How to Ensure a Consistent Customer Experience Across the Entire Customer Journey?

Offline and online have merged in today’s world, and contactless is the order of the day – our landscape for servicing the consumer could not be more complex.

When you go back to the early 2000s, things were very different. Marketing handled marketing and branding of your offerings; sales ensured closures with your customers; customer service and support dealt with the servicing and post-sales queries. They all existed in silos, and the customer journey was structured around it.

Things changed drastically in the last decade and more so in the past couple of years.

Today, a customer looks at a product online and looks at the shipping time of 3 days. He calls customer support to check if the shipping time can be expedited. Upon hearing that it cannot be expedited, he visits a physical store to pick up the product himself. On reaching the physical store, he realizes that he will spend about 30 minutes picking the stuff and realizes that he has to pick up his child from school. So, he decides to make the purchase online itself.

The customer has interacted with your business within an hour or so across different channels – online store, physical store, and customer support.

This is how complex the customer journey has become.

How Do You Provide a Consistent Customer Experience?

You need to have an integrated system across functions and channels to address a complex customer journey like this.

Let me give you a few scenarios.

Scenario 1

When the customer calls up customer support to check if the shipping can be expedited, an integrated system will allow the customer support engineer to check the inventory across online and physical stores.

Once he finds out that the product the customer is looking for available at the physical store near his location, he tells the customer that shipping can be done faster. He also completes the order online on behalf of the customer with the special request for faster shipment and confirms the order. He informs his shipping and logistics to pick the product from their physical stores and deliver it to the customer in the backend.

Scenario 2

While displaying the product online, they can add the shipment information along with the product features. For standard delivery, it would take three working days.

An integrated system would allow you to understand that the same product is available at your physical stores as well. So, you can add in your display, for same-day delivery, you can pay an additional 50 bucks, or you can register and become a member of our platform.

This would ensure improved customer loyalty and stickiness to the platform.

Scenario 3

When the customer goes online to check for the product, an integrated system will allow you to know the inventory position across your online and physical stores. While displaying the product itself, you can provide the customer with options.

Option 1: You can place the order online, and the shipment will reach you in three working days.

Option 2: You can place the order online, go to a physical store, and pick up the product yourself immediately.

Option 3: You can place the order online and request same-day delivery if you are a registered member, or pay an additional 50 bucks and get it delivered.

The customer chooses one of the options and settles the transaction based on his needs.

These are different possible scenarios for the example discussed in this article. Multiple such scenarios would be available for other use cases. An integrated system would allow you to provide the best possible customer experience across the customer journey, irrespective of their needs.

So, the first step to providing a customer experience in the eCommerce industry across every step of your customer journey is to ensure an integrated system.