Does your omnichannel strategy work when consumers evolve?

One of the most defining changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the way consumers are interacting with brands. According to the EY Future Consumer Index, 41% of Asia-Pacific consumers surveyed are visiting stores less frequently than they used to before. Even as economies begin to recover and safety measures ease, the use of digital channels to navigate day-to-day activities is expected to stay.

The surge in marketing, sales and service transaction volumes on digital channels has been phenomenal. Notably, hybrid transactions such as “click and collect” — where consumers purchase goods online and pick them up from a physical location — and new ways of selling products and services such as through livestreaming have gained traction. Competitors are shortening the lead time in delivering goods and experiences to 24 hours or less, significantly stretching the supply chain. Consumers increasingly expect the same level of service online or better compared with physical channels. In addition, the boundaries between grocery retail, food delivery services and the online marketplace are increasingly blurring, with a growing number of direct and indirect competitors investing to share the market.

With such complexity of change confronting brands, they must now explore different and innovative ways to meet increasing customer expectations, consumption and spending behavior to build engagement and ultimately secure customers’ trust. In other words, traditional ways to market, sell and serve customers are no longer enough.

While efforts have been made to convert customers from offline to online channels, brands are still uncertain if their sales and marketing strategy can provide a cohesive experience for customers.

Typically, brands still face challenges in the following areas:

• Tailoring customer communications and engagements by individuals instead of segments
• Maintaining competitive pricing without jeopardizing the sales margin
• Converting customers who are browsing products to buyers
• Maintaining consistency of information and policies across all channels
• Achieving a seamless experience handoff between offline and online channels
• Providing flexibility in goods and services delivery
• Balancing inventory availability and goods returned due to product quality

Five elements of a winning omnichannel strategy

A robust digital sales and marketing strategy synchronizes online and offline channels to serve customers anytime and anywhere in the customer journey. It also requires the organization, business rules and systems to be agile enough to respond to the complexities of customer expectations and the supply chain. This omnichannel strategy usually consists of five general principles:

• Availability: all channels made available for customers to choose from and engage with at their convenience
• Consistency: consistent business rules, policies and organizational data across all channels
• Seamlessness: seamless experience of moving between physical and digital channels
• Personalization: marketing, sales and service content personalized to the customer’s preference
• Humanization: interaction between customers and employees infused with empathy

An example of how this may work in a real-life scenario is a busy working professional who desires the most efficient way to obtain groceries to prepare food for her family. She downloads a mobile app from her grocer and registers for an account. She fills in her personal details — including payment and delivery — and answers a few profiling questions. Next, she browses the app to look for discounted items, gradually adding items and receiving recommendations about accompanying ingredients. Realizing that one of her ingredients is out of stock, she chooses to be notified when the item is available. Then she confirms her delivery address and preferred delivery time and checks out her shopping cart using an e-wallet to accrue loyalty points and be entitled to member-only discounts.

Within seconds, she receives an update that her delivery is scheduled and her orders are then delivered fresh and punctually. The next day, she receives a personalized follow-up email — a channel that she prefers to interact on — that the ingredient is back in stock and it offers to complete her purchase and have it delivered to her address. She clicks on the confirmation button and validates her delivery details to receive her missing order. The next time she logs into the app, her purchase history is displayed up front for her to easily repurchase her goods.

Behind the scenes, multiple activities are taking place concurrently following the five principles of the omnichannel strategy. There is extensive orchestration of data across different systems to harmonize offline and online channels (consistency) and therefore create a seamless grocery shopping experience (seamlessness). The data is used to generate insights for the brand to predict customer behavior and meet customer demand. Smart business rules are in place to carefully balance demand and supply so that inventories are constantly available or replenished. Effective sales funnel management involves reaching out to customers (humanization) at the right time with personalized content that keeps them emotionally engaged (personalization). When customers drop out of the customer journey midway, there are options for them to easily return to their preferred channel (availability) and continue their journey. These actions will enable customers to remain engaged with the business, improving customer stickiness and ultimately increasing customer lifetime value.

Implementing a successful omnichannel strategy

Three aspects must be considered to implement a successful omnichannel strategy:

• Organization: a customer-centric organization structure with customer experience-focused measurements cascaded across the company
• People: a multitalented workforce with a culture of collaboration and openness
• Way of working: business processes that are continuously iterative, adaptive and agile, with each business decision and action fully supported by insights

The journey for marketing, sales and services to achieve an omnichannel state is a long-term, transformative one that requires extensive integration between the business, the supply chain and technology. It is imperative for brands to understand how their product offering can align with their omnichannel strategy and prioritize technological investment, while also considering the return on experience. Otherwise, unnecessary and misaligned investments in technology will only waste capital resources.

A successful omnichannel implementation not only involves the product or platform but also the underlying ecosystem and workforce. It requires strong support from the leadership team, a customer-centricity mindset and empowered marketing, sales and service workforces to serve customers with empathy. As the new normal is here to stay, transforming the way customer journeys are delivered becomes even more crucial for brands to stay ahead of market disruption.