Scaling the Multichannel Mountain

There's been a lot of talk lately about the importance of multichannel service. Not only must you provide every avenue of service to your customers, but each channel must also offer consistent answers and seamless transition from one channel to the next. If a customer starts a chat with you, then sends a tweet, then picks up the phone, you must link these interactions together into one continuous journey. While we describe the necessity of these capabilities, the reality is that most organizations are not close to this level of service. The scope of work required to achieve this multichannel utopia can be overwhelming. To help you get started, here are three tips to tackle the mountain of work in a practical way so you can get started today:

1. The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. When faced with a task so large, the size of the problem can be so daunting that nothing is done at all. Instead of setting your sights on achieving complete multichannel bliss, find one step you can take today. If you can find one small success, the next step will be much easier. Prove the value of your efforts on a small scale, and you'll find budgets and manpower for your larger efforts forthcoming.

But where to begin? There's no single right answer, depending on your current service infrastructure and organization, but here are some ideas:

• Analyze your top 20 call drivers, and verify the content on each topic is identical across channels;
• Add a survey question at the end of each phone call to see what other channels your customers use. Knowing the most common interaction paths can tell you where you can have the most impact; and
• Since social media is a reasonably new channel, it's likely it doesn't have its own knowledgebase. Start using your Web self-service knowledgebase for social responses now, and you'll have one less silo to deal with later!

2. Don't go it alone. As with any journey, your chances of success are higher with help. Multichannel customer experience management is not just about technology. In fact, one of the most difficult problems to tackle is how to manage the organizational chasms that exist between departments. When a customer calls about their mortgage, they expect you to also know about their checking account and retirement plan. They expect a company to speak with one voice, not only across channels, but across departments throughout the organization. The only way this can happen is if people within an organization begin to work together to solve this problem.

The mentality of siloed business units is deeply ingrained in many companies. To counteract this, many companies are hiring "chief customer officers" to oversee the customer experience across channels and business units. If you're in one of these lucky organizations, the path is much clearer. If not, you may have some grassroots work ahead of you. Again, start small. If you work on the call center team, find your counterpart on the live chat team. If you're in customer service, meet up with someone from sales. Have some coffee. Maybe a glass of wine. Change won't happen overnight, but opening the lines of communication is the first step.

3. Bring your compass. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we want to do, we lose track of why we are doing it in the first place. Measurement ensures you never lose sight of your ultimate goal, and verifies that the steps you're taking are getting you closer to it. So why are you looking to improve your multichannel customer experience? Your goals will be unique to your business, but some benefits you may wish to measure are:

• Improved customer satisfaction;
• Decreased customer effort;
• Reduced mistakes;
• Reduced issue resolution time;
• Reduced complaints; and
• Improved compliance.

By staying focused on your end goals, implementation decisions become easier. If your goal is to reduce mistakes, start with the channel making the most mistakes. If your goal is to improve customer satisfaction, look for what point in the journey is causing the most dissatisfaction. Measure your progress before and after each step you take.

Finally, don't be afraid to talk to your customers! As you probably know, most companies grossly overestimate the success of their customer experience programs. Your truest measurement will always be the voice of the customer. 

An Onmi-Channel Solution

Certainly, the perfect, seamless multichannel customer experience is a lofty goal. While we may not all achieve perfection, you can take steps today to get started toward your goal. An omni-channel solution, such as KANA Enterprise, can make this process even smoother. With a unified knowledgebase across channels, a unified customer history and guided customer journey processes, KANA Enterprise lets you manage your customer experience in one place. Every experience counts. KANA makes them positive.

KANA Enterprise is the first omni-channel, end-to-end customer service solution. As such, it is built to respond to customer inquiries across all channels. A single knowledgebase serves content in the right format for each channel, ensuring that customers receive the same answer on the phone, Web, chat or any other channel. Customers can transition from one channel to another during the course of their journey and not miss a beat. One version of the truth is finally a reality.

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Forrester Research weighs in on this topic in the KANA commissioned Technology Adoption Profile: "Your Customers are Demanding Omni-Channel Communications. What are you doing about it?" Download the report from www.kana.com/whitepaper. See KANA solutions in action by contacting us at info@kana.com or visiting us online at www.kana.com.

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