Using omnichannel personalization to connect with consumers

Here’s an effective way to connect with your customers: Make them feel seen. Prove you understand their needs and preferences. Show your customers you get them. It sounds a little fluffy, but that’s the kind of experience you can create with omnichannel personalization. 

Personalized communications make your brand’s interactions with customers more authentic, relevant, and memorable. But are you connecting everything in a consistent experience that flows seamlessly from channel to channel? 

Let’s get answers as we dive into what you need to know about personalization in an omnichannel communication strategy.

Omnichannel messaging involves connected communication with contacts across all the touchpoints where they could interact with your organization. An omnichannel approach includes mobile messaging, email, voice, direct messaging on social media, in-app notifications, live chat, and more.  

A key difference between omnichannel and multichannel is that, rather than simply picking multiple channels for messaging, omnichannel takes a very customer-centric approach. With omnichannel, you connect with people through the methods they prefer using, and conversations that start on one channel continue when someone switches to another. 

Omnichannel personalization is the process of delivering personalized messages to an individual throughout a cohesive customer experience. It dials up your communication strategy in a targeted way that increases relevancy and consistency. 

Omnichannel marketing could also include in-store experiences and offline marketing efforts such as traditional advertising. In this article, we’re keeping the focus on digital touchpoints used in a personalization strategy that boosts customer engagement.

When Sinch surveyed U.S. consumers for our report, The art and heart of meaningful customer connections, we found only 2% of respondents felt personalized offers were most important when a brand welcomes them as a new customer. 

Unsurprisingly, consumers were more likely to view the ability to track an order (32%) and the protection of their personal data (29%) as more important factors. But let’s not jump to conclusions just yet – that’s only part of the story.

Reliable transactional messages and security are vital to a strong B2C customer experience, especially in the beginning as trust is established. However, none of this reduces the importance of personalization in the customer journey. That’s not only because it helps you stand out. Personalization has become yet another consumer expectation.

A few years ago, McKinsey & Company research revealed that 71% of consumers expect personalization and 76% are frustrated by the lack of it. The same research found over 75% of consumers said they’re more likely to purchase from, recommend, and repurchase from brands that use personalization.

Plus, McKinsey also says companies that focus on impactful personalization tend to outperform their competitors. The fastest growing companies surveyed (in terms of revenue growth) generated 40% more of their revenue from personalization than those with slower revenue growth. This suggests that B2C personalization is a significant differentiator that increases revenue while strengthening customer retention and loyalty.

The next logical question to ask is where should this personalization take place? Are consumers partial to personalized experiences on certain communication channels?

Sinch asked U.S. consumers to select the channels on which they prefer receiving personalized recommendations and offers. Results showed that 39% of consumers prefer email while 18% selected SMS and another 11% chose MMS.

However, when you combine SMS and MMS with other mobile/social options like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, the total for all these messaging channels is in a dead heat with email.

What does this mean? Clearly, there is no ideal channel for personalized marketing. Consumers have varying opinions on the channels they prefer for brand communications, and it’s likely they regularly use more than just one.

That’s exactly why omnichannel personalization is needed. Not only do your customers have personal preferences, but they also move from one channel to the next. In an omnichannel approach, your personalized experiences move with them, increasing customer satisfaction.

The power of personalized conversations

Conversational marketing involves two-way, real-time interactions between brands and consumers. What better way to support an authentic and relevant conversation than by personalizing these customer interactions? After all, conversations are already personal by nature. 

With omnichannel personalization, the website chatbot and the SMS chatbot both know your customer’s name. The personalized recommendations delivered to the email inbox can also appear in mobile messaging campaigns. Programmable voice can even produce personalized experiences on phone calls. That’s the power of omnichannel messaging, and that kind of consistency is what your customers deserve. 

Imagine being at a party where you introduce yourself to someone and strike up a conversation. How would you feel if you ran into the same person later that night and they acted as if you’d never met? You end up repeating yourself, providing information you’ve already explained. It’d feel strange, and you’d probably be offended or annoyed. 

