Amidst the existential challenges currently facing the retail industry, many businesses are seeking new solutions to deliver more sales and greater customer satisfaction. One trend that retailers have begun to leverage in their search for greater audience engagement is deploying an omnichannel-based sales strategy.

Omnichannel is a cross-channel, content-based strategy that businesses are using to enhance communications and boost sales with their audiences. It involves businesses engaging with their audiences via numerous channels, such as in physical company locations and other environments including phone, chat, e-commerce, mobile applications (including text), social media, personalized video, and augmented and mixed reality. The driving force behind these activities is to provide exemplary customer service and brand awareness in all of the media and other spaces that audiences use when and where they use them. This means that if customers and others start their experience with a business on one channel and shift to another, they know the business knows who they are (because it is everywhere they are) and can answer their needs.

The tactic has already worked well for several industries in which businesses are communicating frequently with audiences simultaneously on most, or all, of these channels. These include telecommunications, healthcare, and financial services. Retailers are relative newcomers to the trend.

Challenges for Retailers

The challenge for retail business owners is to provide constant customer contact that omnichannel requires while trying to focus on their core business. The effort can be burdensome as they try to deliver on their core product and service offerings at the same time as they engage in omnichannel’s constant contact.

What’s the best solution?

To answer this need to allow businesses to focus on their core expertise while still frequently communicating with their audiences, many retailers are choosing to outsource their customer service and omnichannel contact functions. This involves partnering with a trusted call center service that takes care of all of your customer contacts so you can focus on your business. The right call center understands your needs in each area of customer contact, creates a customized program to meet them, and trains its staff in your business’s policies and procedures.

In the process, you save time and money because you don’t need to hire, train, and provide benefits for more staff. You can scale the services the call center provides for you up or down depending on the season and your needs, easily add new sales territories, and add diverse languages to serve more customers.

Basic call center services that help retail businesses optimize inbound call management include:

• Customer service calls
• Order management calls
• Overflow calls
• Virtual receptionist needs
• Tech support services
• Bilingual and multilingual representative services
• CRM & loyalty/renewal programs

Outbound call management services that call centers provide include:

• Quality assurance
• Telesales and telemarketing
• Lead screening & qualification
• Employment screening
• Credit card processing
• Disaster recovery
• Post-sale support

The right call center trains their qualified staff to satisfy your company’s specific requirements in each of these functions, caring for your customers with the same commitment as your staff.

This same expertise extends to providing your retail business with specific new omnichannel services that support:

• Live chat
• Email
• SMS
• Mobile apps
• Social media

Many retailers find that call centers are particularly adept with omnichannel as they have experience across all digital channels and stay current with emerging technologies, such as voice-activated shopping and augmented reality. Ultimately the right call center for your retail business will be your biggest brand advocate, providing exceptional customer service, contact, and satisfaction that delivers a boost in brand awareness and an increase in sales.

Responsive Call Center is the Right Choice for Retail Customer Omnichannel Communications

For more than 40 years, Responsive Call Center has served retailers and many other industries by providing live operators available all day, every day to handle virtually any kind of communication that provides customer service and satisfaction. Our state-of-the-art equipment and highly trained staff allow us to make sure you never miss an opportunity to positively engage with customers and potential customers.

Contact us to find out more about how we can help your retail business.