Is the key to omnichannel in your company structure?

The following blog provides an edited excerpt from the new white paper, “Orchestrating the omnichannel experience: what telcos must do to get it right and why“, produced by Ovum in partnership with imimobile.

As we saw in our previous blog, most telcos are still a long way from having the ability to orchestrate the customer experience in line with their customers' many and various journeys. Common barriers include organisational and system silos at the back end, a lack of understanding of what’s required and or how to provide it, and the absence of a customer process orchestration layer. But crowning all of this is often a lack of customer-first orientation and leadership from the top.

Telcos must take a strategic and holistic approach to omnichannel to overcome common barriers

Omnichannel customer experience orchestration is much more than a technology challenge. Many telcos have evolved and grown through acquisition, and over time that has led to a complex and highly fragmented tangle of departments, functions, and IT systems designed to support an acquisitive utility mind-set.

Silos lead to customer journey fragmentation, disappointment, and churn.

Departmental, product, channel, and information silos all have a negative impact on the quality of the customer experience. Where different product teams or departments take responsibility for their own channel strategies, customers are often given little choice about how to interact with the company, and can be irritated or left confused by the lack of a coherent experience.

Customer data that is fragmented across multiple systems makes it hard to gain any real actionable customer insight. Offers pushed out to customers at the wrong time or through the least effective channels create considerable waste. Marketing automation systems not designed to manage real-time customer interaction allied to a lack of insight simply accelerate customer disenchantment, leading to increased risk of churn.

The transformation to a highly adaptive digital services provider starts with a customer orientation

What is required is a coherent approach to customers, and that starts with a genuine customer orientation.

The term "customer-centricity" is as elastic and nebulous as the term "digital transformation." Neither carries much meaning without clarity of purpose, and that demands real leadership from the CEO and throughout the leadership team of the enterprise.

A customer orientation starts with a vision to centre the enterprise on the customer, organise around customers, and support customers throughout their lifecycle stages (acquisition, on-boarding, in-life) and across all their journeys.

Customer lifecycle and key touchpoints

Begin with a leadership commitment to the customer

Getting to an intelligent and orchestrated omnichannel capability represents a major business shift, and firms that have succeeded in this endeavour are invariably led from a clear vision at the top. It is critical that the leadership of the telco recognises that omnichannel offers a route for persistent customer relevance and growth.

Omnichannel requires cross-organisational collaboration and alignment

To get started or to progress with omnichannel, representation from each part of the firm's value chain should collaborate to design and develop the omnichannel platform. This should consist of marketing, customer service, domain, and IT and architectural experts.

Enterprises that have progressed successfully with their omnichannel customer experience capabilities also exhibit a hierarchy of developments to ensure firm foundations.

Ovum has identified seven steps crucial to getting this groundwork right, including effective mapping of critical touchpoints along the customer journey, and establishing an orchestration layer at the heart of the omnichannel structure. If telcos can follow these steps, the foundations will be laid for a more rewarding omnichannel customer experience - and future growth.

For more information and insights on the omnichannel opportunity for telcos and overcoming the challenges of digital transformation, download our Webex Connect product sheet.

Launched in partnership with Ovum, and written by leading Ovum analysts Pamela Clark-Dickson and Jeremy Cox, the paper not only delves deeper into orchestrating intelligent customer interactions but also gives practical advice on how to approach digital transformation for success – and what telcos need to do be able to deliver a truly omnichannel experience to customers.