live chat session three months before he called a live agent to discuss a different billing issue. In today’s environment, it involves recognizing that a customer wrote a scathing Facebook post about a previous product so that the live chat agent can be mindful of those concerns when the customer uses the mobile app to inquire about a new product.

“It involves not only understanding the transaction history but also the path the customer has taken across interactions and channels, what they’re likely to want and what they’re likely to do in the future,” says Verint’s Hollenbeck.

“In the omni-channel era, the conversation doesn’t happen all at once,” elaborates Virtual Hold’s Bray. “The business must be able to capture the key moments of interaction and the data points associated with it across the conversation. It then must leverage those to drive and influence the customer interaction in the next step of the conversation.”

Neither time nor venue serve to create borders for today’s customers. They approach interactions as organic extensions of need. They call, chat, Tweet or e-mail based on what seems most appropriate when it seems most appropriate, and they anticipate the business will be able to handle the issue as if the two parties were never once disconnected.

Delivering on that expectation begins with establishing a rapid, uninterrupted flow of data between all available contact channels. It ends with enabling a business to transition from one that offers customers numerous channels in which to engage to one that fosters a legitimately seamless, consistent, unified omni-channel customer experience.

“If I’m going to bring another person into the conversation, I’ve got to be able to give that person the context of what’s been happening in the interaction so far,” says Enghouse’s Cray.

“That person should be able to immediately see the history of what has already happened during the interaction and should join in from an intelligent perspective.”

“The notion of a single source of truth is hugely important here,” adds HP’s Eakland. “The technology that a company uses needs to be able to connect to a number of different knowledge bases. That connectivity is huge, as is the need for a dashboard that can flesh out that single source of truth.”

Aware of its importance to that objective, businesses unsurprisingly rate the passing of transaction and customer data between channels to be an immensely important element of the customer experience.

Believing it more important in today’s omni-channel world than even allowing customers to engage in their preferred channels, 39% of organizations call cross-channel data communication an “essential” element of experience strategy. An additional 27% deem it “very important,” while 18% say it is at least

“moderately important.”

Only 2% of the remaining 16% of businesses believe it is of no importance in today’s business climate.

Omni-Channel: Connecting the Dots


Even more troubling than the fact that the majority of businesses have not yet established cross-channel communication is the fact that the many are not vigorous in their effort to do so.

Over the next 6-18 months, only 19% of businesses say they will significantly increase their spending on channel integration. While 38% say they will slightly increase such spending, a discouraging 33% say they will make “no change” whatsoever. Ten percent will reduce their investments

Insofar as only 7% call their cross-channel communication “extremely successful,” why are 43% of businesses demonstrating such complacency?

Despite labeling cross-channel communication as a pivotal element of the customer experience, businesses are not behaving as if it is one.

Consistent with last year’s finding, the majority of businesses are not especially successful at integrating and communicating customer and transaction data.

Only 7%, in fact, say they are extremely successful at it. A mere 9% add that they are very successful, while 25% rate their success as “moderate.”

The remaining 59% are no better than “slightly successful” at doing so. 30%, in fact, say that they are completely unable to integrate and pass data between channels.

2.3% Not at all important

13.6% Slightly important

18.2% Moderately important

27.3% Very important

38.6% Essential

29.5% Not at all

29.5% Slightly successful

25% Moderately successful

9.1% Very successful

6.8% Extremely successful

Rate the importance of integrating and then passing customer and transactional data between systems and channels in real-time (which would facilitate channel switching).

How successful is your organization at integrating and passing data between channels?

Q15

Q16


A business can be in the right channels. It can have the resources and technology to give the customer the precise experience he wants regardless of which channels he chooses for each interaction. It can have the systems and processes needed to swiftly and seamlessly move data and contextual information between its contact channels.

It might still be risk of failing in its effort to execute an omni-channel strategy.

