An omnichannel retail strategy is the culmination of a retail brand’s customer experience design and orchestration plan. Executed successfully, it will transform a set of separate engagement channels into one, unified CX model.
While the concept is simple, building an omnichannel retail experience that lasts takes a CX-centric, customer-first approach combining ease-of-use, convenience, and personalization. And it always starts with the right strategy:
1. Map Your Current State
Consider how you can gather the right insights from both employees and customers and map out your current customer journey to create a visual representation of the path—and channels—your customers take when they engage with your brand. Remember, this step is about establishing a foundation on which you can build phased improvement.
2. Define Your North Star
Defining your "North Star" omnichannel retail direction and your important business outcomes will guide the business outcomes you want to achieve for your omnichannel retail strategy, and in turn, improve business drivers like employee engagement, customer loyalty, brand perception, and revenue.
3. Identify Opportunities for Improvement
Once you’ve defined your North Star, it’s time to uncover the challenges that currently stand in the way of success. Sometimes those obstacles are obvious, but often, it's less apparent as to when or why unhappy customers are leaving. That's why it's important to do some digging to find out the real problems in your current CX.
4. Develop a CX Transformation Roadmap
Once you’ve uncovered what your customers and your employees have to say and have identified the gaps between the current and desired state of your CX, it’s time to create a roadmap to help you achieve a strong, sustainable omnichannel retail experience.
5. Orchestrate the New Experience Strategy
Orchestration means utilizing people, processes, and technology to enable the foundational components of CX, and it’s critical to the success of your omnichannel retail strategy. Just like the name implies, orchestration means pulling all the pieces together to execute your roadmap and build a seamless, frictionless omnichannel retail customer experience.
6. Measure Your Success
The final step in CX transformation should be to set aside both the time and resources to make sure your modernized omnichannel strategy is actually meeting your initial objectives. Surveys, interviews, polls, VoC, and VoE programs can help collect feedback and data and give you a rounded perspective of your success.