Omniexperience: The key to differentiation

Omniexperience is the key to surviving the present and thriving in the future.

Omniexperience is differentiating your company’s offerings.

Sounds great, but…

Omni-what-the-heck?

Before we dive into this critical concept, let’s make sure we all mean the same thing when we say omniexperience.

For years, most companies have had marketing programs that would attempt to reach customers over various channels: email, web ads, print…

The idea was that you were more likely to reach a customer and reinforce your message when you resent it across multiple channels. The customer might have missed your banner ad, but probably saw your email.

More recently, companies have begun shifting to Omnichannel. Instead of duplicating the message repeatedly, the idea evolved to treating the customer’s whole experience with your brand.

You send your core message one time, spread across whichever channel the customer is currently using. Think of this as a single, ongoing conversation between your company and the customer. Sometimes it will be conducted via email and sometimes chat.

Omniexperience: The key to differentiation

Today the concept is evolving again, going beyond the conversation and encompassing the entire experience of the customer with your brand.

Have you ever received a text message (about something critically important like which kind of sandwich you want for lunch) and been notified on your phone, your tablet, your laptop, digital assistant, or watch? When I get a text sometimes, it feels like my whole office shakes.

But what sense does it make to contact a person on so many different devices? We can only be actively using one of them at any moment. What about my shopping cart that I started on the web and want to continue on my phone? Which types of alerts do I like to receive at which times of the day on which device?

Experience the moment

James Joyce once described the present moment as being where “all future plunges into the past,” but for your business, the present moment is when your customer’s experience builds or erodes their satisfaction with your brand.

A primary focus of your product and service development should be answering the question, “What does this customer need this moment?”

Notice how this inverts focus from “what do we want to blast to the customer”?

This focus entails empathy. If I were in the customer’s shoes right now, what would reduce friction and make my life easier?

How to not hit the ground running

To make this newfound empathy and focus practical, your organization needs to combine product and process. You need the right tools, but you also need the right mindset.

For the tooling, you need the ability to span across the heterogeneous back-end systems. You need to make your business consumable through APIs. You need visibility and control.

Essentially, you need a control plane that can act as an adapter between legacy systems, custom systems, and a varied infrastructure on the back end and presentation-tier devices, ecosystem partners, and AI on the front-end.

For the mindset, you need to shine a bright spotlight on a few processes, specifically design and governance. Are choices being made at every level of the organization with a focus on a user’s journey, enhancing each moment?

You don’t need to outrun the bear

Fear of getting Omniexperience perfect shouldn’t preclude its implementation.

Most companies are a long way from perfecting omniexperience; many haven’t even begun their journey. Any steps you take in this direction will earn goodwill from your customers.