Did you know that purchase frequency is 250% higher when a company offers omnichannel touchpoints vs. single channel, and the average order value is 13% more per order for omnichannel vs. single channel businesses?
In such a competitive landscape, customer support in SaaS has become one of the most crucial factors for overall success. Nowadays, if you don’t have an answer to your customer’s questions and don’t help them resolve their issues, it’s impossible to earn and retain users.
There are multiple ways to offer customer support, and each company must adapt to what its target is requesting. Let’s have a look at some important data. Did you know that 72% of customers say that having to explain their problems to multiple people is poor customer service and that 72% of respondents expect agents to already know who they are and have insight into their previous engagements and issues?
It’s pretty clear what customers demand: Omnichannel support. But what exactly is omnichannel customer support? And why should your company implement it?
Stick around to find the answers to these questions and more, including:
- What is omnichannel support?
- The difference between omnichannel support and multichannel support
- The main benefits of omnichannel support
- Why is it important to provide Omnichannel Support?
- Omnichannel support for SaaS
What is Omnichannel Support?
Do you prefer a company that asks you many questions about the same issue every time in different channels? Or a company that knows your problem across all channels and helps you solve it quickly?
We believe that many of you would choose the second option, right? Customers are more likely to do business with a company that knows their problem and makes their life easier by utilizing the information they’ve already provided, which is where omnichannel support comes in.
According to IBM, omnichannel customer service refers to assistance and advice for customers across multiple devices and touchpoints. It’s possible for businesses to maintain great customer experiences regardless of the channel through which they communicate with their customers by providing omnichannel customer service.
For example, omnichannel support might start on social media, then continue over the phone, and then through email. While all this is happening, customers don’t have to explain multiple times the same issue through each channel because each customer support team member knows the problem or issue the user is experiencing. It may seem like a simple thing, but it has a huge impact on the long-term success of your product.
The Difference between Omnichannel Support and Multichannel Support
Often, there’s confusion between multichannel and omnichannel support, as they’re two very similar concepts. However, the main difference between them is that omnichannel support offers a seamless experience in each channel, while multichannel support is a way to offer customer support service through different channels.
This means that in the first case, all communication is connected, while in the second case, it’s not. The main differences between omnichannel support and multichannel support are the following:
Omnichannel support | Multichannel support |
Meets customer needs in every channel | Receives customer requests in multiple channels |
Focuses on solving customer issues through each channel | Focuses on spreading the brand’s message in every channel |
Customer-centric | Channel-centric |
Quality of customer support | Quality of channels |
History and data shared across systems | History and data stored in silos |
Information available across departments | Information has to be requested from other departments |
Requires IT investment into a centralized platform | Channels stay on their own for implementation and support |
After learning the differences between multichannel and omnichannel support, let’s discuss the main benefits of omnichannel customer service in SaaS.
The Main Benefits of Omnichannel Support
Offering omnichannel customer support can create a solid customer base for your business and improve customer satisfaction and retention. According to Invesp, companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain, on average, 89% of their customers compared to a 33% customer retention rate for companies with weak omnichannel strategies. The stats speak for themselves.
So, what are the main benefits you’ll see when switching to omnichannel support?
1. Improve customer insights
SaaS companies can improve customer insights when implementing an omnichannel strategy. With all the information that is collected through multiple channels, companies can elaborate and adjust their products to meet users’ needs and reduce tickets. When a company follows a customer from the start to the end of their journey, they can provide a better solution and collect more detailed data about it.
2. Resolves issues faster
By unifying the various support touchpoints into one platform, omnichannel support makes it easier to shift customers and facilitates information flow between channels. This saves your team and customers time while resolving issues faster. For example, it’s faster to explain your issue once in a single channel and successfully solve it across multiple channels, rather than having to explain it numerous times.
3. Increases CSAT and NPS
Omnichannel customer service keeps customers happy and boosts their regard for your product. By making their journey as seamless as possible, you are more likely to gain their loyalty. Plus, you’ll see a direct correlation between your Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction scores.
4. Offers integrated customer context
The omnichannel support process shares information about customer issues across multiple teams. Doing this makes all information available across the different departments, and every customer support representative is aware of each situation. This integrated customer experience boosts user experience and satisfaction.
Did you know that FROGED’s 2k integrations allow you to manage all your customer conversations in one place, creating an easy omnichannel to monitor and personalize? Book a demo if you want to learn more!
5. Simplifies customer journey
Creating a journey map allows you to analyze how a typical customer interacts with your communication channels. Understanding your average customer journey can help you meet their needs more effectively. For example, you can use Product Flows to track each customer’s journey and combine this with proactive customer support to bring your customer success to the next level.
Why is it important to provide Omnichannel Support?
Companies can offer their customers multiple ways to interact with them when they offer omnichannel support. Through it, the customer experience is seamless across all channels.
Think about it, if a customer is forced to stick to a single lane or to start over every time they switch channels, it negatively impacts their experience and might even prevent them from purchasing. Because of this, brands should make a conscious choice to be available via multiple channels, be it over the phone, on social media, via messaging, SMS, or through chatbots, while sharing the information through all the departments. Here are 6 reasons why it’s important to provide omnichannel support:
- Increase retention and boost customer loyalty
- Save costs and improve sales
- Analyze different channel performances
- Increase revenue
- Store all customer information in one place
- Collect information and metrics easily
Omnichannel Support for SaaS
The omnichannel support strategy is one of the most applied strategies in the SaaS industry when it comes to customer success, and it makes total sense. This customer support formula can help your company to boost its sales, increase retention and customer loyalty. Also, to collect information, elaborate accurate metrics, analyze different channel performances, save costs, and more.
Here are some final statistics to really prove the influence omnichannel support has on your customers:
- Businesses that adopt omnichannel strategies achieve 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rates than businesses that don’t.
- 90% of customers expect consistent interactions across channels
- 61% of customers could not easily switch from one channel to another when interacting with customer service.
If you’re looking for more, book a demo with us to learn how FROGED can help you create an omnichannel customer experience. You can check out our customer support features, or read our blog post on the 6 Best ways to offer great Customer Service to your clients for extra tips!