A fundamental shift not only in the way the business executes customer engagement but in how it philosophically defines and determines the parameters for that engagement, omni-channel requires more than the right channel offerings, measurement instruments and communication systems. It also requires a team of agents—and managers—capable of adapting to this newer, more customer-centric way of thinking.

It is the agents, after all, through whom customer engagement flows. Whether the ones physically communicating with customers or the ones guiding the technological engagement touch points, agents represent the truest link between brand and customer. They simultaneously represent the biggest bottleneck on the quality of customer interactions and the biggest opportunity to transform those singular conversations into sources of lasting satisfaction and loyalty.

A revolution in the customer experience approach, therefore, necessitates a dramatic transformation in how agents are developed within the contact center. The skills, training and coaching that assured their success at communicating within a single channel—or even within multiple channels—will not necessarily empower them to aptly handle omni-channel communication.

But re-conditioning agents to approach the customer experience from an omni-channel perspective is merely the beginning of the challenge. Once it is certain its agents possess the skills and mentalities needed to thrive in an omni-channel environment, the business must then determine how to situate the agents within that environment.

If the goal is to provide a seamless, consistent experience that not only engages customers in all relevant channels but effectively renders the concept of channel moot, where should the business position its agents? Should they be

cross-trained to be able to personally handle communication in all channels and thus follow individual customers throughout the experience journey? Should they remain specialized in certain channels to provide the best possible care and then rely on effective systems and communication strategies to create the experiential seamlessness?

While few businesses have developed and implemented the right systems for creating a seamless experience, many believe the latter approach to agent positioning is the correct one. To them, creating an army of channel specialists is the optimal approach.

43% of respondents reveal that their approach to omni-channel engagement involves training agents in the specific channels they will cover. An additional 7% are cultivating their omni-channel agent pool by hiring individuals to serve as channel specialists.

When it comes to omni-channel customer management, one way is not the only one way. A lesser, but still significant, 30% of businesses train agents on all available contact channels. 7% exclusively hire agents with experience handling channels in a multi-channel environment. While that practice does not assure businesses will populate their contact centers only with agents equipped for omni-channel engagement, it does indicate their interest in locating ones that can handle a multitude of channels.

The widespread support for both approaches indicates that the answer to agent positioning will differ based on the organization, the focus of its customer experience and the nature of its customer base. There is no universal winner in the battle between cross-channel agent development and specialized agent development.

“It certainly depends upon the business and whether or not they have the ability and the need to have multi-skilled or single-skilled agents to handle the issues,” says HP’s Eakland.

“I do not think there is one right answer.”

Regardless of how a business tackles the challenge of channel preparedness, it cannot exempt itself from another fundamental one. It must focus on empowering its agents to expertly engage customers in their preferred channels and assist the customer in transferring from channel to channel and agent to agent without undue hassle or inhibition.

Omni-Channel: People Serving People


though a customer will move from channel-to-channel—sometimes during the same interaction—agents in such organizations cannot see the totality of that movement. They only have access to what goes on in their specific communication medium.

Optimistically, 57% of businesses are working to create a unified channel view for agents. 25% of businesses outright give agents a single perspective across all channels, while 30% provide a unified view of most contact channels.

Segmenting agents might be the best back office approach, but it should never rear its head in the customer experience. To avoid sharing the contact center seams with customers, businesses must provide their omni-channel agents with an omni-channel perspective of the customer experience. They can acknowledge an agent best performs in a given channel, but they must not allow him to perform in that channel without a firm, real-time, actionable understanding of what is going on across the entire channel spectrum.

“The agents have to have the right tools,” explains Enghouse’s Cray. “They have to have a way to not care about channel transition. If the customer wants to engage in a different channel, the agent’s tools must be able to handle that.

The agent also has to be able to move across those channels seamlessly while staying in the same interaction with customers. Everything the agent needs over the course of an omni-channel interaction should be in the same menu item or achievable with a single button click.”

“I think channels can be separated if there are enough differences between the specific channels” explains InMoment’s Mayne, “but you have to improve communication between the agents.”

