Going omnichannel: 7 crucial steps for telcos

Omnichannel: it’s a word which has been given an almost ‘mythical’ status for the last decade, describing an infinite state that, once achieved, will allow telcos and other enterprises to drive growth, stand out in a crowded market and transform customer experience across customer services, marketing and service delivery.

Is going omnichannel worth the investment? The numbers speak for themselves:

·        Businesses which have strong omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for those which don’t.

·        Omnichannel shoppers have a 30% higher lifetime value than those who shop using only one channel.

·        87% of customers think brands need to put more effort into providing a seamless experience.

Despite these clear benefits and potential, many telcos are struggling to get their strategies off the ground. A research paper that looked at the state of omnichannel digital transformation in eight countries found that, for the majority of telcos, their plans were either in the “early stages” or “in progress” – but only a small minority had plans anywhere near completion. The UK is quite strong in this regard, with more than 40% at the “well advanced” or “complete” stage; but that still leaves nearly 60% of UK telcos languishing in the “early stages” or “not started” category.

Facing the three challenges of silos and legacy systems, a lack of digital knowledge and skills, and a lack of architecture to enable customer journey orchestration, how can telcos drive progress, laying a foundation to deliver omnichannel services and experiences to their customers?

In their latest white paper produced in collaboration with IMImobile, “Orchestrating the Omnichannel Customer Experience: What telcos must do to get it right and why,” analysts at Ovum identified seven steps that telcos must take to lay the foundation and groundwork for going omnichannel:

1.      Start by identifying the most critical customer segments and customer journeys to map

Customer journey mapping is a useful means of creating an outside-in view of how customers would like to interact. Most telcos will have a wealth of customer feedback from satisfaction surveys, but this should be augmented through observation and testing.

Given the variety and number of different customer journeys, rather than trying to map every possible permutation, the most critical customer segments and customer journeys should be mapped first.

Demonstrating just how important it is for telcos to select their own priorities based on those customer journeys that drive the biggest mutual impact on enterprise growth goals and the customer, McKinsey assessed the different characteristics of an end-to-end consumer experience with a business, from first interaction to ease of identifying the right products. They found that typically, only three of the 15 characteristics of an end-to-end experience with a business has any material impact and accounted for the bulk of overall satisfaction.

Transparency and simplicity lead the way as the most influential drivers of customer satisfaction, with characteristics related to personalisation and value-added services making less of an impact.

2.      Adopt an architectural approach centred on the customer

Omnichannel will only achieve successful outcomes if the capability is designed from the customer first. Legacy systems, as well as the new capabilities and supporting systems, must work together harmoniously to support real-time interaction. External and internal feedback loops need to be supported to ensure that the experience delivered is continuously optimised through effective process control.

Redundant capabilities should be assessed and either retired and replaced by more relevant capabilities supporting digital customer interaction, or extended through integration with more up-to-date systems that control engagement.

3.      Use the omnichannel design principles to guide development

At the core of omnichannel are four capabilities that must be supported and used to evaluate any omnichannel service or experience in development or deployed:

Recognise the customer or persona: Be able to identify customers (or, for prospects, personas) across different touch points, using behavioural patterns to add context to interactions and services. 

Orchestrate the experience: Intelligently orchestrate the customer experience throughout the customer’s journey in real time.

Adapt continuously: Adapt at the right pace to ensure a persistently relevant customer experience across all channel interactions.

Protect the customer: That refers to privacy and protection against the unauthorised or fraudulent use of customer data; it is essential in all transactions.

4.      Unify customer data

Fundamental to personalisation is knowing the customer. One of the first jobs must be to unify customer data and, where necessary, augment it with real-time interaction data so that the customer's context can be determined and an appropriate response delivered at the right time in the customer’s journey.

5.      Establish the orchestration layer – work with a specialist provider who can offer a flexible Platform-as-a-Service

A channel-agnostic and intelligent orchestration layer should be at the heart of the omnichannel design. This will ensure that customer events and triggers are acted upon in real-time, such as fulfilment and provisioning of a service triggered by customers' interactions across their journeys.

Customer data must persist across channels, and if customers leave their journeys temporarily, they must be able to pick up later from where they left off. For example, a customer may have initiated webchat, seeking to add a new service package. The customer may have to leave halfway through, but the customer is able to pick up the conversation and complete the enquiry using SMS and social messaging. There must be a single view of each customer's interactions to support this capability.

Speed to capability is critical, so rather than develop an orchestration capability from the ground up using inflexible methods, which can be expensive and take far too long, Ovum recommends that telcos should identify a specialist provider that can offer the platform as a service utilising low-code tools which can be configured to fit.

6.      Align the organisation to remove silos

Organisational coherence is essential to successful omnichannel delivery. The leadership of the telco must take steps to align the organisation around customers and to obliterate organisational, product, and channel silos.

To get started or to progress with omnichannel, representation from each part of the telco’s value chain should collaborate to design and develop the omnichannel platform. This should consist of business, domain, and IT and architectural experts. Telcos can also embed external consultants or systems integrators into the team with the ability to help the organisation develop its roadmap and harness existing legacy systems, as well as integrate them with the new intelligent orchestration capabilities required.

7.      Measure what matters – select KPIs to foster desired behaviours

The foundation of enduring relationships is trust. Telcos may need to review their current measurement criteria and KPIs and ensure that they foster the desired customer-centric behaviours.

Companies throughout industries commonly use customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Scores, but at a practical level, many agents in contact centres are still measured on call-handling times. The focus should shift to success in solving the customers' issues or helping them achieve successful outcomes. Some telcos are also measuring the ease with which customers complete their journeys, the idea being to minimise customer effort and identify any systemic impediments that must be removed. A thorough review of existing KPIs must be undertaken to ensure that the right behaviours are being fostered and not the wrong ones.

For more information on the seven steps for going omnichannel and how telcos can develop the four core omnichannel capabilities to overcome the challenges of digital transformation, download the full Ovum white paper for free here.