In order to implement its omnichannel strategy, your company needs to adopt a customer-centric culture and rethink its customer journey. You're not just selling a product anymore—you're offering your customers a service, a means of satisfying a need. And that changes everything. 😊
This is, without question, the most important shift you'll have to make in switching to an omnichannel approach.
Not only will you need to personalize your touchpoints, your approach, and your responses to customers, but you'll also have to train your employees in this new way of sharing information between channels in order to provide your customers with the best possible service.
The first step in your audit will be to collect as much information as you can from customers, vendors and all the departments in your company.
Collect Customer Data
To understand your customers' needs and expectations, there's only one place to go: into the field. This will be the starting point of your audit.
If you have physical stores, go out and meet your staff and customers. Talk to the salespeople who work directly with your customers on a daily basis so you can find out what issues they're having.
If you don't have physical points of sale, go and talk to any employees who have direct contact with customers through your platform.
Example: a customer buys a sweater online. When they receive it and try it on at home, it turns out to be too small. So the customer goes to the store near their office to exchange the sweater. The sales associate tells them this is not possible—since they bought it on the website, they have to return it the same way and then place a new order.
This situation, while common, is baffling to the customer, who expects a simple, fluid customer journey. These are the kinds of issues you'll want to identify and dig up during your field audit, so you can factor them into your omnichannel strategy later on.
Spend a few days in the field and study each of your distribution channels (both on- and offline) to collect customer feedback.
This may be:
direct feedback, collected by talking to customers.
indirect feedback, collected by talking to sales associates, customer service representatives, or anyone working in direct contact with customers.
inferred feedback, which is based on analyzed customer data—for example, analyzing the traffic rates for each channel.Â
Conduct your audit:
in stores.
on your distribution channels.
within your company, since every single department has to work toward serving the customer, even if it’s indirectly.
Analyze Your Field Data
The success of any omnichannel approach depends on having a thorough understanding of the customer. That means:
collecting,
centralizing,
processing all the information collected via various channels.Â
To create this optimal customer experience—one that's consistent, compatible and appealing—every department in the company must collaborate and reinvent itself. It's essential to involve all departments from the very beginning of the project:Â
from Logistics to Billing
from Sales to Marketing
from Procurement to After-Sales Service
and the IT department, which will be at the forefront of your omnichannel strategy
Let's take the Logistics department, for example. An omnichannel approach to inventory management would mean managing inventory for all sales channels, including your physical store, your online store, your social media channels, etc.
Have a Five-Step Audit Plan
When performing your audit, follow these steps:
Make a list of all the channels and departments you'll be auditing.
Identify who at the company will be involved in your project. When possible, it's a great idea to consult colleagues in different departments who are motivated by this omnichannel transformation, have differing but complementary points of view, and can help carry out your project within the company.
Work with each department to analyze any tools and systems you already have in place that could fit into your omnichannel strategy. Every interaction between the customer and your company should be made as smooth as possible. You should also list any changes that need to be made.
Interview coworkers and management about their perspectives on the customer journey and experience. Don't hesitate to hold workshops where you can throw around ideas and exchange information, as well as one-on-one meetings to make sure every voice is heard.
Summarize part of the information you collect in a customer experience analysis grid.
What's the goal of this audit?
Based on the data you collect, you'll be able to evaluate:
the process of how customers get information on your points of sale, both in person and by phone.
the customer experience on your website, social media pages, etc.
the after-sales service provided.
digital communication as a whole.
the technologies and tools your company uses to interact internally and with customers.
employee perspectives.
customer perspectives.
the buying experience and customer journey.
How do I record the results of my audit?
You should write an audit report. In this report, you'll summarize the results of all your analyses and the experiments you conducted in the field. You'll use it to support the recommendations you make to your management team.
Your audit report will contain directly actionable data, which you'll use to lay out your customer experience strategy and your recommendations for an action plan.
Case Study: Home Made
Let's Recap!
Conduct an audit by collecting information from customers in the field, and from other employees within the company.Â
Collecting this data will give you:
a precise map of the customer journey.
a clear vision of what the company's current customer experience looks like.
a solid foundation on which to build your omnichannel strategy.
Write down the results of your audit in an audit report. Your audit should have a five-step structure:
List what needs to be audited.
Identify who should be involved.
Analyze what you already have in place and what needs to be changed.
Interview other employees within the company in workshops and/or one-on-one meetings.
Summarize everything in a customer experience analysis grid.
Now you know how to conduct a customer experience audit to help you build your omnichannel strategy. In the next chapter, we'll talk about setting some SMART goals!
