Holiday Season 2015: Great Customer Service and Support is Omnichannel

Omnichannel isn't a new trend for many sectors. Brands know that consumers are active across more channels than ever, and providing customer services and technical support on each of those websites, devices and platforms is an essential aspect of conducting business in 2015. After all, today's consumers have high demands, and if they cannot connect with one company, they are likely to take their money to the next.

However, during this year's holiday season, providing omni, cross-channel customer service and tech support will be an essential component of any business's strategy to offer great experiences at all times and to cater to consumers' every demand. According to Adobe, e-commerce channels will pull in around $83 billion in the next few months, which represents an 11 percent growth compared to 2014, and each Internet user will invest $305 in one form or another of omnichannel transactions.

All of those individuals will turn to those same channels to receive support and engage with customer services in the next few months. Many businesses might not expect that big of demand across their channels, but, given a few reports, it is clear that in order succeed this holiday season, they must invest in business process outsourcing services to keep up with consumers' e-commerce omnichannel support demands - across the Internet, mobile devices, social media platforms and more.

The importance of online
Businesses are no stranger to the Internet and online stores, as they have proven their worth many years ago. But this holiday season, being able to provide customer or tech support on those channels is of the utmost importance.

According to the National Retail Federation, the average consumer reported that they will conduct around half of their holiday transactions on Web-based channels. This data suggests that today's customers prefer digital interactions, and as such, Web chat will be essential regardless of where individuals are in the purchasing funnel - buyers want information or support checking out, those who already bought might need assistance getting started with their new products and much more.

Whether businesses outsource customer services or tech support doesn't matter, as long as consumers are able to communicate and get their problems solved digitally, then the holiday season will go smoothly. After all, Web chat will be most popular in these few months when everyone is either busy or dedicating their time to friends and family.

Going mobile
Mobile devices will guide a lot of holiday shopping this season. Consumers will use their smartphones more so this year than in the past, as the NRF found that 38 percent of customers will look up product information on those mobile devices, while just under 29 percent of them will use smartphones to interact with brands, primarily seeking out store hours and directions to brick-and-mortar locations. Meanwhile, about half of tablet owners plan on using their touchscreen devices to read product descriptions and approximately 35 percent will buy items via tablets.

It's clear that many consumers favor mobile interactions with brands over in-store customer experiences. In some respects, the mobile-first consumers will use those devices to phone into call centers, and therefore, businesses must have agents available to field calls 24/7, making BPO ideal. Alternatively, brands could offer their customers specific mobile apps that connect them directly to support representatives, allowing them to troubleshoot or receive customer service regardless of their location.

Taking to Twitter
Social media has a lot of influence over purchasing decisions, and Twitter recently performed a survey, finding that Twitter users leverage the platform during "every stage of purchase for every retail category." Perhaps, more importantly, Twitter discovered that individuals on the social media site are 240 percent more likely to interact with a business than any other social network. Therefore, brands must have teams of customer service professionals and tech support representatives ready to answer consumer queries and provide them with technical assistance.

In fact, Twitter noted that larger retailers must become more competitive with their customer service and support, since many businesses are taking to Twitter to advertise, promote their brand and, specifically, boast about their great support teams.

An advantage in outsourcing
Managing customer service or tech support across all of these different channels will prove difficult, especially since most consumer-facing companies have more pressing business matters to attend to that take precedence over providing consumers with easy ways to interact with support services.

Therefore, BPO will be extremely valuable in the coming months - outsourcing tech support in particular is highly advantageous considering that many individuals will be unpacking new devices and technologies up until the beginning of 2016. Whether brands decides to outsource their Web chats or call centers doesn't matter, as long as they can help consumers across every channel.