Channel integration and the customer experience: What's going wrong?

 

 

As the number of communication channels continues to grow, 90% of companies want their channels integrated but only 31% actually do so. That’s according to Pitney Bowes' new report Disconnected Customer Channels, which surveyed 250 CMOs and marketing directors in B2C organisations across the UK, France and Germany.

 

 

Gary Roberts, VP of EMEA at Pitney Bowes,attributes organisations' lack of willingness to invest in multi-channel communications as one reason for the disconnect. "It’s really important that CMOs convince their business that it's crucial to have integrated platforms to allow multi-channel communications."

 

He explains that integration is centred on consistency, drawing from the report’s conclusion: "Unless companies have a consistent approach across every channel in the way they communicate and market to their customers their ability to develop profitable, long-term relationships will be seriously impacted."

 

Roberts continues: "It's important when you're delivering a message via one channel that you're able to deliver that same message via a different channel either because it's appropriate or because it's the customer's choice. Similarly, if a customer engages with you on one channel, it might mean they want to come back and re-engage on a separate channel but their getting consistency of experience and message."

A lack of capacity to integrate these systems and fear of security are the other obstacles to integration, says the report.

 

Roberts explains: "A lot of organisations – particularly in banking and financial space – were worried about the security element of that when using channels such as SMS and web. They have to get over this fear of security. We’ve all got to get over the fear about whether these organisations can actually deliver it."

Additionally, over half of those surveyed (53%) engage with customers via social networks but only 8% provide integrated cross-channel communications based on choice, according to the report.