What is Omni-Channel?
Omni-channel is taking all inbound or outbound interaction and channelling them into one single platform to enable organizations to simplify their communications. Once the interaction is complete, you can extract the recording and quality access the customers journey. This can also be done in real-time as the interaction is taking place.
Technology is changing every day. Organizations are looking to change their current on-premises legacy solutions to something more advanced, something that can drive efficiency in the workplace or even remotely. It is no longer just about the voice interaction. As society evolves so has the social behaviour of the potential buyer. In our busy daily schedules, we often think of something that needs to be done and if we do not action immediately it becomes forgotten. In our busy schedules, who has 20 minutes to spare while interacting with an agent. , 20 minutes is taking up people’s valuable time. The customer is now looking for the quickest way to interact and in the shortest resolution time. Most people have smart phones and use social media to interact. Omni-channel platforms are simply becoming the future of many contact centre.
What is Opti-channel?
I researched Opti-channel and Optichannel in google and it is interesting to find that different industries have interpreted the words with different meaning. Even the hyphen makes the word mean something completely different.
“Opti-channel in the finance sector aims to determine the optimal channel that a customer prefers for a specific activity” – quote from finextra.com. This is an interesting meaning as once again it speaks to customer interactions and defining the customer experience, simply to help the customer interact with your call centre in a simplified manor. This will become the optimized means of communication with that customer.
What is Optichannel
My interpretation of Optichannel is taking all the structured data from your omni-channel contact centre and using the data to better your processes and systems to ultimately deliver a better customer experience. As above, Opti-channel is optimizing the communication channel for your customer. The fact that your omni-channel software was able to report on the preferred channel that your customer interacts is already driving your call centre to deliver a better customer experience.
The core focus of Optichannel is to help your agents be a better agent and to give the business better direction of where there could be shortfalls in the process. Your customers are demanding that personalized interaction on all mediums including voice, email, SMS, What’s App, Facebook, Twitter or web chat. But how does your business or quality assurance manager know that the customer has felt that warm empathic interaction. Why is it important?
We all have that instinct that guides us to make that final buying decisions. Depending on the value of your purchase, emotions and facts play a pivotal role in making that decision. If you have engaged with a sales agent and that agent showed empathy, you naturally start forming a bond of respect with that individual. You can feel the trust factor, knowing that the agent is giving you sound advice and not just trying to make the sale.