A Complete Guide to Omnichannel Journey Orchestration for 2023

Customers are interacting with brands through multiple touchpoints, from social media to email, chatbots, and more. In fact, a recent study showed that customers now engage with brands across an average of 20 different channels. This only shows how important customer experience is at every touchpoint. 

In this guide, we’ll explore how to optimize your customer journey across multiple channels and share some tips for omnichannel success.

What Is Journey Orchestration in Omnichannel Marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is a strategy that involves using multiple channels — email, social media, SMS, push notifications, popups and more — to engage with customers. Customer journey orchestration in omnichannel marketing takes this a step further and puts a greater effort into mapping out the customer journey. 

Depending on the customer, journey orchestration can be about sending a welcome email to new customers and following it with a series of personalized emails. Or it can be about retargeting customers who have shown interest in a product but haven’t made a purchase yet. The overall goal is to deliver a more relevant and personalized experience to each customer regardless of where they interact with your brand.

Why Is Omnichannel Journey Orchestration Important for Modern Ecommerce?

The rise of digital channels and the growth of online shopping has changed the marketing field for good. But if you look closely, an omnichannel approach is not just changing marketing, it’s making the whole ecommerce industry better.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

By delivering a personalized and seamless experience across multiple touchpoints, businesses can cater to the unique needs and preferences of their customers. This results in increased customer loyalty, advocacy, and an improved brand reputation. It’s a win-win-win situation for any business looking to thrive in today’s digital marketplace.

Increased Revenue

A tailored and relevant customer experience across multiple channels is already enough to boost sales and conversion rates. But that’s not all — by mining data from multiple touchpoints, businesses can also identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. Thus, marketing orchestration drives even more revenue growth.

Reduced Churn

A great experience across multiple touchpoints ensures that customers feel valued and appreciated. The more effectively businesses do it, the higher the satisfaction and retention rates. And, as any savvy business owner knows, improved retention rates usually mean a significant boost in customer lifetime value and profitability.

Better Data-Driven Decision-Making

Campaign orchestration also exposes businesses to a holistic view of their customer’s behavior and preferences. Armed with this information, businesses can identify patterns and insights that will inform better decision-making.

What’s more, this data can be used to track the success of various campaigns, which helps businesses measure the impact of their efforts. 

Improved Efficiency

With more data insights into the customer journey, businesses can reduce the number of touchpoints required to complete a purchase. This results in shorter sales cycles and faster, more efficient transactions. Since businesses have more control over the customer journey, they can also automate certain processes, like handling customer support requests.

What Tools Are Needed for Journey Orchestration?

To implement journey orchestration, businesses need the right tools and technologies. Of course, the choice will depend on the specific needs and goals of each business. But there are a few types of omnichannel marketing solutions you should prioritize. 

Customer Data Platforms

One critical tool is a customer data platform (CDP). CDPs are comprehensive data management systems that collect, unify, and organize customer data from CRM systems, transactional databases, social media, and third-party sources. As you break down data silos, you’ll gain a more comprehensive understanding of customer behavior. 

CDPs are a key component of journey orchestration, helping businesses deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right customer. For instance, with Yespo, you can take advantage of a ​​comprehensive set of features, from data collection to AI-powered, real-time journey orchestration across multiple channels.

Single-Customer View Solutions

Single-customer view solutions are similar to customer data platforms, but they don’t process or analyze anything. An SCV is a centralized database that only brings together customer data. Still, the process of consolidating and standardizing customer data is important for the bigger goal.

With an SCV, you will have a single source of truth for customer data and avoid inconsistencies and duplicates, which are common for isolated systems and databases.

Customer Engagement Tools

This should be a tailored set of tools for real-time engagement across multiple touchpoints. For example, a customer who abandons their online shopping cart will receive a personalized message with a special incentive. 

Another valuable tool for an automated customer journey is social media management software. It helps manage social media presence, respond to customer inquiries and complaints, and monitor social media conversations. 

Marketing Automation Tools

Marketing automation tools work perfectly in combination with all the other instruments from above. You set the triggers, and the software will send targeted emails, push notifications, SMS messages, Telegram messages, sales emails and social media messages, among others.

As a result, you’ll set up campaign automation and free up time for your team to focus on more strategic initiatives.

How to Implement Omnichannel Orchestration: 6 Essential Steps

Here are the steps to deliver an exceptional omnichannel experience that meets and exceeds customer expectations:

1. Define Your Customer Journey

The first step is to get to know your customer journey inside-out. This requires charting every touchpoint that a customer may have with your brand, be it through various channels or devices. 

With this insight, you can pinpoint areas where your customer experience may need a little boost. This can be inconsistent messaging across channels, slow response times, difficulty navigating your website or app, limited payment options, or lack of personalization.

2. Collect and Integrate Customer Data

Now, get to know your customers on a personal level. Use different data sources like your website, social media, mobile apps, customer service interactions, and anything else to build a comprehensive 360-degree view of each customer.

But collecting customer data is just one part of the equation. You also need to integrate it seamlessly across all channels and devices. For example, if a customer purchases an item in-store, their online account would be updated automatically to reflect the purchase. 

