Why should Retail Businesses use Omnichannel Customer Service?
The customer service experience is evolving rapidly. The traditional call centre is no longer the only option for customers who need help. Increasingly, they are turning to channels like chat, messenger, social media, apps and even text messaging to get the assistance they need. This put added pressure on retailers to design a seamless customer service experience across all channels. That's where omnichannel customer service comes in.
By using a variety of channels to communicate with customers, retailers can ensure that they can reach and cater to customers in the most convenient way for them. Additionally, omnichannel customer service can help retailers collect data about customer preferences and behaviour and analyze their shopping trends, improving marketing and merchandising efforts.
What is Omnichannel Customer Service?
Omnichannel customer service focuses on connecting all the channels like social media, web, mobile, physical store and email service, empowering customers to have more control in their purchase journey. The idea is to provide customers with a choice of how they want to interact with your company and then deliver a consistent experience across all of those channels, no matter how customers choose to reach out.
By using omnichannel customer service, businesses can improve customer satisfaction, reduce customer support costs, and increase sales.
Strategies used by retail brands to deliver exceptional omnichannel customer service
Topshop is a British multinational fashion retailer of women’s clothing, shoes, make-up and accessories that operates exclusively online. It has around 510 shops worldwide, of which some 300 were in the UK.
Turn social media conversations into instantly shoppable live trends on mobile and physical stores
Topshop implemented an omnichannel strategy intelligently that customers could find themselves near the Topshop store whenever they were reminded of the brand using social media hashtags and digital screens. They made themselves reachable on customers' preferred channels and delivered exceptional service to their customers.
Unleash the power of social media hashtags
TopShop used six full-motion screens in key London cities to take the London fashion week to the POS in regional flagship stores. Each billboard site was hand-picked to be within 10 minutes walking proximity of a TOPSHOP physical store. Customers used the Tweet @TOPSHOP with the trending hashtag they had just seen. Example #Seventies, #Utility, #Modernism, and so on). They received an instant link to the curated product, which helped purchase immediately from their smartphones.
Use of physical store for a promising shopping experience
Customers were also prompted to visit the Topshop store within walking distance, see the trends, and shop. The brand effectively used the #LIVETRENDS to follow the fashion conversation from bloggers, stylists and editors at London Fashion Week. The data is analyzed to identify key catwalk and street style trends in real-time and then published the #LIVETRENDS content across all digital channels. The campaign translated the looks from the catwalk into a group of Topshop products available now for purchase in-store or mobile, allowing customers to be ahead of the trending fashion.
The #LIVETRENDS campaign was a mammoth success, both in consumer engagement and ROI. More than 3.8 million customers engaged using the hashtag on Twitter. Topshop saw a sales uplift of 75% on products featured online during the DOOH campaign (Digital screens near the Topshop store), contributing to an 11:1 return on its investment.
Topshop realized the benefits of an omnichannel strategy thanks to this beautiful integration of the physical and digital worlds.
Benefits of omnichannel customer service and why should retail brands use it?
1. Boost customer retention rate
Are you aware that companies with omnichannel service retain 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement?
Customers churn out if they are unhappy with the brand's pricing, service, and reach. Omnichannel customer service ensures that customers get consistent responses and assistance from all the touchpoints/channels of the brand. It helps build positive experiences that can go a long way in building brand trust and loyalty. Happy customers buy more and recommend the brand to others, increasing the Customer Retention Rate (CRR).
Some of the biggest retail brands in India that increased in-store customer footfalls and improved customer retention rate using the Fynd Omnichannel platform are Ruosh, Spykar, Superdry.
Must Read: 5 Highly Effective Customer Retention Strategies for Omnichannel Retailing
2. Improved customer engagement
Omnichannel customer service ensures that you are available for the customer whenever and wherever they want to connect with the brand on all channels. You can assist them in their purchase, solve queries and answer their questions when needed.
For example, some customers prefer to call you on Toll-free numbers, chatbots, email, check FAQs, while some prefer social media like Twitter to reach out to the brands. An omnichannel service adopted by the brands is the best way to reach out to customers and assist them on any preferred channels.
Read Now: 5 Working Strategies to increase Omnichannel Customer Engagement
3. Deliver super-fast response to customers
As all channels of a retail brand providing omnichannel customer service are connected, it permits retail brands to collect unified customer data and better understand customers' needs and preferences.
After that, it becomes effortless for retailers to attend to customer queries in the shortest possible time and deliver a super-fast response to customers in a personalized and consistent manner on all channels.
4. Get valuable customer insight
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What if retail brands get collated or single customer data instead of fragmented data at a single place?
Fynd Omnichannel customer service for a retail brand helps you gather real-time customer data from channels and touchpoints, used to curate custom offerings and a focussed marketing strategy to meet every customer's needs. Retail brands get insightful data like
Sociodemographic data: Customer name, age, gender, country, region and city
Transactional data: Get all data related to customer purchase: Date of purchase, channels used, mode of payment, product purchased, past purchase history and more.
Navigation data: Generated by customers on different channels like the website or mobile apps
Interaction data: Includes all the customer touchpoints with the brands like social media engagement, customer service, refunds etc.
5. Provide service to all customer groups
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Retail customers show dynamic behaviour when it comes to using different channels for shopping. Every customer has a preferred channel that offers convenience, ease of shopping and excellent ability to reach brands whenever & wherever they want. Some customers use messenger/chatbots. Some use email, while some use social media channels to connect the brands. Retail businesses can’t afford to miss such a big pie of customers shopping from on-demand channels.
So, they need to prepare themselves to provide service to all customer groups. Fynd omnichannel customer service can help analyze the channels by customer's use, needs, and preferences and effectively cater to these customer groups to grow brand visibility across channels and retain loyal customers.
Conclusion
It's no secret that brick-and-mortar retailers are struggling these days. The war for attracting every single customer to retail brands is being fought online, and those retail businesses that don't have a robust omnichannel customer service strategy will lose out.
By providing omnichannel customer service, retail brands can ensure that they reach as many customers as possible and provide a positive customer service experience. Additionally, it can help businesses gain insights into customer behaviour and preferences to improve operations and drive growth.
These benefits are compelling enough why every retail brand should be implementing omnichannel customer service. Fynd Omnichannel Solutions connect your online & offline channels to create one single line of agile operations for faster business growth & premium customer experience. Let's Connect today to learn more about it.
