Susan, 29, recently ordered a couple of outfits from the web site of her favorite apparel retail chain. The next day, she decided she’d like to take one of the dresses on a trip that weekend — so she needed it much sooner.
So, she did what any normal omnichannel shopper would do: She called the retailer’s customer service number. Since she was a loyal customer and loved their products, she assumed they would offer her different options for solving her problem, whether that involved expediting her order or pick up a local store.
Twenty minutes later — exasperated from the number of times she had heard the word ‘sorry’ from the customer service representative (CSR) — she then called around town to find the dress. Out of sheer frustration, she decided to buy a different dress (one that she was frankly ambivalent about) from a competitor’s store nearby, simply because they had a pair of shoes that matched.
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Let’s call this An Omnichannel Tragedy in Four Acts:
ACT I: A 20-minute phone call consisting of a CSR unable to quickly pull up a customer’s account and provide a variety of options to expedite her order.
ACT II: The inability of the CSR to edit only part of an order and potentially offer in-store pickup as a free alternative to paying more for shipping.
ACT III: A lost sale with potential for an increase in order value.
ACT IV: The erosion of a customer’s loyalty to one of her preferred brands.
It really didn’t have to happen this way. With the right tools at the CSR’s fingertips, this scenario could have been entirely avoided. And yet, this is such a pervasive issue across the retail industry that a majority of today’s omni-channel consumers could probably recall a similar experience.
Competition has grown fierce in today’s burgeoning omnichannel marketplace. This has, in turn, cast the spotlight on pricing strategies and merchandise assortments as the mainstays of brand differentiation. The Achilles Heel for many retailers has turned out to be the conception and execution of truly seamless customer service across all channels.
Nowhere is this weakness more apparent than in the call center — the natural ‘middle channel’ between the ubiquitous self-service of eCommerce and the distant full service of the store. Beyond serving the typical “where’s my stuff?” queries of online shoppers, today’s CSRs must also tend to inquiries across all channels, including:
- Buy online, pickup in store orders;
- Buy online, ship from store orders;
- Save-the-sale or endless aisle orders placed in the store;
- Store POS transactions tied to a customer’s account; and
- Returns and exchanges for orders placed via any channel .
Let’s face it — shoppers typically call customer service departments because they have to. So when they do call, they want their inquiry answered or problem solved as quickly as possible. To get the maximum value from your customer service operation, you as the retailer also want your CSRs to have the latitude to up-sell and cross-sell items the customer may find valuable — without unnecessarily pushing her to another sales channel.
Put another way, the conversation between customer and the CSR can be broken down into three categories of interaction:
- Search. Finding the transaction your customer’s calling about, from any channel, using any piece of information she has available: name, phone number, email, credit card, or (as a last and least user-friendly resort) order number.
- Service. The crux of the customer-CSR interaction: ranging from an order status inquiry to a request to change an order to a product being returned or exchanged. This capability must be available for orders from any channel, and must delve into the line-level details of an order—particularly if that multi-line order is being fulfilled from multiple sources.
To provide your CSR the greatest visibility and control over each order, the customer service solution must be a seamless extension of your sales and fulfillment technology. Order management systems are best suited to this role, as the most robust OMS solutions intelligently govern the flow of orders and inventory across a retailer’s entire network, allowing CSRs to view and alter orders throughout the lifecycle.
With a customer service capability deeply embedded in an order management system, the CSR should also be able to easily call up:
- The customer’s past Store and eCommerce returns and exchanges
- The status of each credit/charge to the customer
- ETA of each exchange shipment
- Sell. The ability to have the CSR reference customer reviews and product information quickly, and then place an order on behalf of the customer—with visibility of inventory availability across the network, and the capability to fulfill from anywhere, including pickup at the customer’s local store.
Imagine your CSR being able to do all of this within a few screens, with a few clicks—and without ever putting the customer on hold. Imagine the reputation your customer service team would garner for this level of seamless, straightforward service. That’s what brand differentiation should look like in today’s competitive marketplace.
Brian Kinsella is the Vice President, Order Management for Manhattan Associates. He is responsible for product direction, product development, implementation, and overall customer satisfaction. Prior to joining Manhattan, Kinsella spent 5 years in the logistics and distribution practice at PwC.
