Gone are the days when you could list your product online and run ads to entice potential customers to buy from you on a single platform. You’re now competing with online businesses worldwide that are going out of their way to create a seamless customer experience.
You're not alone if you’re struggling to keep up with evolving customer demands across various communication channels.
With everything so fast-paced, customers expect quick delivery and personalized shopping experiences through their preferred channel.
This growing demand can feel overwhelming, but there's a solution: Omnichannel delivery. You can improve customer experience with omnichannel delivery and exceed customers’ delivery expectations.
In this article, we’ll discuss omnichannel delivery in detail, its benefits, and the strategies to help you turn your customers’ delivery experiences from satisfactory to exceptional.
What is an omnichannel customer experience?
An omnichannel customer experience is a seamless journey across multiple channels and platforms. This approach integrates all the potential customer touchpoints, including online channels (like websites, mobile apps, and social media platforms) and offline channels (like brick-and-mortar stores or call centers).
The aim is to cater to customers wherever and however they want and ensure they can move effortlessly between channels without losing context or facing disruptions in service or communication.
Customers look for convenience, personalized experiences, and efficiency in their brand interactions. An omnichannel approach caters to these needs by providing a unified experience throughout the customer's journey – leading to increased satisfaction, quality experiences, customer loyalty, and engagement.
That said, offering an online unified digital experience isn’t enough to garner customer loyalty. Customers also expect quick delivery times and multiple delivery options.
Based on a 2023 customer expectation report, nearly half (48%) of customers worldwide expect faster delivery. This makes it imperative for retailers to build omnichannel delivery networks to offer diverse and faster delivery options to their customers.
How does omnichannel delivery improve customer experience?
Customer expectations are higher than ever. They seek quality products and services and a seamless, convenient, personalized customer experience.
Omnichannel delivery significantly improves the customer experience in several key ways, including:
- Consistency across channels: Omnichannel delivery ensures a uniform experience across all platforms, whether online, in-store, or mobile. This consistency builds customer trust and helps you gain loyal customers. Customers appreciate knowing they can expect the same service level, product availability, customer engagement, and pricing across all offline and digital channels.
- Increased convenience and flexibility: Omnichannel delivery offers convenience and experience to customers by providing multiple fulfillment channels, including online ordering with in-store pickup, home delivery, and easy returns. Customers can choose how they interact with the brand based on their needs and preferences, leading to a more satisfying shopping experience.
- Personalized customer interactions: Omnichannel marketing strategies allow the marketing team to collect valuable data throughout the customer journey. Companies can use this data to tailor interactions and offer personalized product recommendations, promotions, and support, thus enhancing the customer's experience and potentially increasing sales and lifetime value.
- Improved customer insights and service: Integrating data across channels gives businesses deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences. This also enables the omnichannel supply chain to offer more effective customer service, as representatives fully view the customer's interactions with the brand, leading to quicker and more efficient resolution of inquiries and issues.
- Reduced friction in the buying process: Omnichannel delivery smooths out potential pain points in the buying process. For example, if a product is out of stock in-store, customers can easily check online and have it shipped to their home or reserved for in-store pickup. This seamless integration of services reduces frustration and improves the overall buying experience.
5 actionable strategies to improve the customer experience with omnichannel delivery
1. Onboard multiple DSPs
Onboarding multiple Delivery Service Providers (DSPs) involves integrating them into your omnichannel strategy to offer customers more delivery options and flexibility. This strategy ensures businesses can leverage each DSP's strengths, including cost-effectiveness, speed, and geographical coverage.
The importance lies in meeting diverse customer preferences and operational efficiency.
According to Statista, the global third-party logistics market is expected to reach US$35.86 billion in 2024, highlighting the increasing reliance on varied logistics solutions.
The reason is simple: diverse DSP options can cater to customer needs, increasing satisfaction and sales.
An excellent example is Walmart's partnership with multiple DSPs like Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire, Postmates, DoorDash, and Roadie for its grocery delivery service.
(This approach helps Walmart offer faster and more efficient delivery services, catering to various customer needs and enhancing the shopping experience.
However, onboarding multiple DSPs can be taxing.
Luckily, modern-day platforms streamline the process. For example, Delivery Solutions allows retailers to integrate seamlessly with various DSPs without direct contracts.
It provides instant access to multiple DSPs under one platform, ensuring a smooth go-to-market experience. You get to choose custom delivery options for your customers — while Delivery Solutions does the heavy lifting for you.
Don’t forget to monitor the performance of each DSP regularly and make necessary adjustments to maintain high delivery standards.
2. Roll out to all your stores
This involves ensuring that every store or customer touchpoint provides a consistent experience. When customers receive the same service and convenience no matter where they shop, it will help you enhance customer experience and invoke their loyalty.
This strategy includes uniform pricing, customer service standards, product availability, and promotional activities across all physical and digital platforms.
Here are some quick tips to help you roll out an omnichannel strategy across all stores and platforms:
- Standardize processes: To ensure consistency, develop clear and standardized procedures for order fulfillment, returns, and customer service.
- Train your staff: Provide comprehensive training across all stores to ensure they understand and can execute the omnichannel strategy effectively.
- Leverage technology: Utilize technology to synchronize inventory, orders, and customer data across all locations, creating a unified shopping experience.
