Is your company ready for omnichannel?

17 October 2021

Discover the changes in consumption patterns that are reconfiguring businesses and the connection between physical and virtual stores.

Not long ago, one of the predictions circulating in the business world was that the online universe had come to undermine offline. Many believed that the growth of virtual stores would mean the closure of physical stores and traditional commerce. But what you see today is exactly the opposite. Major global e-commerce leaders, like Amazon and Zalando, are starting to open their physical stores. Conversely, companies that did not have an online presence are opening their own e-commerce channels and allowing customers to choose whether to receive the product at home or pick it up at the nearest establishment. Why are all these changes happening? Because the customer is omnichannel. And those who do not adapt to this reconfiguration of consumption risk not surviving.

The term omnichannel means “multichannel,” but it does not only refer to the fact that a company has multiple channels to sell its products. The concept goes a bit further. It concerns total integration between physical stores, e-commerce, and consumers, and thus says much more about a unified and immersive consumption experience. You might be wondering: what drives a leader like Amazon to open a physical store? The answer is simple: to further enhance your customer experience, make it more emotional, after all, what avid reader doesn’t love to touch books, flip through them, or even spend a few hours reading their favorite title in a bookstore?

The customer experience is, today, the core of business (Customer Centric), and companies are doing everything they can to adapt to this new reality, as their consumers have become omnichannel even before them. And there’s no more time to wait to see if this new consumption model will affect your business. You need to act fast to not fall behind your competitors!

The numbers say it: the consumer is omnichannel

Studies reveal that one of the priorities of large companies is to adapt to the omnichannel model, improving their relationships with consumers. According to a survey conducted with 65 major retail companies across Europe, 46% already have a multichannel service strategy, integrating the physical point of sale with other channels.

This new perspective of companies is due to statistics showing changes in consumption patterns. 96% of consumers conduct online research before purchasing a product in a physical store, meaning online is already helping offline. In another way, the survey shows that 93% check if it’s possible to buy online so they don’t have to go to a physical store.

Another survey, “Omnichannel Customer Service Gap,” conducted by Zendesk, revealed that 87% of respondents believe brands need to work harder to create a seamless experience for their consumers. This shows that integration between various channels must also focus on ensuring that the consumer experience, moving between online and offline media, is frictionless. It can start a virtual purchase and end in-store and vice versa. Hence the need for channels to be well integrated, meaning the customer experience in each of them must be the same.

Is it worth investing in omnichannel?

If you’re still not convinced that your company needs to quickly seek strategies to adapt to the new multichannel consumption scenario, we share a video that will help you rethink the future of retail. It’s a talk given at TEDx Talks by Kilian Wagner, CEO of Viu Ventures AG, a Swiss startup that has stood out in terms of innovation. During his talk, Wagner demonstrates that today it’s necessary to have a holistic view of the customer, as they go through different paths to complete a purchase.

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The specialist argues that online and offline are different worlds that are growing together and that it’s necessary to be ready to synergistically leverage these two important worlds for business. Through examples, Wagner demonstrates that consumers are becoming more demanding: they expect merchandise to be available online, but they also want reliable and impeccable service in-store. To remain competitive, companies must act quickly and intelligently.

It’s also important to emphasize another point: if your company does not invest in omnichannel, it will likely lose a customer who entered the physical or virtual store and left empty-handed. If the shopping experience does not involve transitioning between channels, the consumer may abandon the purchase and turn to the competition. So, you can’t take the risk. It’s necessary to invest in this trend that is here to stay.

How does it impact costs?

Being an omnichannel company does not necessarily mean spending more to ensure the best customer experience. The equation should be exactly the opposite: it’s a fundamental adaptation to increase earnings. If your business has a perfect integration between online and offline stores, greater sales opportunities will surely be created, and there will be a greater tendency for customer loyalty.

Imagine a consumer is searching for a smartphone on the Internet and discovers your online store. They like a product, check the reviews, and are convinced to buy, but first, they want to see up close how the camera works and test some features. If you have a physical store integrated into the online experience, this customer will come to visit you, your employees can welcome them already knowing their expectations, and if the customer approves the smartphone, they can purchase it right there or, if they prefer, take advantage of your online store offer. In this case, both online and offline media converge to complete a purchase. And this can happen with many customers. People have gone through multiple channels before completing a purchase. So investing in omnichannel is not an expense but an opportunity.

Is my company ready to be omnichannel?

This is a complex issue involving a series of factors, such as:

1. Planning

The customer wants to have the best possible experience on every channel, and most importantly, this experience must be similar. Therefore, it’s important to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each channel and make the necessary changes. Is your physical store organized and has helpful salespeople? Does your e-commerce channel offer the best user navigation experience (UX)? How is data integration between one channel and another? These are questions that need to be evaluated before starting an omnichannel strategy.