Breaking down communication silos and establishing effective cross-channel communication systems are essential for creating that empowerment. But an open, integrated network of channels only assures data will pass from touch point to touch point. It does not assure the agent, whether asked to service customers in one channel or in all of them, is in position to put that data to use.

To make good on that element of the omni-channel customer experience, the business must put the appropriate tools and dashboards in front of agents. It must assure they have actionable access to the context, customer information, behavioral insights and transaction data needed to not only address an inquiry in real-time but sufficiently resolve the matter.

Omni-channel agents might require that universal, holistic window into the customer experience, but they do not always receive it.

In 25% of organizations, agents must access separate, disparate systems for each contact channel. Even though the omni-channel concept hinges on removing barriers between channels, agents within one quarter of businesses experience those barriers on the back end.

Believing channel specialization and channel isolation to be joint concepts, 18% of organizations only provide agents with access to their specific contact channels. Even

Will significantly increase spend

No change planned

Will moderately increase spend

Over the next 6-18 months, how will you apply budget/focus to the following objectives?

Adding channels

Upgrading/optimizing channels

Eliminating channels

Integrating channels

Will significantly reduce spend

Will moderately reduce spend

Q17


18.2% Different agents for different channels

25% Agents can access all channels in unified desktop

29.5% Agents can access most channels in single desktop/platform

25% Agents must access different platform for each channel

How do agents access the channels used for customer engagement?Q18

18.2% We don’t

6.8% We only hire contact center agents with multi-channel experience

6.8% We only hire agents to serve as channel specialists

43.2% We train agents on the specific channels they will cover

29.5% We train all agents on all channels offered by the organization

How do you develop and ensure agent competency when it comes to engaging customers in multiple channels?Q19


The omni-channel introduces a host of challenges for organizations.

It asks them to better consider the voice of the customer when establishing a holistic contact strategy. It asks them to think about harnessing the unique powers of a given contact channel while still assuring it is tied back to the organization. It asks them to remove barriers to visibility and communication so that all corners of the organization have an instant and complete view of any customer who enters the omni-channel communication network. It asks them to put agents in position to handle additional tasks in an already demanding atmosphere.

Through proper strategy and motivated, concerted effort, organizations can put themselves in position to seize the omni-channel revolution. But the reality is that no simple strategizing—let alone mere contemplation—is enough to drive legitimate change. To rise to the challenge of multi-channel and assure their systems fundamentally support the demands of the omni-channel world, businesses must demonstrate shrewd integration of technology products and revamped systems into their contact centers.

Mindful of that need, many businesses will bring solutions and technologies into their strategic lines of focus over the next 6-18 months.

Given that the voice of the customer is both the driver of the omni-channel revolution and the barometer of its successful implementation, tools that capture customer behavior will garner considerable focus.“First and foremost, you need to be able to listen to customers understand what’s going on there,” says HP’s Eakland. “If a company does not have a robust answer for being able to do that, that’s where it would need to start.”

But the journey does not end there. Eakland adds, “All of the data we want to listen to and understand is unstructured. That means there is a massive amount of data and so many different types of formats that need to be parsed and underestood – the “Big Data” needs to be pulled together. Once the listening commences, the call center and the IT department need to then shift focus to unpacking and analyzing the insights.”

Customer analytics solutions, which help illuminate both channel demand and behavior within channels, will receive increased focus from 37% of businesses over the next 6-18 months. A whopping 20% will introduce a

customer analytics offering into their contact center for the first time, which means the majority of businesses is committed to better understanding its customers.

And insofar as it reflects a desire to get closer with customers, interest in analytics solutions supports the notion that businesses are committed to customer-centricity. Since omni-channel represents the transition from a provider-centric mindset to a customer-centric one, the trend is very reassuring.

