Multichannel in a complex world

The proliferation of devices and channels has brought new challenges to just about every organisation in delivering consistently good customer experiences and effectively joining up service provision with marketing activity, data and content. A good multichannel strategy and execution is increasingly becoming essential to marketers and customer experience professionals from every sector. This report seeks to identify the key issues, challenges and opportunities that surround multichannel and provide some best practice insight and principles on the elements that are key to multichannel success. As part of the research for this report, we spoke to six experienced customer experience and marketing practitioners from large organisations across different sectors. In Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success, Akin Arikan (2008) said: ‘Because customers are multichannel beings and demand relevant, consistent experiences across all channels, businesses need to adopt a multichannel mind-set when listening to their customers.’ It was clear from the companies interviewed for this report that it remains challenging for many organisations to maintain consistency across so many customer touchpoints. Not only that, but the ability to balance consistency with the capability to fully exploit the unique attributes of each channel remains an aspiration for many. The proliferation of devices and digital channels has added complexity to customer journeys, making issues around the joining up of customer experience and the attribution of value of key importance to many. Whilst senior leaders within the organisations spoken to seem to be bought in to multichannel, this buy-in was not always replicated across the rest of the organisation and did not always translate into a cohesive multichannel strategy. A number of companies were undertaking work around customer journey mapping and customer segmentation, using a variety of passive and actively collected data in order to identify specific areas of poor customer experience and create action plans for improvement. Others were undertaking projects using sophisticated tracking and tagging technologies to develop an understanding of the value and role of specific channels and to provide better intelligence to the business on attribution that might be used to inform future investment decisions. A consistent barrier to improving customer experience is the ability to join up many different legacy systems and data in order to provide a single customer view and form the basis for delivery of a more consistent and cohesive multichannel approach. Whilst there remain significant challenges around multichannel, there are some useful technologies allowing businesses to develop better insight into customer motivation and activity. Nonetheless, delivery of seamless multichannel experience remains a work-inprogress for many

Omnichannel fashion retailing: examining the customer decision-making journey

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the customer decision-making journey of high involvement female fashion consumers in the context of omnichannel fashion retailing. Design/methodology/approach – The research is qualitative in nature, using a multi-method approach consisting of focus groups, semi-structured interviews, online diaries and follow-up interviews, with grounded theory applied to analyse the data. Findings – The results of the study include a framework to outline the stages of the omnichannel customer decision-making journey for young high involvement female fashion consumers. The findings also reveal that an omnichannel decision-making journey is the one that predicated on risk and that consumers employ specific strategies to avoid such risks. Research limitations/implications – Due to the nature of this research, the sample size is limited and may not be generalised. Data collection was confined to Manchester, UK. Practical implications – Customer journey mapping enables practitioners to view the entire shopping experience through the eyes of the customer and enables retailers’ fault-find issues within the customer and brand experience. Originality/value – The paper advances knowledge about fashion and consumer behaviour. The customer decision journey framework maps the emotional experiences, devices and channels encountered by high involvement fashion consumers across each stage of the omnichannel journey

Omnichannel Solution Applied in a Brazilian Financial Institution

This study presents a solution to the low operational efficiency and inadequate use of inputs in the customer service channels of a major Brazilian financial institution. The work adopted the Design Science methodology to develop a platform that unified customer service systems and direction of demands and business processes. The solution initiated the digital transformation of service channels and contributed to the significant improvement in process management by allowing an integrated view of the relationship, facilitated the analysis of services and promoted to customers, regardless of the point of contact, the experience of successful journeys

CHANNEL INTEGRATION TOWARDS OMNICHANNEL MANAGEMENT: A LITERATURE REVIEW

The evolution of technology and the constant digitalisation strongly influence how consumers behave, how markets develop, and how companies and consumers interact. By offering many channels, companies attempt to react to these developments. In recent years, researchers as well as practitioners have proposed omnichannel management as the best approach to offer several channels. An omnichannel strategy enables consumers to use channels seamlessly and interchangeably and experience the channels uniquely. However, reality looks different: many channel management approaches coexist in practice, and in research, terms to describe different concepts are used without clear distinctions. This paper seeks to eliminate ambiguities regarding the term omnichannel management. By delimiting the term from related approaches and understanding current topics discussed by omnichannel management research, this paper creates a common basis from which to fully understand the concept. Omnichannel management has shown relevance in many areas, but particularly in retailing, marketing, and information systems (IS) research. IS plays an important role in the implementation of the omnichannel approach because obstacles are often technology-related and companies are strongly dependent on information technology (IT). To move research on omnichannel management forward, this paper proposes directions for further research

