Omnichannel contact center
Contact Center

The Hidden Power of an Omnichannel Contact Center

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Read Time: 18.5 min

Table of Contents

Intro

What comes to mind when you think of the best forms of customer communication? Traditional advertising, digital display ads, email, social media or phone calls? The truth is the best form of customer communication isn’t tied to one specific channel. It’s about reaching customers — and allowing them to reach you — wherever they are. In the past, shopping was a linear experience with in-person interactions. Today, the customer journey is more complex and centralized. 

This article will explore the benefits of omnichannel outsourcing and how to effectively communicate with customers across various channels in an omnichannel contact center and adapt to their changing preferences.

Key takeaways

  • Why? The way people shop has changed and become more connected, and as a result, customer support needs to be more streamlined and centralized. 
  • What? An omnichannel contact center integrates customer communication across channels to provide a seamless experience and superior customer care.
  • Who? Most businesses could benefit from an omnichannel contact center approach, as it provides a customer service experience that meets (and exceeds) customer needs and expectations and gives a competitive advantage.
  • How? Omnichannel contact center best practices include humanizing customer service, integrating tools, tracking customer data and more, and it all begins with finding the best software.

The modern customer journey

While customers want a smooth, streamlined experience, customer journeys may include:

  • Shopping online
  • Doing online research and comparisons
  • Shopping in-store
  • Using an app
  • Browsing social media
  • Making a phone call
  • Reading Google reviews 
  • And more

Having associates in-store to answer customer questions and needs may have been enough in the past. But now, the customer support experience has evolved alongside the customer shopping experience — and it will keep evolving!

Beyond in-store experiences, many brands and businesses also began offering support call centers. Then, customer care expanded to include things like email, web chat and SMS. Now, customer care can take place in various channels, from phone to web to social media to AI and more. 

The more channels available for a customer to reach you, the more important it becomes to have an omnichannel contact center to provide a streamlined experience for superior customer support.

What is an omnichannel contact center?

Omnichannel contact centers integrate customer communication across many channels through streamlined technology and systems to provide a seamless customer experience and superior customer care.

Many brands may have customer contact or call centers, but not all contact centers are omnichannel contact centers (even if they manage customer support across many channels)

Sound a bit confusing? Keep reading to understand the different types of contact centers. 

In omnichannel contact centers, advanced technology and systems seamlessly integrate all the channels you operate in. This provides superior, personalized omnichannel customer support while saving your team time through streamlined operational processes.

Omnichannel contact center services

Omnichannel contact centers, whether managed in-house or through omnichannel outsourcing, provide a variety of services and features, including: 

  • Inbound and outbound voice calls
  • CRM integration 
  • Customer satisfaction tools & customer engagement analytics 
  • Email, web chat and SMS 
  • Social media
  • Cloud-based software or other technology to integrate customer communications

As the name suggests, omnichannel contact centers can handle many different channels, from voice calls to text and web chat to email and social media. If you’re weighing inbound vs. outbound call center capabilities, omnichannel contact centers can accommodate both. 

Of course, omnichannel contact centers may not handle every channel in existence — and you should customize what channels you need for your business! However, regardless of the channels you support, an omnichannel solution will provide advanced software and technology that integrate all customer communications to a single source.

This centralization allows agents and other team members to easily understand a customer’s entire contact history when interacting with them. Technology integrates customer communication and streamlines internal processes.

Do I need an omnichannel contact center?

While this may sound good, you may wonder, “Does my business actually need an omnichannel contact center?”

According to a research study by Nemertes Research, omnichannel contact center usage increased from 8% in 2016 to 31% in 2019. While this means that omnichannel centers are definitely on the rise, they’re still much less common than they should be — especially given that new communications channels and technologies are constantly being created. 

Most businesses could benefit from an omnichannel contact center approach. Not only does it provide a customer service experience that meets (and exceeds) customer needs and expectations, but it also gives you a competitive advantage over the 69% of businesses not delivering an omnichannel experience to their customers. 

Still not sure? Omnichannel contact centers can be a great solution for any business that: 

  • Needs to keep up with the demand of customer service inquiries. 
  • Wants to reach their audience on more channels than just voice calls.
  • Needs to provide a streamlined customer experience. 
  • Works in an industry with a long customer purchase journey (customers often contact you many times throughout the purchase process). 
  • Wants to optimize internal processes.

Omnichannel customer experience example

To illustrate what an omnichannel customer journey might look like, consider a fictional retail company that sells cameras online and in brick-and-mortar stores.

Let’s say a customer named Julie is looking for a new camera. She starts her buying journey online, visiting the retailer’s website to research their cameras in product descriptions and customer reviews. As she browses, she begins a live chat with a customer service agent to get more information on specifications. The agent answers her questions and invites her to visit a nearby store to learn more in person.