34% of businesses intend to increase focus on customer feedback solutions, while an additional 7% will implement items from that category for the first time. Insofar as customer feedback informs omni-channel strategy, provides listening opportunities for a business that wants to create a seamless experience and offers a tremendous perspective on contact center performance, the rise of customer feedback solutions represents a significant boon for the omni-channel movement.

While only 3% of businesses intend to implement web self-service solutions, a healthy 38% say they will increase their utilization of self-service. An essential part of the channel mix—and one that, in an ideal world, simultaneously boosts efficiency for customers businesses—self-service is a cornerstone of the shift away from telephony-centric engagement. While omni-channel is a fundamental approach that cannot be defined by new interest in a single channel, it is also one that hinges on the introduction of integrated, customer-centric channels to reach its fullest potential. Surging interest in web self-service will assist with that.

Targeted for utilization increases by 29% of businesses and 26% of businesses, respectively, CRM systems and IVR systems are also firmly on the radar for organizations. Both play valuable roles in the omni-channel experience, particularly when it comes to improving the quality and seamlessness of the customer journey, so the increased investments introduce additional optimism into the omni-channel discussion.

Solutions not expected to garner significant interest include virtual agent technologies (9% will reduce, while only 9% will either increase or initiate use), help desks (8% will reduce, 10% will increase), at-home agents (7% will reduce, 9% will increase), outsourcing (5% will reduce, 8% will increase or initiate) and agent recruiting and training (9% will reduce, 16% will increase).

Omni-Channel: Are Solutions the Solution?


operations around the immensely relevant focal point that is the voice of the customer. It must be welcomed as a means of removing the inefficiencies and bridging the communication gaps that produce undue customer engagement cost and unwanted customer dissatisfaction.

They might not know precisely how to get started or how to allocate budget, but the 61% of businesses that declare the transition to omni-channel to be an urgent one recognize the opportunity that accompanies the need. They know their customers want it, and they know their ability to compete on the customer experience requires it.

But they also see omni-channel as a stimulus for true transformation, true betterment and true revolution in the world of customer engagement. From connecting the back-end to improving the front-end, omni-channel represents the business world’s acknowledgement that customer service must be inherently developed and executed on the customer’s terms.

Those organizations must now break the pattern that has so long consumed customer service professionals and organizations. They must allow rhetoric and belief to transform into implementation and execution.

The omni-channel revolution leaves nothing to chance.

Unlike previous customer engagement initiatives, which were conceived, refined and constructed in the boardroom with the hope that they would resonate with customers, omni-channel is the byproduct of the external marketplace. It is the result of legitimate customer evolves, honest customer sentiment and actual customer demand.

When a business successfully transforms into an omni-channel one, it therefore automatically transforms into a more customer-centric one.

Given that reality, omni-channel should not be dismissed as the latest, unwanted burden on a business unit that already has more than enough on its plate. It should not be reduced to the latest trend or buzzword for which the hype—and accompanying investment—greatly outweigh the ultimate impact.

It must be embraced as a gateway to not only excelling at the channel element of customer management but to finally embodying the notion of customer-centricity. It must be cherished as chance to erase strategic contradictions and conflicts and center all contact center—and greater business—

Omni-Channel: You Say You Want a Revolution, But Do You Want to Make One?

Established and irrefutable is the fact that in order to truly create an omni-channel environment, a business needs to be able to consistently engage customers in all channels. It is the only way a business can truly assure it is wherever it customer wants to be whenever the customer wants to be there.

But insofar as the ultimate motivation behind omni-channel is to create the best possible experience forcustomers, stretching the

organization into all conceivable channels is not necessarily the best strategy. Limiting the number of channels offered—or at least the functionality within each channel—might assure the best overall experience.

“Businesses and contact centers can’t do everything,” explains Five9’s Dumas. “There is a balance between cost and being able to provide a high level of service across one channel and then across multiple channels.”

Omni-Channel in Action: Selecting Channels


And customers largely understand those limitations. While their “always on” mentality has empowered them to think in terms of issue rather than channel, they ultimately understand that the fundamental limitations affecting channels—or overall contact center operations—cannot simply be ignored.

