A great product is not enough to beat competence in the marketplace. To make sure you won’t stay behind, you should also:

• Educate customers on its use through resources, tutorials and guidance
• Continuously improve the product by collecting and analyzing customer feedback
• Offer personalized and efficient support for account management and issue resolution
  ‍

All of that requires a practical approach that will allow you to streamline support operations and retain customer loyalty. In other words, you must implement an omnichannel customer support strategy to ensure a consistent and personalized experience.

In this article, we will delve into the essentials of crafting an effective omnichannel support strategy, explore its benefits, and provide examples of companies that have successfully implemented these approaches. It will help you enhance customer satisfaction, streamline support operations and drive long-term success.

Find more: Customer Experience Management Strategy: Road To Success

What is omnichannel customer support?

Omnichannel customer support integrates multiple communication channels to provide a seamless customer experience. Having all customer interactions in one place, service agents get a comprehensive view and can be more efficient at answering queries.

Since people often confuse omnichannel and multichannel, let's clarify the difference.

Multichannel customer service provides customers with different communication channels (such as phone, chat, email, social media, etc.) that operate independently. Customer information and history are not shared across channels, leading to fragmented interactions.

The omnichannel support strategy allows you to log all customer interactions into a centralized CRM system. Regardless of the channel customers use, they can receive consistent information and service quality.

Read more: Omnichannel Customer Service: The Key to Consistent Customer Experiences

Benefits of omnichannel customer service

Omnichannel customer engagement allows companies to switch a conversation to a channel that better suits the discussed topic. They can drop a link or a call to action into the message and invite customers to move to a channel that is more secure, offers a richer experience, or is more convenient to the user.

When moving the conversation, they can retain the chat history and the context, maintaining a single conversational thread. The brand's software allows them to unify customer identity and provide personalized experience.

Other benefits include:

• Customer satisfaction: Reaching out becomes more convenient for customers. They can choose the communication channel they prefer, whether it's email, social media, phone, chat or in-person.
• Employee (agent) satisfaction: Customer service agents get all the tools and information they need to do their jobs effectively. It leads to higher productivity and job satisfaction, lowering turnover rates.
• Increased efficiency & revenue: Since support agents get a comprehensive view of customer interactions across all channels, they spend less time gathering information and can solve problems more efficiently.
• Competitive advantage: Seamless omnichannel experience is what makes a company stand out from competitors and attracts more customers.
• Scalability & flexibility: Omnichannel support system can evolve with the business and its customers. You can scale and adapt it to meet constantly changing customer needs and preferences.
  ‍

With that approach, brands can provide a seamless customer journey and meet growing customer expectations fueled by technological advancements.

Where should you start if you want to provide omnichannel customer service? The following section discusses the most effective strategies and practices.

Omnichannel customer support strategy: Best practices

To provide a unified customer experience across different channels, follow these steps:

Choose omnichannel customer support software

This is a critical step in developing an effective customer support strategy. The proper tool can enhance customer communication and boost brand loyalty.

Our recommendation is Glassix, a top-rated customer service automation software. It aims to take the burden from busy teams and empower them to excel in customer support and experience.

Unlike many other platforms, Glassix provides an authentic omnichannel experience. You can switch between channels and keep conversation history. You won't lose any of the precious customer data!

It also has a unique pricing model. While other vendors charge you more while you grow your messaging volume, Glassix lets you expand peacefully. We won't punish you for growth.

Use a unified inbox

A unified inbox combines customer communications from multiple channels and displays them in a single interface.

Glassix uses AI to centralize all customer conversations into one hub to provide exceptional omnichannel customer service. It gathers messages from various self-service channels like:

• SMS
• Email
• WhatsApp
• Social media platforms
• Apple messages for Business

The support team can manage all customer interactions without jumping between different applications.

Categorize conversations

How can you effectively manage, analyze, and report customer interactions gathered from so many channels? You need to label them and assign a category based on their nature, purpose or other relevant criteria.

Glassix uses automatic tagging to categorize all conversations. It enables customer service representatives to efficiently prioritize, organize and retrieve customer inquiries. This streamlined process enhances responsiveness and ensures prompt and efficient addressing of customer needs. 

