Frost & Sullivan: Omnichannel Customer Experience to Be a Necessity

A recent Frost & Sullivan study showed that by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as a key brand differentiator.

In the report, the analyst firm concluded that companies globally lose more than $300 billion each year due to poor customer experience, with more than two-thirds of this being spent with competing entities.

Customers today want timely, personalized and easy access to services – anywhere, anytime, through any device. They also expect their queries to be handled by qualified staff, irrespective of the channel they choose. Over 71% of customers surveyed view timeliness as key to services, which should also be simplified and efficient.

Truly understanding the customer experience means having a grasp of the customer's interaction history and demographics and looking at the entire journey, from the moment the customer initiates contact (via any channel) through to issue resolution, the firm said in the report.

"Organizations that aim to offer a consistent experience across multiple channels capturing interactions across each touch-point and making the conversation with the customer contextual will hold a significant advantage. The power of understanding and moving toward an omnichannel customer journey combines everything we know about a customer's past, current, and subsequent interactions from all touchpoints into actionable information for the enterprise," noted Vineeth Nayak, founder and managing director of Tetherfi.

"Customers want their interactions to be uniform, consistent, personalized, secure, and timely, irrespective of the channel, whether through self-service, support agents, or face to face. Such expectations are forcing brands to rethink their customer contact strategy and establish one that delivers a truly omnichannel experience," explained Jayesh Pajwani, chief strategy and growth officer at Tetherfi.

"All businesses should aim to provide a unified omnichannel experience across all channels so that the process is seamless, consistent, and integrated as customers move through them," said Krishna Baidya, associate director of digital transformation in Frost & Sullivan's Asia Pacific office.

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