Omnichannel is a

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

describing a business strategy. According to ''

Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan is an American business consulting firm. It offers market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting, and corporate training. It has about 45 offices in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe; the principal office is in San ...

'', omnichannel is defined as "seamless and effortless, high-quality customer experiences that occur within and between contact channels".

History

"Omnis" is Latin for "every/all" and here suggests the integration of all physical channels (offline) and digital channels (online) to offer a unified

customer experience Customer experience (CX) is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. Pine and Gilmore described the ...

. The effort to unify channels has a long history across all market sectors. Efforts like

single-source publishing Single-source publishing, also known as single-sourcing publishing, is a content management method which allows the same source content to be used across different forms of media and more than one time.responsive web design, however, were usually focused on internal efficiencies, formatting consistency, and simple de-duplication across channels. As the number of channels proliferated, the potential for disjointed experience when switching or working with multiple channels increased. Channels like

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

s, the

mobile web The mobile web refers to mobile browser-based World Wide Web services accessed from handheld mobile devices, such as smartphones or feature phones, through a mobile or other wireless network. History and development Traditionally, the World ...

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s, contextual help,

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

, and

chatbot A chatbot or chatterbot is a Software agent, software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or Speech synthesis, text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly si ...

s are used in addition to traditional physical and human interaction channels. This creates a complex matrix of possible ways an individual can engage an organization and its offerings or complete a task. Retail, until the early 1990s, was either a physical

brick and mortar Brick and mortar (also bricks and mortar or B&M) refers to a physical presence of an organization or business in a building or other structure. The term ''brick-and-mortar business'' is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases r ...

store or

catalog Catalog or catalogue may refer to: *Cataloging **'emmy on the 'og **in science and technology ***Library catalog, a catalog of books and other media ****Union catalog, a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries ...

sales where an order was placed by mail or via telephone. Sale by mail order dates back to when British entrepreneur Pryce Pryce-Jones set up the first modern mail order in 1861, selling Welsh flannel. Catalog sales for an assortment of general goods started in the late 1800s when

Sears & Roebuck Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

issued its first catalog in 1896. In the early 1900s,

L.L. Bean L.L.Bean is an American privately-held retail company that was founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean. The company, headquartered in the place in which it was founded, in Freeport, Maine, specializes in clothing and outdoor recreation equipment. ...

started its catalog business in United States.

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

and

Prodigy Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to: * Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer ** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess Arts, entertainment, and ...

experimented with selling through their proprietary online services in the early 1990s. These companies started sales channel expansion, while general merchants had evolved to

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s and

Big-box store A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The t ...

electronic ordering. In August 1994,

NetMarket NetMarket is an online marketplace owned by Trilegiant that sells various goods ranging from electronics to jewelry. It was founded in 1994 by Dan Kohn and Roger Lee, both former London School of Economics students, and by Guy H. T. Haskin and E ...

processed the first Internet sale where the credit card was encrypted. Shortly thereafter,

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

was founded and the

eCommerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managemen ...

sales channel was established.

Mobile commerce The term mobile commerce was originally coined in 1997 by Kevin Duffey at the launch of the Global Mobile Commerce Forum, to mean "the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless techno ...

arrived in 1997, and multichannel retailing really took off. Omnichannel's origins date back to Best Buy's use of customer centricity to compete with Walmart's electronic department in 2003. The company created an approach that centered around the customer both in-store and online, while providing post-sales support. Omnichannel was coined as a form of "assembled commerce" and spread into the healthcare and financial services industries.

Finance

Omnichannel banking developed in response to the popularity of

digital banking Digital banking is part of the broader context for the move to online banking, where banking services are delivered over the internet. The shift from traditional to digital banking has been gradual and remains ongoing, and is constituted by diffe ...

transactions through ATMs, the web, and mobile applications. The most popular parts of omnichannel banking include 'zero drop rate' channel integration, individualizing channels for customers and marketing other channel options. Banks receive in-depth research about customers to build relationships and increase profitability.

Government

In 2009, the omnichannel platform started to be used in governments through

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

interaction. Governments are developing web and mobile-enabled interfaces to improve and personalize the citizen experience. The United States government digital strategy includes information and customer-centric shared platforms that provide security and privacy. Omnichannel is used to communicate with citizens through the platform of their choice at their convenience and use feedback to analyze the citizen experience to better serve.

Healthcare

Due to fragmentation between health providers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and patients, omnichannel is developing to improve the customer experience in the

healthcare industry The healthcare industry (also called the medical industry or health economy) is an aggregation and integration of sectors within the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative, a ...