When she visits the physical store, Julie tests out the camera she wants and decides to buy. At checkout, she signs up for the loyalty program, which she can manage through the retailer’s mobile app. Late that day, Julie gets a follow-up email thanking her for the purchase and offering suggestions for setting up the product. After a few days, she experiences a problem and uses her mobile app to contact support. The team can see her purchase history and previous chats to quickly solve her problem without rehashing the details.

Throughout this experience, Julie interacted easily with the company through several means, including live chat, the website, the physical store, email and the mobile app. Each touchpoint offered her a personalized and consistent experience. This omnichannel interaction made her experience easy and increased her brand loyalty.

Omnichannel contact centers vs. traditional call centers

If your business already has a traditional call center, you may wonder what the difference is between traditional call centers and omnichannel contact centers.

  • Traditional call centers manage voice calls and may provide inbound or outbound call support. They’re a conventional model that offers a solution for traditional customer needs. However, modern customers require modern support. Traditional call centers are much more limited than contact centers, especially if the contact center is omnichannel.
  • An omnichannel contact center provides expanded support to meet modern needs and expectations, creating a more cohesive customer experience and a more streamlined business operation.

Take a look at some of the differences between traditional call centers vs. omnichannel contact centers.

Traditional Call Centers Multi-Channel Contact Centers Omnichannel Contact Centers
Manages voice calls
Can manage both inbound and outbound calls and support
Manages multiple channels of communication, from voice to email, SMS, web chat, and more
Allows customers to contact you from any channel
Integrates all customer communications through advanced technological systems and processes
Streamlines business objectives to save on costs and optimize KPIs
Delivers top-of-the-line customer support and experiences

Types of contact centers

Companies can use various types of contact centers, from multi-channel to omnichannel contact centers. As the name suggests, multichannel contact centers can handle customer communication across many channels. However, they lack the technology or processes to integrate all of those customer communications into a streamlined platform. 

Omnichannel contact centers integrate all of the customer’s communications and inquiries into a single platform, allowing team members to view the entire history of a customer’s contact and provide exceptional service, reduce handling time and increase customer satisfaction.

With a traditional call center or multi-channel contact center, customers may have to reach out several times to get their request handled. Each time, they’ll be stuck re-explaining their situation — and what other agents told them previously — repeatedly, increasing frustration and handling time. 

With an omnichannel center, each team member can see the previous communications by each customer, quickly get up to speed (without needing the customer to re-explain themselves!) and solve problems quickly and effectively.

Omnichannel contact center benefits

Studies have shown that customers who receive good customer care are 3.5x more likely to make repeat purchases. Not just that — 32% of American consumers say they would stop shopping at a brand they loved after just one bad customer experience. After a few bad experiences? 59% of consumers would walk away from the brand.

It’s obvious, then, that providing superior omnichannel support isn’t just for your customers — it’s also to benefit your sales and retention strategies. 

There are many benefits of an omnichannel contact center, including: 

  • Improved brand consistency and messaging across all customer communication
  • Increased sales and growth 
  • Superior customer service that gives you a competitive advantage
  • Improved customer retention, loyalty, and satisfaction 
  • Cost savings for your team, as well as improved KPIs and metrics

Let’s dive into some of the biggest omnichannel contact center benefits.

Better understand the customer journey

The customer journey is the steps your customers take to make a purchase or resolve an issue when they contact your company. To provide exceptional customer service, you need to be familiar with the process a customer goes through to get in touch with you, from the first step of deciding how to contact you all the way to finding a favorable resolution. 

One of the biggest benefits of an omnichannel contact center is the ability to access and understand customer data to help develop, track and understand pain points along the customer journey. 

An omnichannel contact center centralizes all customer communication and data in one place, allowing you to see and analyze the customer journey more easily. It also allows you to improve the customer journey by reducing handle time and increasing first-contact resolutions.

Improve the customer experience

Did you know that 56% of customers won’t wait on hold for more than 2 minutes? 

We live in an instant world, and customers expect quick — if not immediate — service and answers. An omnichannel contact center allows you to improve customer experiences through faster resolution, integrated systems and a streamlined process

Everyone hates waiting on hold. But if customers can contact you via web chat, Facebook DM or text, they won’t have to. What’s more, responding to customers via chat is often much faster than a phone call, reducing overall handle time and allowing contact center agents to help more customers. 

It’s always frustrating to repeat your situation repeatedly to different agents as you try to solve your problem. But with integrated omnichannel contact center technology, customers won’t have to. Your agents will know exactly what’s already been communicated to the customer and won’t have to rely on tedious questions to solve the customer’s problem. 

All of this saves the customer time and energy and creates loyal customers.

Optimize contact center KPIs

An omnichannel contact center is useful for customers and one of the best ways to optimize contact center systems and KPIs. 

