Information for Everyone
The web offers unique possibilities to show detailed product information. The corresponding is often missing in stores. Try to overcome this by making it easy for the customer to come to the product at your web/app directly from the store shelf. Build this function so it can be easy to access other alternatives to the product. You can also analyse this data to see which products that your customers are most interested in when they visit your stores.
Several shops says that their staff can’t offer the same knowledge about products as the web site can. Gear up the staff with tablets and mobile units so that they can have the same product and customer information, and the possibility to assist with orders.
Your customers at the web also have questions, can you find a solution to help the ones at the web at the same way as you assist them in the store?
The customers expect to see if a product is in stock in a certain store at the web site. In the same way, you are expected to check if a product that is out of stock in the store is available at the e-commerce site.
Messages in Sync
It is important that a visitor to a store or e-commerce recognizes a commercial message in the present channel. The site and store must connect to the campaign, and it is also important, of course, that prices and range is the same as the ones in the commercials.
Think of the possibility that the customers actually could buy the products directly when the commercial airs, at the billboard or a flyer. Your store is right in the customer’s pocket if you have a great mobile site where you can easily access the offer that the commercial shows.
If you buy a product in the store, you can later on receive a message about a product that fits from the e-commerce. Or when it is an offer on a similar product. You can send information to the inbox at time when the customer most often orders, if the customer clicks on a product at the web site. Us all information about customer interaction, such as a click on a link at a newsletter, if the customer writes a product review, or likes a product at Facebook.
Customer Service when it is Needed
Don’t refer customers who have shopped in a store to a store to get help, just as little as you should refer online customers to customer service that you online telephone, or e-mail. All channels should solve a problem or complaint.
The customer service need to be available when your customers shop online on in the store. It might not be reasonable to be open 24/7, but it is surprisingly several that are not even open during peak times for online orders, since these are not ordinarily opening hours for stores.
Find your Customers when they are Ready
Examine when your customers want to shop and have time for it. Maybe you can “catch” several when they are on the bus or train? Think of the possibility of push in form of SMS/e-mail in combination of a really good mobile shopping experience.
Several surveys show that is now very common that customers in a store use their mobile to check out products at price comparing sites and competitor’s sites. This means that you have the competitor’s sites in your store the entire time. If you have reversed this, you make sure to be inside your competitor’s stores. To reach the customers, make it really easy to find what the customers are looking for. Search on name, and maybe EAN is important in this case.
Make sure to use the same shopping cart online and in store, and that it is accessible to the customer no matter which unit they use. If you start adding products to a shopping cart online, and can’t find all products in stock, you could continue with the same cart in the store. The things you don’t find in the store can easily be found at the e-commerce site directly in the store. We will see several order stations in stores, which makes it important to bring the shopping cart with you when you enter the store.
Next Part
In the last part we will show a few examples of those who already think omnichannel, and give tips on what to focus on to succeed with omnichannel.
