What is Omnichannel and why your business needs it - ConnexAI

What is Omnichannel and why does your business need it?

If you’re in the customer engagement industry, you have probably heard the word “omnichannel” before. Across every industry sector, companies of all sizes are leveraging Omnichannel Customer Experience (CX) software and surpassing the limitations imposed by previous contact centre paradigms, like legacy systems or multichannel structures.

But what exactly does Omnichannel software do for contact centres?

To put it simply, an Omnichannel contact centre solution provides agents with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface where they can engage with new or regular customers across all communication channels (voice, SMS, email, social media, WhatsApp, live chat etc.), and seamlessly switch between channels when necessary.

Some of the first businesses to pioneer an omnichannel strategy for their customer experiences were major players in the market like Tesco, Apple, and Amazon.

Case study: Learn how National Debt Advisors used an omnichannel strategy to increase sales, cut man-hours by half, and win a national “Best Debt Counseling” award.

Omnichannel is on a steady path to becoming the new standard in customer communications. In 2025, businesses that leverage omnichannel software will gain a massive edge over their competitors and see drastic increases in revenue, productivity, and efficiency, while those who don’t will be at risk of losing relevance as time goes by. But what is the reason for this paradigm shift?

Why is the Omnichannel Customer Experience Taking Over?

There are multiple reasons why Omnichannel software is quickly becoming the new norm. When presented with statistics on the evolution of customer behaviour, it’s difficult to deny the need for an omnichannel customer experience in today’s customer engagement landscape.

We’ve compiled a few key figures that illustrate the impact of omnichannel:

Omnichannel’s impact for businesses:

Studies have found that customer retention rates are 90% higher for omnichannel campaigns than those focusing on single-channel marketing.
Additionally, an Omnisend report revealed that marketers using ‘three or more’ channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those using a single-channel campaign. (Omnisend, 2020).
Data from Google also showed that omnichannel shoppers have a 30% higher lifetime value than those who shop using only one channel; in other words, they generate more revenue.

Brands investing in omnichannel customer engagement service saw a 10% increase in annual business growth, as noted in “The Total Economic Impact of Adobe Experience Cloud.”

Customers’ preference for omnichannel:

A study conducted by Harvard Business Review found that around 73% of consumers prefer shopping through multiple channels.

In a survey, Salesforce found that 75% of consumers look forward to a consistent experience across multiple engagement channels. And what’s more: 73% declare that they will likely switch brands if they don’t get it.

And what’s more important: 9 out of 10 customers won’t purchase again from a company after three or even less poor customer service interactions (Source: Customerthink).

When you consider that it usually costs between 5-30 times more to get new customers than retain the ones you already have (Finextra), it’s easy to understand why omnichannel is steadily becoming the new standard for customer engagement.

Multichannel vs Omnichannel

Unfortunately, many business owners and decision-makers do not understand the distinction between a multichannel and an omnichannel approach.

This confusion has caused many to believe that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with how their business interacts with customers, blissfully unaware that they are lagging far behind their competitors in customer engagement. Due to this ignorance, businesses frequently squander crucial resources, cash, time, and customers by continuing their CX operations via a multichannel approach.

So, what is the difference between multichannel and omnichannel strategies?

We can illustrate the difference between a multichannel and an omnichannel strategy with a well-known adage: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

A multichannel approach simply adds more channels to the list of ways customers can contact a company. However, because these channels are not integrated, multichannel communication does not always improve communication for agents or customers because there is less flexibility to switch between channels. A multichannel strategy therefore leads to lengthier, more awkward, and less effective interactions.

An omnichannel approach, on the other hand, integrates all channels into a single platform, making communication between agents and customers seamless, smooth, and simple.

But how does omnichannel software actually perform in practice?

Omnichannel Success Story: Optegra Eye Health Care

Optegra, a top UK eye healthcare provider, dramatically transformed its customer experience through implementing Connex’s innovative omnichannel software platform. With 30 clinics in the UK and Europe, Optegra has provided eye care for over 1.3 million people.

