One of the key drivers of customer satisfaction for manufacturers and distributors today lies in their ability to bring a multichannel model alive for their buyers.  Offline-only channels historically owned by sales reps and customer service teams must now be meshed with online channels to create an anytime, anyplace model that enables maximum efficiency and ease of use for business buyers. 

As noted by Accenture in the article “Multi Channel Customer Experience: Service Agents in the Digital Age,” “Companies think high-value customers prefer human interactions and Millennials want digital-only service solutions. Neither assumption is true. What is true is that customers now simultaneously live in both the digital and physical worlds. That means companies must deliver a tightly-integrated multi-channel customer service experience so customers can choose—and be satisfied”.

Companies must now recognize this simultaneous requirement and re-engineer their business processes to bring their online and offline channels together.  Throughout this process, they need to make sure the end result replaces inconsistent with consistent, inaccurate with accurate, slow with fast, irrelevant with targeted, and inconvenient with ease of use.

With a variety of personas making requests and performing an array of activities ranging from simple to complex, optimally weaving the physical and digital channels across business processes is complex and dynamic, but there are a few primary keys to success.

First, the information that is provided to a buyer through all channels must be consistent.  This not only builds trust across the organization with the business buyer, but is a must to eliminate frustration and inefficiency.   Product pricing, for example, can no longer be on the back of a napkin or in a spreadsheet confined to a sales rep laptop.  It must be systematized through a process that provides accurate and timely pricing to both internal and external users. 

For some organizations, this is a big change, but once changed, the benefits are many.  For example, customers can confidently self-serve when making repeat purchases.  Likewise, customer service representatives engaged in supporting the sales or quoting process will have access to the same information as provided to the customer from the sales rep. 

Accuracy is the second key.  Online channels have heightened the importance of data governance.  Whether presenting product content, pricing, inventory availability, freight estimates, order status, shipping information, etc., the information provided through all channels must be accurate.  This has particular implications for business process and integration protocols to make sure that that these strategies support the timely presentation of accurate information.

Mobility is the third key.  With nearly all of us using our smartphones and tablets in an increasing number of activities each and every day, expecting a buyer to be confined to a desktop computer or phone is long gone. 

Fourth, embarking on a mission to enrich content through customer segmentation and personalization is clearly the route to delighting customers wherever they might be on their journeys.  This factors heavily into ease of use by presenting relevant information to the various personas as they perform their tasks and interact with you.  While data analytics has fallen to the bottom of the list in the past with manufacturers and distributors, it is a key to future success.

Recognize that buyers expect to control and vary their routes so be up to the challenge!  Start now to re-engineer your business process for a robust multi-channel model.

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