Another benefit of omnichannel contact centers is the ability to streamline internal processes, reducing overhead costs and improving KPIs. Whether you’re tracking average handle time, first contact resolutions, abandonment rate, CSTAT or other call center metrics, an omnichannel contact center solution can provide you with the data and technology to improve important KPIs.

Improve control over costs

An omnichannel contact center may initially seem more costly and time-consuming than having agents dedicated to specific channels, but it’s actually a more cost-effective approach. 

Omnichannel contact center tools direct routine inquiries away from human agents so they can spend their time and expertise solving the most complicated issues. This helps operational efficiency and cost control by maximizing agent productivity and reducing staffing requirements. In turn, omnichannel contact center efficiency can boost Net Promoter Score (NPS) and other metrics that correlate directly to revenue. Strong omnichannel-focused solutions have proven to increase annual revenue by 9.5% year-over-year!

Implementing an omnichannel contact center also optimizes resource allocation and streamlines operational costs. By consolidating communication channels, contact centers can reduce infrastructure expenses and minimize the need for disparate systems. This centralized approach saves money and provides more precise insights into expenditure for more informed budget management.

Make agents more efficient

Omnichannel contact center agents have a unified view of all customer interactions across channels. This unified data can increase employee productivity by 10%! With integrated customer data readily available, agents can quickly access customer histories and preferences, resolve issues faster, increase first-contact resolution rates and reduce average handling times. On top of that, omnichannel contact centers don’t need to switch between multiple systems, which saves even more time and error.

Access deeper consumer insights

Centralized customer interactions lead to more complete customer behavior and preference data. An omnichannel contact center integrates CRM systems and analytics tools, providing invaluable insights into consumer trends and pain points across various touchpoints. These insights empower more tailored services and marketing strategies, which may increase customer engagement and satisfaction.

Multichannel vs. omnichannel contact centers

People have a tendency to confuse multichannel and omnichannel contact centers. While they share similarities, they take different approaches to managing customer expectations.

  • The goal of a multichannel contact center is to have a presence across many channels without the focus on integrating the experience. Each communication channel operates independently and may be managed by different teams or systems. Without channel integration, customers may experience disjointed service when switching between channels. For instance, a customer might need to repeat information when switching from email to phone support.
  • Omnichannel contact centers reduce redundant tasks and provide customized services based on comprehensive data. In an omnichannel contact center, all communication channels are integrated into a single system for seamless interactions, no matter the channel. Agents can also access a centralized view of customer interactions across channels to provide personalized service and understand the full context of each interaction.

Omnichannel call center best practices

Despite the clear benefits of omnichannel call centers, it’s still important for businesses and organizations to follow omnichannel contact center best practices to get the most benefit and the strongest customer support. 

Here are six best practices to optimize your omnichannel call center and provide standout customer experiences that build loyalty.

1: Structure for brand and service consistency

The stronger and more consistent your brand voice, the more easily recognizable you’ll be — and the more market share you’ll be able to capture. 

Of course, it’s not just your brand voice and communications that need to stay consistent across channels — it’s the entire brand experience. That means if you’re super quick to answer phone calls from customers but never bother to respond to social media messages (despite having a social media presence), customers will have inconsistent experiences with your brand, leading to frustration and decreased brand loyalty. 

A recent survey found that while most call centers aim to answer at least 80% of calls within 20 seconds, more than 60% of companies never respond to customer emails. To optimize your omnichannel contact center practices, aim to make your brand experience consistent across all channels — both in terms of messaging and engagement. A true omnichannel approach will make this much easier by introducing tools and processes to streamline internal and external communications.

2: Outline the customer journey and touchpoints

The integrated data from an omnichannel contact center strategy provides ample data from which you can construct an understanding of various customer journeys. 

Not only that, but you’ll also be able to see all of the customer touchpoints experienced at various stages of the journey — from in-store experiences to phone calls, web chat and website messaging to transactional emails, social media messages and more. 

With this data in front of you, you can develop outlines of all customer touchpoints and align your brand and messaging across them. You can also develop a deeper understanding of the pain points across the customer journey and optimize your omnichannel approach to provide a frictionless experience for customers.

3: Integrate your tools & communications

The best omnichannel contact centers rely on advanced technology to track customer interactions and engagement. Then, that data and communications will be integrated across channels into one seamless platform

While this can be limited to just customer communications, it can also be expanded to include online purchases and transactions, reservations, website and mobile app data, product availability, in-store data and more to create a seamless shopping experience at all customer touchpoints.

4: Humanize Your Customer Service

While many claim AI and chatbots are the way of the future (and certainly an important part of your omnichannel strategy), there’s no substitute for the personal touch and empathy of a one-on-one support call with a customer-obsessed team member. In fact, nearly 90% of consumers prefer to speak with a real human when resolving a concern or issue with a business. 