“There is a point at which you have to count on the customer to understand that there are some limitations,” says Contact Solutions’ McShea. “The important thing here is to give the customer options.”

Beyond cost, businesses also encounter growing pains and maturity issues as they span channels.

“You’re starting to see some of the growing pains of omni-channel,” explains Contact Solutions’ McShea. “The contact center and the operations managers are trying to figure out how to have agents be able to support all kinds of interactions across multiple channels.

“Training problems and logistics problems emerge as businesses attempt to function as omni-channel ones.”

And insofar as an omni-channel experience is a holistic one, the adverse impact of those growing pains on one touchpoint threatens to undermine the entire customer experience.

“The crawl, walk, run strategy is an important one, because if you’re going to be good and call yourself omni-channel, you need to be great at whatever you know are the critical touch points,” says InMoment’s Mayne. “There is a cost to going too far down the path.”

But businesses must be careful about letting maturity and cost issues stifle channel strategy. Once businesses begin making decisions based on internal concerns rather than the voice of the customer, they exit the omni-channel realm and slide back into multi-channel mode.

Limits are acceptable, necessary and even valuable, but they need to be created by the voice of the customer. By understanding where customers truly want to engage, how customers truly want to engage and what they truly expect when they engage, businesses can make appropriate decisions about when to

say yes and when to say no to given channels. They can adhere to the spirit of omni-channel without actually being in all channels.

“First, businesses have to understand who their customers are, what their demographics are and how they want to engage to determine whether it makes sense to engage in a given channel,” says Five9’s Dumas. “Once they figure out which channels are relevant, they then have to look at what service levels are appropriate in each channel.”

“The best-in-class are asking questions about where interaction needs to happen,” declares InMoment’s Mayne. By asking those questions in conjunction with an analysis of the “science behind customer behavior in those channels,” businesses will not only determine which channels are important but “why those channels are important to customers.”

Once businesses develop an understanding of where they need to be—and what they need to be within each of those channels—they can start to emphasize training and performance. They can condition agents to best account for the intricacies of a given channel, and they can best assure the effort within each channel is productive and efficient.

That type of practice is not, however, exclusive to an omni-channel business. It is also the blueprint for operating a multi-channel organization.

A business elevates to omni-channel when it not only assures its channels are optimized but calibrates that optimization against the business’ overarching goals. How can the nature of the channel—and the performance within that channel—be leveraged to create the best possible overall customer experience?

“You absolutely want be able to measure the separate KPIs for each particular channel,” says VHT’s Bray. “Whatever channel you might be on, understand that you have to measure specific performance within that channel.

“But when looking at the overall customer experience, you really need, from the customer’s lens to understand how all the channels are coming together. Are we, from the customer’s perspective, consistently delivering first contact resolution?”


18.2% Yes, we already have singular, holistic customer experience reporting in place

70.5% No, but we have plans to develop a singular, holistic view of our customer experience

11.4% No, we have no plans to develop a singular, holistic view of our customer experience

Do you have a single, holistic view of your customer experience across all channels?Q20

Asked whether they have a singular, holistic view of each customer, only 18% of respondents answered in the affirmative. 71% said they are planning to develop one, while a discouraging 11% demonstrate no interest in pursuing such an omni-channel view.

For omni-channel to work, that perspective is essential.

“You need to be able to follow the customer as they cross channels and maintain the context and personalization,” explains Verint’s Hollenbeck. “The effort to the customer should be minimal as you, through behavioral analytics and customer feedback, literally have a view into the customer journey and begin to determine where they’re likely to go and what they’re likely to want to do going forward.”

Businesses do not need to treat each channel as identical, but they need to assure the channels can speak to each other. They also need to make sure objectives like first contact resolution represent the priority in all channels; that assures the channels are working in unity to provide the best possible outcome for customers.

