Hurdles to customer experiences

Some of the key barriers to providing an integrated and contextual omni-channel experience are:

Inability to track customer interactions across enterprise systems

Siloed systems and fragmented data can make it difficult to track customer interactions and insights from past transactions. Many organizations typically maintain systems of records to capture customer issues and resolutions instead of recording and tagging every unique engagement. This limits channel rendering and real-time availability of actionable insights across the customer journey. 

Business processes supported by legacy enterprise architecture 

The ownership of ‘channels of interaction’ will determine how it is designed and rendered. In many cases, marketing teams prioritize cost reduction over an operational view of services for each channel. In addition, embedding business processes and logic inside IT systems means that every small change in the business flow will require corresponding changes across multiple systems. A rigid enterprise architecture with legacy systems can make such changes time-consuming, forcing business to compromise on customer experience. 

Dependency on human intervention 

Business process design and knowledge management tools are still largely people dependent. Reliance on sales, customer support or marketing teams to stitch together customer interactions, can have a negative impact on the consistency that customers crave today. 

Bridging the omni-channel gap through a system of intelligence layer 

The above-mentioned challenges necessitate the addition of an SoI layer to offer contextual and personalized experiences across channels. Given below is a three-step process to bridge the omnichannel gap and deliver truly transformative customer experiences: 

Simplifying and automating customer engagement with contextual intelligence

Enterprises spend approximately 20-50% in assisted care channels to understand and analyze service requests, before coming up with resolutions. To improve response efficiency in an omnichannel environment, a holistic view of customer interactions, intent and context must be available. A digital SoI layer, which connects upstream (channel data) and downstream systems (systems of records) and processes across the organization, can bring in business abstraction without compromising on agility and time-to-market. Over time, changes required in business processes can be implemented on this layer instead of the base systems themselves, thereby reducing IT expenditures and undue delays.

The SoI layer provides the necessary framework for business teams to define and redefine processes with minimal or no technical intervention. It also becomes simpler to integrate digital and legacy investments, offering enterprises the ability to combine automation with a human touch when required. For example, by adding on this digital layer, enterprises can improve customer service KPIs (key performance indicators) across assisted, unassisted and self-service channels.

Extending abstraction across all channels 

The next step is extending the SoI layer across customer touchpoints for enabling business logic extraction. This will help optimize the deliberate diversion to another channel, based on business requirements or customer prerogatives. Channels serve as the lens through which organizations can follow and resume customer journeys. More importantly, customers can interact with a channel of their choice and convenience instead of shifting to one that provides a specific type of resolution. As the SoI layer provides the proper context to customer interactions, enterprises can also quickly deliver ‘first-contact resolutions’ and ‘next-best actions’ across channels.

Enabling proactive and predictive capabilities 

Predictive analytics can unlock the transformational power of the SoI layer—from real-time interaction management to proactive resolution of issues. It helps improve customer experience in addition to reducing dependency on sales and support staff and lowering opex. Furthermore, enterprises can use predictive insights to reach out to customers meaningfully while exploring upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

Brands that listen win across channels

When it comes to customer centricity, it can sometimes seem that customers have all the control, because they can walk away any time they want. And it’s true, they can. According to a McKinsey report, over 39% of consumers have either changed brands or retailers, and close to 79% of those intend to continue exploring other options.

However, with a contextual intelligence layer embedded across systems and processes, businesses can engage with customers by taking the lead and being proactive. They can use insights from every customer interaction to define the next step and positively influence how the customer interacts with them. Brands should be in the driving seat and listen closely to customers who are invited along for the ride. This way both sides can have a smooth and seamless omni-channel journey.