Integration is key for getting a successful Omnichannel strategy.
It means to apply an Inter-departmental approach to all involved processes.
Customer service is the core of every interaction.
Social media can help to ensure that issues and complaints are attended to and resolved quickly inter-departmental.
About two-thirds of all shopping trips start online with customers researching options on their desktops or hand held devices.
Therefore it is mandatory that all the relevant departments involved in the relationship with end consumers work always in strict conjunction and being always aligned.
Customers visit the store to touch, feel and try on the merchandise before buying the item in-store or online at home.
Consequently, it is fundamental to figure out a single view of customers, inventory, and business in terms of localisation, integration and, for example, ‘buy online pickup in store’.
Inter-departmental approach guarantees a single view of the business.
Localisation means: deliver a merchandise assortment and personalized shopping experience that is unique to individual customers.
Integrations bring the online and bricks-and-mortar channels together in a single, integrated approach. It enables visibility and management of inventory across channels.
In addition, it allows store staff to rapidly check system-wide availability, locate an item, and facilitate delivery or next day pick-up by the shopper.
When fulfilment centre inventories are depleted, it can make store inventory items available to fulfill online orders taken through the retailer’s website.
It is necessary to have a single integrated team where leaders of merchandising, marketing and supply chain work always in strict conjunction.
While it is not recommended to deploy such a complex project with:
- separate teams for each channel.
- a single team or one specific department leading the project.
Only applying an inter-departmental approach since the beginning of the business transformation towards Omnichannel it will be possible to get the objective.
That is to offer to the end consumer a single impressive paramount view of the business opportunities she/he can get placing web-orders or, alternatively, buying in the stores.
Something like the emotion you feel when you’re in front of Ayers Rock – Uluru. Look at the mountain from various points and you always find something new and different. But in the end, the emotion you feel is always the same.