Improving holistic customer experience in omnichannel environment

Commoditization of telecommunication products and services consumers use today means challenges for companies but also provide opportunities. The telecommunications field is highly competitive environment where experiences which customers have and quality of service can offer great advantages over other available products and services in the market. The value which positive interaction experiences and customer journeys can provide has become one of the main drivers why people choose the product or service they want to use. This thesis is done for telecommunications company Elisa. As a company, Elisa is committed on enhancing their customer’s experiences and making that a strategic advantage in today’s market environment. This thesis focuses on omnichannel customer journeys in Elisa. The contributions include clarifying customer experience in customer - company relationship, mapping and visualizing the most common customer journeys and researching customers’ experiences in Elisa’s omnichannel environment. Theoretical background reviews literature on how experiences are created, how the holistic nature of customer experience is managed and what are the attributes customer experience consists of. Thesis also reviews how to enhance experience design with acknowledging the benefits and advantages this can provide to a company. The first phase of the research consists of mapping and visualizing the most common customer journeys in Elisa. A total of three different multi-touchpoint customer journeys were mapped, with activities to the touchpoints. These customer journey mappings provided the background understanding for the second phase, where the focus was on researching Elisa’s customers’ omnichannel experiences with collaborative design methods. The Findings from this study show what the experience of the customers consist of and how it could be improved. Analyzing qualitative data of customer’s needs, attitudes & emotions provided understanding, which can be used to develop customer experience in Elisa’s omnichannel environment and propose strategic recommendations for future customer centric direction in this area

Adoption and Impact of QR-codes in an Omnichannel Customer Experience; The Perspective of Consumer Electronics

Physical retailers are struggling to compete against digital players. Providing a positive omnichannel customer experience instore has become a vigorous strategy to stay competitive in today’s retail environment. QR-codes can offer a wide variety of digital information almost instantaneously. Retailers of consumer electronics are suggested to benefit from this easy access to information by responding to consumers need for interactive and personalized experiences. QR-codes are especially suitable in the prepurchase stage of the customer journey, in which consumers consider and evaluate products. Moreover, QR-codes has had a revival due to its potential during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, there is still an ongoing discussion about the adoption of QR-codes and a lack of empirical insight on the impact of QR-codes on the omnichannel customer experience as well as a lack of studies that take a holistic approach to investigate QR-codes in a consumer electronics setting. The objective of this study was therefore to fill this knowledge gap by answering the following research questions: (1) why consumers adopt or resist QR-codes, and (2) which QR-code information and features provides experiential value and influences purchase intention in consumer electronics. In answering the first question, a theoretical framework was developed, which extends the Technology Acceptance Model with functional and physiological barriers from the Innovation Resistance Theory, as well as potential moderating factors like age, gender, and personal innovativeness. One or more hypotheses for each construct were based on extensive literature review, and the framework was tested in a cross-sectional survey study. In answering the second question, an experiential value and purchase intention framework was built upon theories on customer experience. Based on literature regarding omnichannel behavior, QRcodes, and shopper-facing technology, it was assumed that more digitalized and personalized information and features were preferred by consumers. This assumption was tested using conjoint analysis. The findings from the cross-sectional survey shows that QR-code adoption is primarily driven by perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, compatibility, and age. The findings from the conjoint analysis generally indicate that less digitalized and personalized information and features can add experiential value and that more digitalized and personalized trigger purchase intention. Features such as personalized reviews should especially be consider by retailers as this was important across both experiential value and purchase intention. In conclusion, retailers should focus on both utilitarian and hedonic benefits of QR-codes and ensure that the touchpoints fit with consumers’ shopping behavior and age. Retailers must also be aware that there are differences in the preferences for what can create experiential value and purchase intention, and they should carefully consider the purpose for which QR-codes are implemented and allow this to guide them in what information and features they apply

Making omnichannel an augmented reality: the current and future state of the art

Purpose—This paper explores the current and future role of Augmented Reality (AR) as an enabler of omnichannel experiences across the customer journey. To advance the conceptual understanding and managerial exploitation of AR, the paper synthesises current research, illustrating how a variety of current applications merge online and offline experiences, and provides a future research agenda to help advance the state of the art in AR. Design/methodology/approach—Drawing on situated cognition theorising as a guiding framework, the paper reviews previously published research and currently deployed applications to provide a roadmap for future research efforts on AR-enabled omnichannel experiences across the customer journey. Findings—AR offers myriad opportunities to provide customers with a seamless omnichannel journey, smoothing current obstacles, through a unique combination of i) embedded, ii) embodied, and iii) extended customer experiences. These three principles constitute the overarching value drivers of AR and offer coherent, theory-driven organising principles for managers and researchers alike. Originality/value—Current research has yet to provide a relevant, conceptually robust understanding of AR-enabled customer experiences. In light of the rapid development and widespread deployment of the technology, this paper provides an urgently needed framework for guiding the development of AR in an omnichannel context

Trigger factors in brick and click shopping

Purpose: The goal of this research is to describe the customer’s purchase path in different shopping channels and to identify which are the trigger factors that motivate the choice of every shopping channel. The description of the factors that motivate this seamless experience across all channels will provide brands with knowledge about how to improve their strategic approach to engagement, belonging and retention of customers. Design/methodology: This paper builds propositions about the trigger factors for shopping channel choice based on thirty reports from the main consultancy companies made during the last five years and coded regarding the main topics highlighted in the literature. Findings: The findings of this study indicate that there are common trigger factors for every shopping channel and for every stage of the purchase path. Research limitations/implications: The data are from different countries, segments and products although they show common patterns. Originality/value: To date, little research in a complete vision of the shopping paths has been done. The definition of the different paths and the trigger factors associated to each one is unique and will help further research in this area.Peer Reviewe