Build your chatbot

Omnichannel customer service needs a chatbot to provide a consistent experience and reduce response times. A chatbot also increases customer service productivity since it can handle all routine inquiries. 

Glassix offers a drag-and-drop chatbot builder. The intuitive user interface allows users to create and customize chatbot flows easily. You can quickly deploy automated responses and interaction, even when you have little or no idea about coding. 

Chatbot deployment across multiple communication channels is also exceptionally straightforward and reduced to a single click. This feature streamlines the setup process, ensuring you can quickly integrate and utilize chatbots across your preferred channels for efficient customer service automation. 

Implement conversational AI

Conversational AI allows you to automate up to 90% of customer queries, giving human agents time to focus on more complex issues. It also increases the availability of customer support when human agents are away, as it can answer customer queries 24/7.

Glassix integrates with the powerful GTP-4 engine to provide advanced capabilities of conversational AI. It makes it more effective at understanding and responding to customer queries, leading to more human-like interactions.

When you complete all the steps, you will be ready to offer your customers a seamless experience across multiple channels 24/7.

We prepared examples of companies that have successfully implemented omnichannel customer service strategies to show you the benefits of this approach in practice.

Omnichannel customer support examples

Nothing speaks stronger than real-life examples of companies already implementing omnichannel customer service strategies, ensuring seamless customer journeys.

These examples showcase how integrating various communication channels—such as social media, email, phone, and chat—can unify customer interactions and streamline service delivery. Adopting an omnichannel approach allowed these businesses to meet customer expectations for consistency and convenience and gain insights into customer behavior across different platforms, allowing them to personalize interactions and foster long-term loyalty. 

The omnichannel customer support approach transformed the operations of such companies as:

Estee Lauder

Since its foundation in 1946, Estee Lauder has become a cosmetic empire. Apart from the private label ESTEE LAUDER, it has dozens of brands and markets thousands of products. It sells its products in around 150 countries and employs over 48,000 people worldwide. The company's annual turnover exceeds $14 billion.

With the world becoming increasingly digital, it became clear that Estee Lauder call centers are not enough to provide the highest standard of service. The company realized it needed a unified messaging platform to integrate other communication channels, especially WhatsApp. 

Implementing Glassix, the AI customer service software, allowed representatives to manage multiple inquiries simultaneously. This enabled them to shorten response times while maintaining the same quality of service.

The company's customers and partners were very enthusiastic about the change. Within a few months, customer service shifted from a traditional call center to digital messaging, with over 70% of customer interactions happening via WhatsApp for Business.

The result? More effective customer communication management, including issues like delivery inquiries, order changes, returns, and professional advice using one unified inbox. Glassix made it easy to track the customer journey at any digital touchpoint, record engagement, and get a snapshot of all interactions at any time.

This solution enabled Estee Lauder to stay unaffected during the pandemic when many stores were closed or run by reduced staff. Thanks to Glassix, customer service didn't suffer but was even enhanced. It allowed the company to handle the demand and even exceed expectations.

Hertz

Hertz, the largest company in the world offering car rental services, also saw great benefits from switching to an omnichannel customer service strategy.

In recent years, the company has noticed an increasing demand for providing digital customer experience. In addition to traditional phone support, they offered customer service through social channels like WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook.

The company selected Glassix for its new customer service software. They understood that its potential for offering unified messaging capabilities could be a great fit to meet their strict requirements. With its simplicity of implementation and ease of use, the company was confident that Glassix would provide a positive customer experience.

After the solution went live, they saw customers massively choose to communicate via digital channels like WhatsApp and email instead of phone calls.

When Hertz embedded a Glassix Live Chat Widget on its website, customers began making car rental reservations via this channel. A significant number of contracts are currently booked digitally without needing phone calls.

Currently, Hertz responds to hundreds of inquiries daily through digital channels, including road service. The chatbot provides a wide range of services, eliminating the need for human intervention and enhancing customer experiences. The omnichannel customer service increases the efficiency of servicing hundreds of thousands of customers.

