The Importance of Omnichannel Integration

Your business has changed over the past decade. The era where you could handle ticketing and marketing through your website or in person is long gone. You've added social media, a Google Business Profile, a mobile app, and self-service kiosks.

Even with these extra channels, venue managers and organisers are overseeing their own customer service and marketing operations themselves. 

Managing all these different touchpoints can quickly become the subject of your nightmares. Not only do you need to ensure pricing information, phone numbers, and other details are the same on all these different platforms, but you need to be sure your brand image and the customer experience are consistent. And, you need to do all this without much outside help. 

Omnichannel integration is the process of combining these different components to provide a consistent and seamless customer experience .

Why is omnichannel integration important?

You already know the importance of having a consistent brand image across all platforms. Yes, this is an aspect of omnichannel integration, but it goes well beyond this.

Here are the other benefits of omnichannel integration:

•          Consistent user experience: Customers get the same service levels and information whether they are accessing your website, making mobile payments via an app, or talking directly to a staff member at your location.

•          Better customer engagement: Your guests and target market can interact with your business in their favourite way. They will feel more comfortable and be more likely to interact with and engage with your company.

•          Real-time interactions:The addition of mobile apps and social media can help you interact with customers anywhere and at any time. This is vital for communicating and providing customer service while guests are on their way to your venue or already inside. You can offer real-time promotions and give guests access to customer service at any time.

•          Easy data collection and analysis: With connected channels, you can collect all customer data in a central place. This information can be useful for personalising offers and services and helping your staff interact with and understand the needs of customers. It can also ensure you collect data from every source at your disposal to get the best possible insights from your analysis.

•          Flexibility across all channels: With effective integration, customers can start their journey anywhere and complete it in the same place or on another channel. For instance,you might let guests reserve tickets with mobile payments and look them up or print them out on a self-serve kiosk at your venue.

•          Compete with other businesses: Effective integration helps you stand apart from companies that don't offer a unified experience. People won't go back to a business if they have a frustrating experience. If you offer flexibility and consistent service across all channels, you will not lose customers, and you may attract new ones who were previously frustrated by your competitors' lack of omnichannel integration.

If you find it hard to overlook these advantages, you will want to get started with your omnichannel integration efforts right away. Luckily, you don't need to be a computer programmer (or hire expensive developers) to successfully integrate all your channels and touchpoints.

Successful omnichannel integration

Whether you organise your business yourself or rely on a third-party service provider,you need to take certain steps to ensure that unifying all your channels is successful.

•          Outline your customer's journeys. List all the ways your customers interact with you. Then,map their journeys from the first time they find information about your business until they leave your venue after their visit. You'll need to make sure the experiences are consistent across any touch points along the trip.

•          Be consistent. Check every channel to make sure it has the same branding, messaging, and information. Don't forget that this should include your human staff. They need to understand the brand image and get access to the same information that customers see on digital channels.

•          Build databases. All the information from sales and customer interactions should go to a central database where you can add them to accounting, analytics, and CRM platforms. If you do this right, you'll be rich in information to help youmake decisions and measure yourperformance in sales and marketing.

•          Get everything in sync. What happens if a customer makes a reservation on the website but forgets their confirmation number? Their info should also be available via your phone app or listed under their name on your in-house computers. Everything needs to connect to a central commerce platform that gets updated in real time. Customers can seamlessly switch between channels without losing access to their information or purchases.

•          Make it flexible. Technology moves fast. Chances are you'll have to add more channels in the future. You can't just build a closed system based on your needs today. It must be flexible and open so that you can add channels when they become available. You also need to be able to do so without disrupting your current setup. You wouldn't want to have to rebuild your system every time a new technology gets developed.

There's a lot to think about, but you can simplify your integration efforts with the right partner.

Simplify omnichannel integration with a unified commerce platform

Smeetz simplifies omnichannel integration by bringing reservations, ordering, and integrated payment solutions for ticketing, F&B sales, and merchandising. Our platform streamlines interactions directly with consumers. We can also handle B2B interactions seamlessly, allowing schools, offices, and private parties to book and manage group reservations and purchases. 

Our 360-degree ticketing solutions let you offer the same booking services on mobile, websites, self-service kiosks, and point-of-saleterminals. You can even manage pricing across these different channels using advanced pricing algorithms or rules-based pricing. The management works for individual tickets and for offering group rates for businesses, schools, and other groups. 

You also get integrated business marketing and CRM platforms that can help with personalised marketing and promotions based on customer data collected from all your different channels. Better yet, you can track your guest's activities on each channel and learn about their preferences and behaviours. These insights can help you perfect your integrations and make changes to improve the customer experience.

With Smeetz in your corner, you are already well ahead in the omnichannel integration game. All you have left to do is perfect your brand and train your staff members to use the systems. Get started today by reaching out to us.