Multi-channel customer management: Delighting consumers, driving efficiency

Abstract

In today's maturing consumer markets, emphasis is shifting from straightforward sales to a more holistic approach to customer life cycle management, with a stronger emphasis on how sales are generated and service provided all along the customer journey. Effectively managing these different marketing, sales and service channels poses a significant challenge. Companies need new strategies, structures, processes and tools to deliver customer value across all channels. A multi-channel, integrative customer model that delivers customer value and significant return on investment (ROI) requires both a strong understanding of customer preferences and behaviours and a robust IT architecture that supports the overarching customer relationship management (CRM) strategy. Even those organizations that have embraced the need for sophisticated multi-channel orchestration often still fall short in their execution. We offer strategic guidelines in four areas to ensure success with multi-channel orchestration. First, marketing operations need to explicitly define a channel strategy with respect to customer segmentation, the channel journey (how and where sales and services are delivered) and targeted incentives that reward multi-channel sales and service support. Secondly, marketers need to optimize the online channel, which is fast becoming the primary platform for accessing product and service information, and completing an ever-growing number of transactions. It is also the entry hub to other touch points; customers go online to contact the company or to find store locations or telephone numbers. Thirdly, companies need to build an IT foundation that underpins their CRM strategy. This CRM IT architecture needs to enable the transformation from vertical, single-channel operations to true horizontal business processes that deliver cross-channel integration. Fourthly, marketers can learn by example. Companies across the consumer products spectrum are experimenting with the multi-channel experience. Marketers should broadly consider the best practices that they could adapt to their own industry.