Tema
Multi-experience in focus !
For many years Omnichannel was the main strategic focus for customer services companies across all verticals. Numerous Omnichannel initiatives were undertaken with the goal of offering superb experience to customers (CX) and thereby winning their loyalty with all the related business gains. However, it seems that despite all efforts and investments something went wrong. Recently many organizations, regardless of industry, seem to be experiencing “Omnichannel fatigue”; a disenchantment with the capabilities and results of Omnichannel. In addition, according to Forrester, during the last couple of years CX hasn’t been improving. On the contrary, it lingers at the same, mostly mediocre, levels with excellent experiences being rare exceptions, not the norm.
What went wrong?
For years the focus has been on channels. It started with multichannel, then moved to omnichannel, then moved to customer journey. And throughout, channels have dictated the experience that customers have received. Organisations have battled with integrating these channels, having a single view across them, staffing them and so on. However, it turned out that this is just an infrastructure and that we need new concept which will ensure that infrastructure delivers real value – for both customer and the company.
The conclusion is that the focus should be on experience and not the channels. In other words, the channels should just be in the background. The concept of a channel-free customer journey is key.The journey needs to just happen, regardless of the channel and everything should centre on the interaction and the experience it requires rather than the channel itself. Instead of focusing on channels, companies need to work on bringing together the necessary experience enablers at every point of customer journey and this is where efforts and investments should be focused. Omnichannel, as we know it today, is just underlying infrastructure.
Tvrtko Stošić, Avaya consultant