Vert Hotel

Vert Hotel decided to offer omnichannel customer service during the coronavirus outbreak when the industry was still closed. They chose Glassfix because it could centralize inquiries across all channels, such as social networks, WhatsApp, and chat, into a single interface. This enabled agents to assist customers more efficiently and intentionally.

The next step was to integrate the Glassix chatbot. After analyzing customer inquiries, the company realized that many were very similar: available room kinds, types of guest groups, hotel selection, dates, etc.

The company asked the Glassix team to build and implement a dedicated chatbot providing answers to common questions. It enabled customers to receive information and make reservations anytime, night and day, without agent intervention.

The chatbot implementation helped resolve customer issues immediately and raised the lever of service to new standards. Though the chatbots outperforms human agents in many ways,  whenever the guest encounters challenges with it, a human agent takes over the customer conversation and assists them through an instant messaging channel such as Messenger or WhatsApp.

Holmes Place

Implementing an omnichannel customer service strategy also changed the game for Holmes Place, a premium health, fitness and wellness company operating a chain of fitness clubs.

During the pandemic, the company had to shut down completely, and all public venues were inaccessible for more than five months.

Before returning to regular business, the company expected a flood of phone inquiries from their 140,000 club members regarding operating hours and health regulations.

The company installed Glassix to enable club members to contact their customer service agents via digital channels like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and live chat.

Integrating WhatsApp into the system was a perfect shot. Now, one centralized WhatsApp number effectively serves all 53 clubs in Israel.

The chat can answer about 35% of the club members' queries without human intervention. It handles tens of thousands of questions per week.

As a result, club members receive an innovative customer experience and save plenty of wait time. The solution also reduces the burden on agents, allowing them to address more complex issues. Both club members and club managers constantly compliment the solution.

After we've discussed the real-life omnichannel customer service examples, we pass the baton to you.

Ready to wow your customers?

If you're aiming to deliver exceptional service and maintain a competitive edge, adopting an omnichannel customer support strategy is the next logical step. We live in a digital-first world, and online platforms have become the primary means of communication.

Get ready to meet customer preferences and adopt an omnichannel approach. Sign up for Glassix and enjoy the 30-day free trial—no credit card required.

After you apply the strategies presented in this article, you will set the ground for transforming customer interactions enhancing their satisfaction and loyalty.

FAQs

What is an omnichannel customer service?

Omnichannel customer service integrates multiple communication channels into a unified system. This approach ensures that customers receive consistent and personalized support regardless of whether they use phone, live chat, email, social media or in-person interactions.
By unifying these channels, you can maintain a cohesive conversation history, allowing support agents to provide more informed and effective assistance. This integration also enables customers to effortlessly switch between channels during a single interaction, which boosts convenience and satisfaction.
The ultimate goal of omnichannel customer service is to create a smooth and efficient customer journey, foster stronger relationships and improve overall service quality.

What is an example of omnichannel support?

An omnichannel customer support can cook like this: A customer starts a query using the company's website chat feature. The conversation begins with a chatbot that gathers initial information and provides basic assistance. If the issue isn't resolved, the customer decides to continue the conversation on social media messaging, such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, where they provide additional details and upload relevant screenshots.
Next, the customer calls the company's support line to further explain the issue, perhaps because it is complex or urgent. Throughout this process, the customer service agent handling the call has access to a complete record of all previous interactions, including the website chat and social media messages.
This comprehensive record ensures the agent is fully informed of the customer's issue and previous steps, allowing them to provide a cohesive and efficient resolution. Integrating multiple channels into a unified system enables a smooth transition between different modes of communication, enhancing the overall customer experience and ensuring that the customer feels heard and supported throughout their journey.

What is meant by omnichannel customer experience?

An omnichannel customer experience refers to providing a seamless, integrated, and consistent interaction for customers across various communication channels and touchpoints.
Whether the customer interacts with a brand through a website, social media, mobile app, in-store, phone, or any other channel – they still receive a personalized, seamless experience.
The system consolidates customer data and interaction history in a central base, accessible to all support agents and systems. The comprehensive view of the customer journey allows support teams to resolve issues in a more efficient and effective way. It often enables them to anticipate customer needs and provide proactive support.