Omni-channel—The Latest Buzzword in Payments
In the days before mobile payments and virtual shopping carts, payment acceptance was rather one dimensional. Exchange goods/services for payment —end of transaction. As technology improved and additional payment channels were introduced, retailers developed what’s known as a multichannel approach. This meant businesses began to sell and accept payments at multiple different points-of-sale; at the physical store, online at the store’s website, over the phone, on a mobile device, etc.
This brings us to cross-channel. While multichannel allows for many avenues of payment, each one is disparate. Cross-channel allows the channels to interact. One great example of this is giving customers the option to purchase something online and then pick it up in the store rather than waiting for it to be delivered. Many merchants are offering these capabilities to their customers for the sake of convenience. As cross-channel selling continued to improve, and as transactional data became readily available for these different channels, cross-channel selling evolved into what is essentially cross-channel 2.0, or omni-channel.
An omni-channel approach takes all of the payment channels and integrates them into one seamless experience that can be personalized for the customer. This strategy takes the channels and fuses them together into one cohesive shopping experience. Consumers access a store through “touch points” rather than channels, because what used to be individual channels are now one unit.
An example of an omni-channel approach is giving customers the ability to initiate a return online for an item bought in the store. The store can then use that data to intelligently recommend alternatives for the returned item based on the customer’s purchase history and allow them to buy it online. They then have the option to have it shipped to their door or to go pick it up at the store. The customer enjoys flexibility and the merchant can use the integrated data to design offers based on that individual customer.
When the merchant uses an omni-channel strategy, every customer interaction with the company can be tracked and analyzed. This way the merchant can offer custom advertising and coupons that appeal to the customer’s preferences. You can tailor your marketing based on the products the customer has purchased in the past. Your customer can also have the ability to view their own shopping history on any of their devices. The name “omni-channel” is a bit controversial because it doesn’t describe the true focus of the approach. It’s not about the unification of payment channels, but a singular customer experience irrelative to the specific touchpoint.
In many ways, omni-channel is a simple philosophy—sync up your sales channels to create a seamless experience for your customer while gathering metrics to market as effectively as possible. To do this well, however, you need to address every aspect of your payment process and weave them together. For a truly omni-channel solution, your customers shouldn’t have a single interruption when switching between touch points. This can be an extremely difficult endeavor for merchants to take on alone, but if you find the right payment processor they’ll set you on the right path.
What do you think of the term “omni-channel”? How would you describe it? Tell us in the comments.