Accepting the reality that channels will be operated distinctly—with distinct agents—in many business, InMoment’s Mayne puts the burden on businesses to craft proper backend communication.

“Because there are specific agents with experience in the specific channels, it makes sense for them to reside in those channel, but you have to improve communication between the agents in different channels,” explains Mayne. “What do we know about how these customers have contacted us and how can we give visibility to the agents that reside in all areas of the business?”

Faithful that specialization is a product of legitimate customer-centricity and not organizational inertia, Mayne adds, “I think businesses are attempting to do the right thing by transferring you to the right agent to get the best experience.

“But by the time customers get to the next channel [of a multi-channel], they have already stated their issues or provided their phone numbers to the company, and they’re being asked to do it again.”

“For many organizations, the unsolved piece of the puzzle is being able to deliver that [seamlessness and consistency] across channels,” concurs HP’s Eakland. “In an omni-channel world, organizations must be able to let a customer start an inquiry in a chat session, move to the website, come back to a phone representative in the call center and have the information passed consistently and completely across channels so that the customer does not have to repeat anything.”

Omni-Channel in Action: Breaking Down the Walls – And Not Just the Channels


misalignment creates gaps, inefficiencies and pain points on the front end of the business. Customers are then asked to bear the brunt of that destruction.

In addition to asking customers to endure hardship during the experience, organizational disharmony also sends a confusing—and troubling—message about the organization. Just as customers approach customer engagement based on issue and need rather than channel specificity, they also approach the business as a singular entity. They expect to receive the same—if not better—commitment to efficient, effective and accurate service no matter when or where they connect. They expect to be perceived in the same way by a business of a singular culture no matter when or where they connect.

When different units of the business do not adhere to that singular mindset, it not only undermines the customer’s transactional experience but damages his fundamental level connection to the brand.

The good news is that the omni-channel revolution is emerging at an opportune time.

“We’re seeing the emergence of businesses looking for ways to transform customer engagement across their operations,” says Verint’s Hollenbeck. “And market demand is accelerating the need to take a focused approach to customer engagement optimization.”

Since, as Virtual Hold’s Bray says, “you have to get high enough in the organization to get the mandate,” the executive rank’s growing appreciation for customer experience optimization gives organizational harmony—and channel unity--a fighting chance of getting on the budgetary radar.

With organizational support emerging, customer demand erupting, the roadmap for action clear and the importance of execution even clearer, the time is now for businesses to transition from thinking to doing.

The time is now to embrace the omni-channel revolution.

Technology capable of bridging the communication gaps and illuminating the customer journey is essential.

The right technology, in fact, will not only reduce communication barriers but actually guide the customer—and agents—in the most productive manner possible. While that is happening, the ideal technology also shares context with the agent so that he is prepared to respond, with personalization and relevance, once the customer arrives.

Systems that can facilitate that level of interaction are the building blocks of an omni-channel experience.

“What if an interaction actually started on the website?” asks Enghouse’s Cray. “Whichever agent is going to be in that interaction, regardless of channel, has to be able to see that complete picture of what the customer has done before, including seeing what pages they were on and what inquiries they made. They must also have access to history from previous interactions.”

Although robust, integrated systems, unified desktops and improved communication channels can repair many of the busted seams in the customer experience, they cannot wholly account for what creates those seams.

“It starts with where the budgets lie,” explains Virtual Hold’s Bray. “There are often siloed areas within the business.

“Traditional channels are almost always cost centers, and those are managed differently from, say, some of the social channels or really any channels outside of telephony. Because they’re budgeted differently, they’re staffed differently. You end up with a very disjointed, segmented series of solutions across channels.”

While the ills of organizational silos are neither new phenomena nor exclusive to the customer management realm, they have a particularly destructive impact in the age of omni-channel.

Failure to unify operations does not simply create headaches behind closed doors the way it would in another circumstance. When it comes to the customer experience,

customer expencee i r - qpc · becoming an omni-channel business is an improper, misguided or...

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