Demonstrating ROI for omnichannel engagement

For many businesses, moving from multichannel to an omni-channel approach is likely to require significant investment in platforms and business process reorganisation. As with any investment or restructuring of this kind, the business has to be convinced by the financial improvements that will follow.

In order to quantify the business case for omni-channel, businesses should therefore consider how the following potential improvements may well affect them:

1. Increasing cross-selling and upselling rates by making sure that the customer does not abandon the interaction through frustration caused by channel switching, and by responding to queries in an informed and timely manner
2. Increasing customer satisfaction levels and potentially reducing the cost of service by personalisation and offering service through the customer’s preferred channel
3. Increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value through providing superior and proactive service at the moment of truth 
4. Decreasing unnecessary calls by handling queries correctly early in the customer journey
5. Taking advantage of many customers’ preference for self-service by offering a powerful and consistent experience across all channels, which will help reduce inbound call volumes for the contact centre
6. Implementing a consistent cross-channel knowledge base which will provide consistent information to customers and agents regardless of channel
7. A movement from self-service to live service in an omni-channel environment offers the opportunity for customer identity authentication to take place before the agent is involved, reducing cost and call length and improving service levels 
8. Having the context and customer history on the agent’s screen will reduce call lengths and decrease customer frustration
9. A consistent and up-to-date knowledge base shared across channels means that it is more likely that a query will be successfully answered early in the customer journey, improving customer satisfaction and decreasing the duplication of effort and unnecessary cost as customers will no longer have to seek an answer through an alternate channel
10. Improving first contact resolution rates on non-voice channels will decrease inbound call volumes and improve the customer experience.

The benefits of omni-channel engagement are plentiful, and the list will only expand as customer experience evolves with new innovations.

In my opinion, brands should be wary not to get so far behind in the omni-channel race that they’ll never see the winner’s circle: they should pay attention to the ROI and act now.