 

At Global Response, we specialize in creating a human-centric partnership powered by technology so that our customer-obsessed brand associates can provide your customers with the highest level of personal attention and care. There are few better ways to build trust with your brand than by providing exceptional customer service where the consumer knows they will be taken care of. 


See how FILA improved brand trust and loyalty and created repeat customers through Global Response’s human-centric omnichannel approach.

5: Track and analyze customer data & preferences

Of course, all of the data that an omnichannel contact center solution can provide does no good if it’s not tracked, analyzed and used. 

One of the best practices for your omnichannel contact center is to use all the data and customer preferences being acquired. This is important not only for your product — what common complaints might be eliminated through a feature fix, a helpful guide on your website or some other means — but also for customer preferences in general. 

Customer preferences evolve over time. New channels might become more important within your omnichannel contact center strategy and older channels might need to be dropped to allocate resources more efficiently. 

In addition, tracking and analyzing customer preferences and history can help you provide a more personalized customer experience in the future, creating more loyalty and happy customers.

6: Personalize the customer experience

Creating a personalized customer experience is one of the best ways to optimize your omnichannel contact center strategy. 

Customers expect speedy service that understands who they are, what they want and what their needs are. The best way to know the answers to those questions and provide solutions? Pay attention to what your customers are already telling you. 

By analyzing customer data and history, including how they contact you, what questions they’re asking, what products or services they’ve been interested in the past, what issues they’re running into and more, you can discover how to best personalize their experience in the future. 

The more personalized the experience, the quicker and more effective the customer service resolution.

How to transition to an omnichannel call center

It’s easier than you think to transition to an omnichannel call center. Most companies with existing call centers or contact centers can make the transition within 4-8 weeks. If you have a complicated existing call center, the process may take slightly longer, but with the right tools and processes from your new omnichannel contact center, the transition will be easy and smooth. 

When onboarding with Global Response, the process is carefully managed by an experienced project management professional, ensuring that your onboarding and transition process is as smooth as possible. 

Once you’re ready to onboard or transition to an omnichannel call center, there are five key elements or stages that will be worked through: 

  1. Technology: Our team will work with you to ensure our technology stack integrates with your current tech and to onboard your team’s customer communications into our tools and tech platforms.
  2. Recruiting and hiring: We make sure that our agents are dedicated to your business and become brand specialists — which means we’ll recruit and hire dedicated agents committed to your brand. 
  3. Training: We’ll make sure your new brand specialists are trained on best practices for call center and omnichannel contact center management, customer service, your brand guidelines and culture and everything else they need to know.
  4. Transition to production: Once the above steps are completed, we’ll be ready to fully transition your contact center management to our Global Response team. They’ll handle omnichannel contact center management, voice calls, help desk tech support and more.
  5. Measurement and reporting: Our involvement doesn’t end once you’re up and running. Our experienced leaders make sure we’re measuring the KPIs necessary to take your business to the next level and will analyze and report on customer data and service analytics to grow your brand and optimize our contact center processes.

Key features of omnichannel contact center software

An effective omnichannel contact center begins with excellent software that can consolidate and unify customer communication — but with all the options out there, it’s hard to know what you really need. Here are a few key features an omnichannel cloud contact center software needs to have for maximum impact:

  • Easy channel integration: Integrates communication channels so customers can switch without losing context
  • CRM integration: Integrates with CRM systems to enhance customer profiles with additional behavior and preference insights and aligns customer support efforts with sales activities 
  • Collaboration tools: Offers internal messaging, collaboration tools and access to shared knowledge bases and internal resources to help agents solve issues efficiently 
  • Scalable and flexible: Can scale and be customized to meet the needs of all business sizes and needs
  • Based in the cloud: Provides remote accessibility, scalability and cost efficiency by reducing the need for significant infrastructure investments
  • Reliable security: Protects customer data, complies with regulations and offers role-based access controls so only authorized personnel can see sensitive customer information
  • Self-service capabilities: Provides customers with instant solutions like AI chatbots and similar resources
  • Customer journey data: Yields customer journey insights to identify trends, pain points and opportunities for improvement
  • Performance reporting: Offers detailed analytics on KPIs such as average handle time, first call resolution and customer satisfaction and real-time dashboards

FAQ

Omnichannel contact centers integrate customer communication across many channels through streamlined technology and systems to provide a seamless customer experience and superior customer care.

Most businesses could benefit from an omnichannel contact center approach. Not only does it provide a customer service experience that meets (and exceeds) customer needs and expectations, but it also gives you a competitive advantage over the 69% of businesses that are not delivering an omnichannel experience to their customers.

Ready to benefit from an omnichannel contact center? Global Response is here as your go-to source for omnichannel contact center solutions. Explore how our services can transform your customer support, heighten engagement, and streamline your operations. Let’s create seamless, personalized interactions that keep your customers coming back. Connect with a consultant at Global Response to get started!

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