By adopting ConnexAI for customer engagement, Optegra achieved impressive results: a 20% boost in agent productivity, 15% higher customer satisfaction levels, and optimized conversions. Rapid responses to inquiries and catering to diverse communication preferences were essential factors in this success.

Ola Spencer, Group Operations Director at Optegra, says, “Previously, we engaged with patients mainly through phone and email. Now, our omnichannel approach includes online bookings, calls, and virtual consultations.” Additionally, reducing physical touchpoints allows patients to access consultations from their homes and ask questions at any time.

ConnexAI expanded Optegra’s accessibility to younger patients through social media and instant messaging like WhatsApp. “We have much younger patients engaging via social media nowadays,” Ola continues. “Beyond that, the analytics suite from ConnexAI helps Optimax understand customer preferences throughout their whole journey.”

Ian Bateman, Optegra’s Head of Customer Engagement, emphasizes the importance of patient satisfaction: “Leveraging Connex’s services helps us optimize and improve, and the collaboration with ConnexAI has significantly boosted our reputation and growth.”

3 Tangible Benefits of an Omnichannel Strategy

Presence, availability, and resolution speed are key when it comes to customer engagement. And that’s exactly what an Omnichannel customer experience delivers.

Here are three major advantages of utilising an Omnichannel customer engagement platform.

Seamless and Efficient Interactions

Adopting an omnichannel platform for your customer teams will allow them to seamlessly cater to customers’ communication preferences and switch conversations to different channels when necessary. After all, people use different communication channels to talk with each other in their everyday lives, and it’s only natural that they expect to do the same when talking to businesses.

When channels are changed with little disruption, customer conversations get better in terms of quality, fluency, and resolution time. In addition to improving customer service, an omnichannel solution will also result in a rise in customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Customer Journey Mapping and Visibility

According to a recent IBM study, locating client account information takes up 75% of a typical manual (agent-facing) support call.

However, with some high-level omnichannel contact centre solutions, like ConnexAI, information from previous interactions will be stored and readily available no matter which channel the customer is using. With this level of data visibility available to customer teams, they can spend more time on the task at hand and less time looking for information.

This useful data can also be used by customer service representatives to inform the next steps in the customer journey. With the ability to see all stages of the customer journey from beginning to end, agents can better understand each interaction in its larger context, allowing them to more precisely map out the path to resolution.

Preventing Agent Burnout

According to an ICMI survey, 87% of call centre agents report moderate to high levels of stress during their workday, and 71% attribute this to system and tool inefficiencies.

In the same survey, a whopping 100% of the organisations agreed that agent morale and satisfaction have a direct impact on the customer experience. However, most former call agents cite stress, which is frequently caused by inefficient tools, as one of the primary reasons they left their jobs.

“It bothers me that when you ask business leaders what’s most important to them, they’ll tell you [that it’s] customer experience, customer service,” says Justin Robbins, Senior Analyst at ICMI. “But the reality is that their actions are completely contrary to that. They know that their agents are stressed out, and the main reason is their tools and technology aren’t efficient.”

To combat these issues and improve the agent experience, many businesses are turning to omnichannel software to relieve agents of the stress of menial, repetitive, and arduous tasks, allowing them to focus on building relationships with customers without the risk of burnout.

Onboarding an Omnichannel Contact Centre Solution

As we’ve seen, Omnichannel promises a significant improvement in business performance and is rightfully regarded as the new standard of customer engagement. Now, you may be wondering how to go about putting an Omnichannel approach into practice.

ConnexAI is dedicated to ensuring that our clients’ transition to Omnichannel is as seamless and quick as possible. In a matter of days, we can set up your contact centre with the full ConnexAI suite, including Omnichannel as well as a variety of features like Athena, Workforce, and Gamify. Our platform also integrates with over 40 CRM tools, including Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk.

To see how ConnexAI could efficiently help your business leverage the Omnichannel Customer Experience, request a free demo of our platform here or get in touch with our team at hello@connexone.co.uk.