In the digital age, customer interaction is no longer restricted to old-school email and SMS. People are now more frequent on the internet, be it social media like Instagram, Facebook, and other entertainment sites like YouTube. From mere socialisation to information sharing, people are using these online platforms for multiple reasons. Furthermore, consumers are constantly reading reviews, checking product features, comparing prices, and making purchases across multiple platforms. And with such emerging consumer behaviour, brands are taking action to intercept these various channels (email, SMS, apps, physical store, social media) to strengthen their engagement with customers. In this regard, having a customer-centric vision is a must for these omnichannel approaches to succeed.
Focusing on Integration of Omnichannel Approach
A true omnichannel approach is a convergence and integration of non-personal promotional channels (emails, newsletters, and banner ads) as well as face-to-face promotion (product demonstrations, exhibitions, and events) to engage with loyal customers on their preferred channels. On that note, brands should always think about integrating different omnichannel platforms and driving essential strategies out of them. While considering cost efficiency and effectiveness, carefully designed omnichannel strategies will increase brand engagement and expand customer reach. These strategies need to be very neatly managed because it remains one of the critical challenges that every business sector has to address.
Implementing an effective omnichannel strategy allows more enhanced consumer experiences forging brand to be more involved and think about their brand presence on a greater magnitude.
To execute an impactful omnichannel strategy, brands rely on new technologies that consider business needs, goals, strengths, weaknesses, and challenges. Nowadays, businesses can choose a trusted specialist for every area of customer service, including both convenience and customisation – two things that today’s customer really looks for in a brand. This offers businesses an incredible amount of ROI for each integration channel they choose to use. For instance, for every brand, increased ROI is the ultimate goal. We all know that ROI is highly dependent on consumer experience because whether or not a purchase occurs depends on a whole lot on how the consumer feels when interacting with the brand. It can be stated that implementing an effective omnichannel strategy allows more enhanced consumer experiences, forging brands to be more involved and think about their brand presence on a greater magnitude. This entails more chances to interact with consumers, and consequently, lead to a happy customer base and a greater ROI!
A Key to Customer-Centric Approach: Adding Human Touch to CRM Technologies
In today’s digital age, businesses are still lagging behind when it comes to customer interactions. For instance, during this pandemic, it is unexpected to receive calls from any financial service provider saying that they have a special policy plan for their customers. Because traditionally, any customers who want to enrol themselves with any financial service prefer to engage with the finance agent face-to-face in order to gain trust and only then opt for a service. But digitalisation is changing the definition of trustful interactions. And new omnichannel CRM technologies are making it easier. The reason? With new CRM technologies, businesses can integrate more services to build customer engagement. For example, a client calls a business support team with an issue. The support team member is able to look up the contact record, see past conversations, tickets, emails, chats, and more. With such reference to customer past interactions gives the customer service personnel a 360-degree view that might be relevant to their current issue. This, in turn, can bring transparency and a little touch of humane interactions while resolving and following up the issue appropriately. That being said, the onus is on brands to make it more transparent and humane.
Preparing Finance Industry for a Digital Future
Today, the customer expects us to handle any interaction digitally. I believe that having a good understanding of implementing the omnichannel CRM approach enables a brand to leave its footprint online with the best choice of digital channels. The next phase is to focus on humanising the digital interaction and bring more humane touch to the CRM technologies in financial services. That, to me, is the kind of next step forward.
![Evangelos Avramakis, Lead Corporate Foresight, Intelligence & Development, Swiss Re[SWX: SREN] | Insurance Business Review](https://www.insurancebusinessrevieweurope.com/newstransfer/upload/Untitled-1-450x308_GH46.jpg "Evangelos Avramakis, Lead Corporate Foresight, Intelligence & Development, Swiss Re[SWX: SREN] | Insurance Business Review")
