6 Steps to implementing true omnichannel retail experience

The evolution to omnichannel

Modern shoppers crave a seamless experience, effortlessly transitioning between online browsing
and physical stores. They increasingly expect a “digital-like” experience within the stores themselves – features that bridge the gap between
physical and virtual. Retailers can unlock this by adopting a true omnichannel approach, blurring the lines between these spheres. This creates a unified customer journey. Imagine in-store inventory accessible online, easy online ordering from physical displays, flexible pickup and return
options, diverse checkout choices, and all while ensuring personalized engagement. This not only fosters customer satisfaction and boosts sales, but also gives retailers a strategic edge in the dynamic retail landscape.

When ecommerce took off, retailers sought to make their products visible and available for sale on different touchpoints, starting from physical retail stores to online stores and social media platforms. This was most commonly executed on different platforms as retailers were eager to rollout new shopping channels quickly to answer customers' demand. However, they quickly realized that merely making products available for
shopping on multiple channels and platforms, also known as multichannel shopping, was insufficient. They recognized the need to put customer experiences on top of the priority list.

• Customers often interact with different channels and touchpoints and sometimes combine them before finally purchasing.
• They may begin looking for a product on your website or a third-party marketplace and arrive at your physical store to make the final
  purchase.
• They may arrive at your physical store to view the product, place an order on their phone, and request a store pickup at a later date.
• Customers may also compare prices, discounts, and the ability to redeem loyalty points on various touchpoints.
• The possibilities are truly endless.

A true omnichannel shopping experience supports multiple possibilities on your customer journey map and creates a unified shopping experience for customers. In addition, unified customer profiles help track customer pain points and solve them in real-time.

The omnichannel shopping experience, by definition, supports multiple purchase channels simultaneously. Hence, a lot of disparate and realtime data is aggregated each time there is customer interaction. All this data must be stored in a central repository, and care must be taken to centralize customer data.

As multiple shopping channels interact to provide customers a seamless and frictionless shopping experience, it is essential to create systems that allow for real-time data sharing between channels and departments. A crucial part of this mix is to include central analytics, to derive insights that are relevant, contextualized, and targeted.

Retailers often assume omnichannel shopping experience is limited to online purchases made on different digital touchpoints. However, as evidenced by the customer journey possibilities listed above, customers often visit physical stores during their purchase journey. Access to a mobile Point-of-Sale (PoS) system helps your staff support customers in making purchases how they wish. In addition, mobile kiosks extend the omnichannel shopping experience by allowing customers to place online orders at your physical store.

Channel strategy helps you determine effective routes for making shopping straightforward and frictionless for your customers. It helps provide customers with omnichannel experiences across communication channels that they prefer. The following steps help further:

• Your branding, messaging, product offering and promotions, must be consistent across chosen channels.
• Gain insight into your audience and draft messages that align with their shopping goals.
• Access customer data and generate insights to understand what drives them to your brand.
• Ensure functionalities are the same regardless of the chosen platform.
• Choose relevant channels that are most effective with your target audience.
• Continue to measure your channel strategy and make changes based on performance and testing.

A defining characteristic of the omnichannel shopping experience is that it is hyper-personalized. Omnichannel shopping strategies depend on customer data to generate tailor-made responses, recommendations, and customer experience. This helps create a personalized customer journey so they feel they are genuinely being attended to.

Whether they contact the support center or browse products on your websites, everything is tailor-made to them based on different data sources ranging from previous interactions and user behavior to algorithmic predictions. This creates a cohesive purchase experience that enhances customer interaction.

Please note, it is essential to ensure that you store all customer data in compliance with various
regulations such as GDPR. Thankfully, a retail tool solution will help ensure you comply with such data protection laws automatically.

A true omnichannel experience depends on evolving with emerging trends and technological developments.
Here are a few considerations:

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning have dramatically changed the way different touchpoints are operated, and it is essential to consistently iterate and innovate.
• Identify key performance metrics (KPIs) to track and measure, and iterate to make improvements.
• Conduct A/B testing to ensure that your omnichannel strategies are truly omnichannel and not just in terms of words.
• Identify bottlenecks within the shopping journey and help make amends to your existing plan.

Most importantly, omnichannel is a philosophy not limited to making shopping seamless for customers. It
also involves getting your team to immerse themselves in omnichannel philosophy and deliver a seamless
experience to shoppers while making things easier for themselves.