Likewise, if your customers encounter inconsistent experiences across communication channels, it could negatively impact how they view your brand. Consumer expectations are high. Omnichannel personalization enables powerful connections everywhere your customers communicate with you because all that customer data is connected.

The million-dollar question is how do you make omnichannel personalization a reality? 

To say there is a lot to connect would be an understatement. For starters, you’ve got to connect different communication channels. Those channels need to connect to your MarTech solutions such as a customer data platform (CDP). Those platforms may be the source of data you’ll use to build personalized experiences. In the end… it all needs to connect. 

Bottom line? When you’re truly omnichannel, there are no communication silos. 

Sinch excels at simplifying the process of making these connections, giving you more ways to reach your customer base. While we do provide standalone messaging APIs for integrating individual channels with your application, we also empower you to go further. 

Our Conversation API provides a gateway to omnichannel engagement with a single API. This solution also makes it easy to scale, letting developers quickly integrate new channels as needs arise. That helps you build a seamless experience based on key customer data.

The CPaaS solution

A Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) solution is the foundation of an agile omnichannel strategy. These cloud-based platforms give enterprise organizations the power to integrate real-time communication capabilities into existing applications using helpful SDKs and flexible APIs. For example, here’s what you can take advantage of when partnering with Sinch as a CPaaS provider: 

• Messaging APIs: Personalize marketing campaigns and transactional communications with two-way conversations over SMS, MMS, and messaging apps. 

• Voice APIs: A complete solution from a single connection and a Tier-1 network. 

• Email APIs: Send personalized emails and triggered automations that reach people at the perfect time. 

• Verification APIs: Add security to the customer journey when you protect account access and consumer data with communications that verify users. 

The CPaaS space is still in its early days and constantly evolving. Sinch is proud to be recognized as a CPaaS leader in the Gartner Magic QuadrantTM . In 2023, Gartner® also ranked Sinch first for the Global Enterprise Use Case in its Critical Capabilities report.

Chatbots represent another path to advanced omnichannel personalization, particularly when powered by artificial intelligence. Bots can offer smart, automated, two-way interactions on a variety of messaging channels – from SMS to WhatsApp. Using conversational AI coupled with machine learning, these chatbot interactions can also be highly personalized, extending the experience far beyond pre-programmed answers. 

Our research found consumers are becoming more familiar with chatbot conversations thanks in part to the public’s exposure to ChatGPT and the growing number of applications using generative AI. Survey respondents indicated that getting questions answered (45%) and troubleshooting problems (33%) represent situations in which they’re most likely to use an AI-powered chatbot. 

However, 9% of consumers said they’d like an AI chatbot to act as a personalized shopping assistant. This is something for B2C retail and ecommerce brands to keep an eye on. Expect that number to grow in coming years as the benefits conversational commerce become clear to consumers.

Many of the results in our Customer Connections report indicate consumers place a lot of value on convenience, timeliness, and speed. Conversational commerce is an excellent way to meet those expectations. It’s enabling shopping experiences over messaging where bots programmed to be shopping assistants can help with everything from recommendations and product questions to returns and exchanges. 

However, even as AI and chatbots become regular aspects of brand communications and marketing efforts, contact with real humans should also be part of an omnichannel strategy. That’s especially true when it comes to providing customer service and support. 

Our survey found 20% of U.S. consumers never want to use chatbots. Another 29% would only want to interact with bots if human representatives were unavailable. 

While marketing automation and personalization have plenty of advantages, many of the most personal and memorable experiences people have with your brand are driven by other people. That’s why it’s important for bots to know when it’s time to transfer a customer to a human representative, otherwise the user experience could get frustrating. 

Sinch has the versatile Contact Pro platform to bring cross-channel customer service into one place. It’s an omnichannel support solution that upgrades legacy call centers and connects all your support channels in the cloud.

Wondering how to unify your communication strategy as you move towards omnichannel? Are there gaps in your approach to connecting with customers and prospects? 

Find out if your communication strategy could be working harder. Take our free assessment to find out how well you’re doing and receive a personalized report with recommendations for your industry and your organization.