. Omnichannel healthcare focuses on integrating data, technology, content and communication, while coordinating patient's results through digital channels. In September 2015, the

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a $23billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 92,000 employees, 40 hospitals with more than 8,000 licensed beds, 800 clinical locations including outpatient sites and do ...

received media attention for its customer service technology, which was integrated in 2009. The UPMC Health Plan uses an omnichannel system to improve

customer engagement Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer (either B2C or B2B) and an organization (company or brand) through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen's (2019, p. 166) S-D lo ...

and contact resolution.

Retail

Omnichannel retail strategies are an expansion of what previously was known as multichannel retailing. The emergence of digital technologies, social media and mobile devices has led to the significant changes in the retail environment and provide opportunities for the retailers to redesign their marketing and product strategies. One of the challenges that retailers are facing as a result of increased channels, is to provide a personalised experience for customers. Put differently, in retailing omnichannel marketing has come to be understood as "hyperpersonalization". Another challenge is to track users behaviors both online and in the brick and mortar stores, an option that is being made available by using AI platforms. In omnichannel retailing, one main backend handles all the customer data whether on Web, mobile or a brick and mortar store. Customers tend to be looking for information in the physical store and at the same time they are getting additional information from their mobile devices about offers and possibly better prices. Omnichannel allows organizations to allocate inventory availability and visibility across locations vs. each channel holding specific units. A number of features, like size charts, easy return policy and same-day delivery, have boosted ecommerce and promoted omnichannel shopping. An omnichannel retailer has traditional methods of mass advertising integrated with emerging interactive channels. Websites, email offers, social media messaging and physical stores all show the same messages, offers, and products. The omnichannel concept not only extends the range of channels, but also incorporates the needs, communications and interactions between customer, brand and retailers.

Contact centers

Omnichannel has overtaken multichannel specifically in the contact center. Businesses that maintain contact centers have been encouraged to add an increasing number of channels through which customers can interact with the business, including email, chat, SMS, and social media. Omnichannel contact centers offer customers the same experience across all channels, while providing customer service agents a simpler interface and richer set of data.

Outlook

Although omnichannel is said to be dictated by systems and processes, it is the customer who dictates how a transaction occurs. Systems and processes facilitate the customer journey to transact and be served. Omnichannel is moving toward increased personalization based on analytics to make the customer experience more seamless. According to an

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

report, omnichannel "is the central force shaping the future of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores alike."

Vs. multichannel

The major difference between omnichannel and multichannel is the level of integration. Multichannel is usually identified as a non-integrated way to approach customers and inventory holdings, while omnichannel requires coherent and absolute inventory integration. More and more organizations have realized the opportunities and advantages of integrating multiple channels by adopting an omnichannel approach. The boundaries between channels tend to vanish in an omnichannel environment, giving the customer a consistent brand experience.

Vs. omni-digital

The major difference between omnichannel and omni-digital is the focus given to the strategy. With omnichannel, the company focuses on delivering the right content, on the right set of channels, at the right moment, to provide the most value to the user. With omni-digital, the company focuses on providing a consistent customer experience throughout everything digital, regardless of the channel used. The channel becomes secondary and the customer experience is the main focus. For example: If a member created their membership in a physical store, they can enjoy the same member benefits in the online store of the company without boundaries.

Key solutions

In the omnichannel world, display advertising, search engines, social media, referral websites, e-mail and mobile marketing can be considered independent channels, as each can promote one-way or two-way communication. Retailers need to find ways to integrate their online and offline channels to avoid segregated campaigns. Proceed with the expectation that shoppers will swap across channels and devices, and keep promotions, messaging and language consistent across all channels and customer touch points. To adapt on the omnichannel concept, customer behaviours needs to be understood by the retailers. Specifically, elements that might drive the customer to make purchase decision; and customer's paths to purchase, which relate to their lifestyle, time committed to the purchase and the distance to the retail store. Using an omnichannel marketing approach, retailers can provide precisely targeted incentives through digital and mobile promotions. Omnichannel solutions also allow brands and companies to tighten supplier controls and optimise their product inventory across numerous sales channels, ensuring that the optimum stock levels are situated in each location and the channels are kept up to date with stock information.

Retailing practices

Omnichannel means having a uniform customer experience. A simple example is that the design of the website should remain consistent with the mobile app and should also match branded physical environments. Consumers can shop the same way through in-store, website, and mobile. Regardless of the customers’ location and time. The order can either be delivered to the address directly, collected at the store, or collect from a retail partner. In the United States, retailers and brands are commonly selling online and offline. Online channels include branded webstores, marketplaces like: Amazon, eBay, Jet.com, Walmart.com and social channels like: Facebook, Google Shopping and Google Express. To ensure omnichannel and multichannel retail strategies are controlled and implemented efficiently, brands and retailers use software to centrally manage product information, listings, inventory and orders from vendors.

References

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