2. Know your customer well

To be an omnichannel company, it’s necessary to adopt the Customer Centric philosophy, in other words, all actions and processes must be focused on a single purpose: customer satisfaction. And, to offer a unique and engaging experience, it’s essential to know your consumer market well.

Gather as much information as possible about your ideal customer. Look for data on where they live, their age, shopping habits, and needs. One way to obtain these details is to conduct surveys, which can be online or on forms in physical stores.

3. Synergistic integration between various channels

If a customer has started an online purchase and decided to receive the product directly in-store, it’s extremely important that this product is available and already separated for the customer. This is an example that shows that information across media must be integrated for omnichannel to work smoothly. In short: there can be no lack of communication between the company’s areas and the consumer.

4. Employee training and engagement

Both in the physical and virtual store, customer service must be agile and efficient. The customer needs to feel comfortable to clarify their doubts, and they must be resolved quickly. Let your consumer choose the form of contact they prefer, whether it’s a more personal contact (with physical store employees) or virtual service (with chatbots). The important thing is that all your agents and salespeople are committed to the purpose of offering the best customer experience.

5. Monitoring indicators for each channel

To succeed with the omnichannel strategy, it’s essential to closely monitor the indicators of each channel, evaluating them critically. This is important because in a multichannel purchase journey, any error in one medium can hinder the checkout. It’s advisable to evaluate the data of each channel, as well as the overall sales trend. Additionally, you can monitor the set of indicators, analyzing, for example, how many sales in the physical store resulted from an online campaign, among other possibilities.

6. Customer feedback

If you want to qualify your multichannel sales, be sure to listen to your customers’ opinions. Try to conduct frequent surveys on all your channels to measure satisfaction with services and discover the points that need improvement. It’s possible that, in these experiences, consumers suggest new ways of communicating with your company, which can further improve the omnichannel strategy.

A good start is to evaluate your OTIF ( On Time In Full ) indicator. Through OTIF, you can measure your logistics efficiency from the customer’s perspective. Great Supply Chain executives already use the metric and ensure it’s the basis for analyzing logistics performance and identifying areas for improvement.

7. Process automation

Due to the integration between various sales channels, processes in an omnichannel company are often very complex. For the strategy to work well, the company must have a unified platform that gathers consumer information, manages all sales channels, and provides the virtual operator or salesperson with all the data to ensure the sale’s completion.

Additionally, the company needs a management system that integrates the administrative and financial areas. And, most importantly: have impeccable inventory control, which also requires process automation.

8. Logistics efficiency

Good logistics execution is the foundation for the perfect functioning of an omnichannel strategy, after all, any failure can damage the customer experience, and thus there is no marketing strategy capable of recovering the company’s image. When we talk about multichannel sales, we are dealing with a logistics operation with a high level of complexity, where all processes and information must be very well aligned so that the right product is available at the right time and sent to the right place.

All this with great agility, because the consumer who visits a store, tries a product, and places an online order does not want to wait long to use it. Similarly, those who have browsed the virtual store and went to the physical establishment to purchase the product want it to be available to take home.

For your company to be ready to meet a variety of orders, prioritizing fast delivery and availability on the shelves of physical stores, it’s essential to have good logistics management, and the secret is to have technologies that help in process automation and integration with ERPs.

One of these is the WMS warehouse management software that manages the operation from the product’s arrival at the warehouse to its shipment. With WMS, you not only ensure an organized, optimized, and well-controlled inventory but also high productivity in all intralogistics processes.

How to adapt your business to omnichannel

For your company to be omnichannel, a change in organizational culture is necessary. In other words, we can say that it requires building a new mindset, putting the customer experience first. All employees must act with this goal: each performing their role but always thinking about how every action or decision can impact the way the customer is served.

But it’s not enough to prepare your team. It’s necessary to invest in technology, after all, omnichannel requires that “you no longer do the same.” Innovation in all spheres of your business is the watchword. Without it, you can ruin everything.

Remember that you can adopt different service options. Check out the main ones and find out which best fits your business model and customer profile:

– Click & Collect: online purchase and pickup at a physical store, kiosk, or partner point of sale
– Locker: online purchase and pickup from lockers via QR Code, without intermediaries
– Webrooming: online research and in-store purchase
– Showrooming: in-store viewing and online purchase
– Click & Ship: physical store visit, mobile purchase, and home delivery.

There is a universe of possibilities to explore, and the one that makes the customer experience as personalized and satisfying as possible wins. A good dose of creativity is fine, but remember that any idea or novelty must be aligned with service excellence: the product must always be available to the customer at the right time and in the desired place.