- Monitor and adjust: Regularly monitor to determine whether your omnichannel strategy works as intended. If not, make necessary adjustments to maintain consistency.
- Gather customer feedback: Continuously collect and analyze customer feedback to identify areas that need improvement and ensure that the experience meets their expectations.
Apple is renowned for its consistent customer experience across its stores globally. Whether it's product display, staff training, or customer service, the experience in Apple Stores is consistent with their brand’s aesthetics and uniformly premium, reflecting the brand's commitment to quality and consistency.
These omnichannel platforms again come in handy here. For example, Delivery Solutions keeps your brand front and center throughout the customer journey. Consumers can change their minds, update delivery preferences, or add last-minute items while maintaining a consistent brand experience.
3. Automate provider choice
Automating provider choice involves using technology to select the best delivery service provider (DSP) for each order based on cost, delivery speed, and customer location.
This process involves integrating a system that can evaluate and select among multiple DSPs in real time.
Imagine your customer shops online at your gadget store. As they place their order, an advanced system analyzes data to pick the most efficient and cost-effective DSP for the order.
This helps you deliver the order faster and at a lower shipping cost, all without lifting a finger. It's like having a personal delivery concierge, ensuring your customers’ shopping experience is smooth and satisfying.
And customer experience is paramount today. According to Zendesk, 50% of customers will switch to a competitor after a bad customer experience. Automating provider choice alleviates this issue by ensuring each delivery is executed most efficiently, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Amazon’s delivery system is a prime example. They utilize advanced algorithms to select the best delivery method for each order. This system considers customer location, delivery speed, and cost efficiency. Amazon also offers various options for last-mile delivery, including order pickup, curbside pickup, and Prime Air. These options allow customers to choose the most convenient and fast delivery method.
But how will you go about implementing an automated provider choice system? Here are some tips:
- Invest in technology: Implement advanced platforms like Delivery Solutions that can analyze data and make intelligent decisions regarding DSP selection.
- Set clear criteria: Define the parameters that the automation system should consider — from delivery speed to cost to reliability.
- Integrate with DSPs: Ensure that your system is integrated with the APIs of various DSPs for real-time data exchange and decision-making.
- Monitor performance: Continuously monitor the performance of the automation system and make adjustments as needed to optimize delivery outcomes.
4. Keep your customer updated
One of the important strategies to enhance customer experience in omnichannel delivery is keeping customers well-informed throughout the delivery process. It's not just about notifying them that their order is on its way – it's about providing real-time updates, transparency, and reassurance from when they check out to when their purchase arrives at their door.
An excellent example of a company successfully implementing this strategy is Lowe's Foods. By partnering with Delivery Solutions, Lowes Foods was able to scale its omnichannel delivery operations by integrating more DSPs and enhancing its customer experience.
Delivery Solution helped them send fully branded email and SMS updates to keep their customers in the loop. These messages can help you keep your customers updated on who the driver is, what time their order will arrive, and a map to keep track of their package — all with their branding.
This level of transparency enhances the customer's experience by making them feel valued and informed and significantly reduces customer service inquiries related to order status.
5. Integrate advanced analytics and feedback
Integrating advanced analytics and feedback into your omnichannel delivery strategy will help you understand customer behavior, preferences, and pain points. This, in turn, allows you to personalize their delivery experience and offer them a seamless customer experience across channels.
By using advanced analytics tools, retailers can:
- Segment customers into identical groups: Segmenting customers based on their delivery preferences, like speed, convenience, and cost, will help businesses tailor their delivery options and offers accordingly.
- Predict customer demand: This helps businesses optimize inventory placement across distribution centers, stores, and market fulfillment centers, enabling a faster and more efficient customer delivery experience.
- Measure important customer metrics: Monitor and measure delivery performance and customer satisfaction across channels and touchpoints and identify areas for improvement or innovation.
- Test and optimize: Test and learn from different delivery scenarios and strategies, including offering same-day or next-day delivery and partnering with different DSPs.
Tools like Delivery Solutions shine in this department as well. For instance, Delivery Solutions gives you a detailed insight into your omnichannel delivery ecosystem, helping you identify which fulfillment processes, delivery routes, and operations are working, and which are not.
(It goes a step further with its advanced algorithm that considers historical data and customer behavior to identify demand trends, seasonality, and preferences and help you align your delivery operations accordingly.
Enhance your customer journey: Master omnichannel delivery with Delivery Solutions
These are some of the best ways to improve customer experience with omnichannel delivery.
Offering your customers omnichannel delivery is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity. By integrating strategies like onboarding multiple DSPs, integrating customer experience strategy, automating provider choice, personalizing consumer journeys, and leveraging advanced analytics, businesses can enhance their customer relationships and experience.
These omnichannel offerings help businesses exceed customer expectations, increasing loyalty, satisfaction, and business growth.
Lowes Foods, Walmart, and Amazon are excellent examples of how integrating multiple DSPs and automating provider choice can streamline delivery processes and cater to diverse customer needs.
The best part? Implementing omnichannel delivery is now easier than ever with platforms like Delivery Solutions. You no longer have to handle the hassle of paperwork or contacting DSPs on your own.
Delivery Solutions offers seamless integration with various DSPs, advanced customer analytics, and personalized communication options, helping you unify your omnichannel operations under one dashboard.
Topics from this blog: Delivery Improvement Retail Management