3. Segment Your Audience

Segment your audience based on relevant criteria; the most popular ones are age, gender, location, purchase history, and behavior. Segmentation criteria should help you group together customers with similar needs, preferences, and interests.

For example, a beauty brand can create a campaign targeting customers with dry skin featuring products specifically formulated to hydrate and moisturize.

4. Identify Pain Points

Pain points are areas where customers are experiencing frustration, confusion, or difficulty in interacting with your brand. You may uncover technical issues, limited availability, or unclear information, just to name a few issues. 

Taking the time to understand pain points gives you more power to improve the customer experience and, ultimately, your bottom line.

5. Create Personalized Experiences

By creating personalized campaigns, you can show your customers that you truly understand them and care about their needs.

Imagine this: your customers receive tailored messaging, product recommendations, and targeted offers that speak directly to them. This level of personalization not only helps to boost engagement but also helps drive conversion and build stronger relationships.

6. Optimize And Measure

Finally, you need to make sure your omnichannel marketing strategy is delivering results. Without it, you cannot know your strengths and weaknesses or make informed decisions about where to invest your resources. So don’t overlook the importance of measuring.

Essential Customer Journey Metrics to Track

Continuing the previous point, here are key customer journey metrics for your omnichannel marketing campaigns you may want to include in your data analysis:

Conversion Rate

This measures the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, be it making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter. A high conversion rate indicates that your marketing efforts are successful.

Customer Satisfaction

Tracking customer satisfaction is crucial for companies who want to understand how well they are meeting their customers’ needs. If customers are dissatisfied, it may be an indication that something needs to be changed in the omnichannel approach, the product, or some other internal aspect. 

Customer Retention Rate

This metric shows the percentage of customers who return to make a repeat purchase. If you see a low retention rate, it means a sizable number of customers are dissatisfied with the product and may switch to a competitor. And that’s not the way to build a loyal customer base. 

Average Order Value (AOV)

AOV tells you the average value of each customer’s order. It provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of a company’s strategies for upselling and cross-selling. The higher the value, the better you’re doing at selling products and services across diverse channels.

Time to Resolution

This refers to the average amount of time it takes to resolve customer issues or complaints. If you’re experiencing problems, you can improve this metric through a combination of process optimization, technology implementation, and effective training of customer support staff.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

By measuring NPS, you’ll know how likely your customers are to recommend your brand to others. Since omnichannel journey orchestration is meant for building strong and long-lasting relationships with customers, among other things, you need to keep an eye on NPS. 

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Finally, tracking CLV will help you understand the long-term value of each customer. As you start introducing personalized and relevant experiences across different channels, you’ll see an increase in your most valuable customers. 

Omnichannel Orchestration Examples & Use Cases

Let’s take a look at some examples and use cases across various industries:

Retail

With a multichannel approach, retailers can meet the customers’ needs and preferences at different touchpoints, like offline and online. A customer might browse products on the retailer’s website, add items to their cart on their mobile phone, and complete the purchase in-store. 

Sephora, John Lewis, and IKEA are great examples of retail brands that do it right. 

Hospitality

A customer can explore a booking website and, within seconds, see a live chat window pop up with a friendly greeting from a customer service representative. Let’s say they decide to book their stay at the resort through the website. As their trip approaches, they will receive a personalized email asking if there’s anything the hotel can do to make their stay more comfortable. 

Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, and Four Seasons all use omnichannel strategies to engage with its customers across various channels.

Banking

By using an omnichannel marketing platform, banks can effectively interact with customers through a mobile app, website, or in person. This may be the case when a customer starts an application for a loan on their mobile phone and then completes the process in person at a bank branch.

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo are just a few examples of banking establishments using this approach.

Healthcare

Healthcare providers can implement an omnichannel orchestration system to streamline their care. This can manifest in different ways, e.g., patients can use an online scheduling tool provided by their EHR vendor that’s seamlessly integrated with their health records. Or if they have a question about their medication, they can send a message through the patient portal. Moreover, as the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, services like insurance for home health care are becoming increasingly important. Integrating these insurance options within the omnichannel framework allows patients to not only access quality care through multiple touchpoints but also have a financial safety net in place, ensuring comprehensive and worry-free healthcare experiences.

If you’re looking for inspiration, Walgreens, CVS Health, and Teladoc Health offer excellent omnichannel services.

Automotive

One use case for orchestration is when a potential customer is in the market for a new car. They decide to purchase the car and receive a confirmation email and text message with the details of their order, as well as an estimated delivery date. The automaker will then send the customer regular updates on the status of the car, from production to shipping to delivery.

This industry has been adopting the omnichannel approach at an increasingly rapid pace. Notable examples: BMW, Volvo, Ford, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz.

Conclusion

In conclusion, effective omnichannel communication for marketing always requires a deep understanding of the customer. The more you know, the better you can orchestrate experiences across multiple touchpoints. 

At this point, you probably don’t need any more convincing that a customer journey map and a journey orchestration platform can do a lot for your business. If done correctly, they’ll be a positive effect on everything from engagement and loyalty to growth and revenue.

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