I was talking to an Omni-channel executive at a major retailer and he shared an interesting story with me.
He and his daughter were driving in Midwest USA
when they saw a truck next to them that read: “Anything, Anywhere,
Anytime.” His daughter turned to him and asked, “Dad, isn’t that what you are
trying to do at your company?”. He smiled and nodded, however, he didn’t have a
good answer to her question. It got him thinking: If a trucking
company is talking about this, how could traditional Omni-channel create a
lasting differentiation for his or her company?. The executive took this
experience back to his company and used it to drive a more holistic
transformation that includes elements of Omni-Channel, but goes much further
than a traditional Omni-Channel Initiative.
Is Omni-Channel the Silver Bullet?
Not really, but a superior Customer Experience is!
It was the heart of retailing yesterday, even more relevant today and will
remain at the core of retailing in future. How many retailers have a truly
cross-function leader responsible for Customer Experience who is not the CEO?
Omni-channel is a
key driver of Customer Experience. While having a person spearhead the
Omni-channel initiative is important, creating a broader role to enable a
winning Customer Experience is vital. The obvious question this raises is “why
do we not see this role more frequently?” For one, Customer Experience touches
every aspect of the organization which makes it difficult to define
responsibility and accountability. It inevitably creates a matrix organization
which is difficult to manage. But the value of re-purposing the existing role
or creating a new role is huge to a retailers.
The discussion about Omni-channel or Customer
Experience czar is important because it sets the tone for how an organization
prioritizes and executes upon improvement initiatives. Today, these investments
might be skewed towards Omni-channel without a full understanding of the
overall Customer Experience, what is the benefit of each initiative, and how
the various initiatives are being synchronized.
In summary, Omni-channel is important but it
should be evaluated and synchronized in the broader context of Customer
Experience. Organizationally, broadening the responsibility of a Omni-channel
executive to total Customer Experience can be very beneficial to a retailer.
