Today's reality is this: Customers want to contact companies when and how they prefer—whether that's calling a toll-free number and expecting a human being to answer, sending an email, or starting an online chat—and they expect a consistent service experience no matter which channel, or how many, they use.

There's no doubt that customers today are crossing channels, says Adele Sage, customer experience analyst at Forrester Research. They just don't look at their experience that way. "Customers don't think of it as multichannel, they think of it as interacting with a company," Sage says. "They are coming to a company trying to accomplish a very specific goal." Whether that goal is paying a bill, confirming a transaction, or buying a product, they want to do it on their terms.

The key—and the challenge—for companies, both now and in the future, is to understand what channels their customers actually want to use, and to be able to view each customer in a holistic way, rather than as a series of transactions. Companies, then, have to find a profitable way to give the best possible service to an informed customer who has high expectations. "That's a difficult balancing act for many organizations," says ClickFox CMO Anna Convery, "and it's getting more complex."

In fact, according to 1to1 Media's 2009 Multichannel Service survey, only 36 percent of respondents' companies currently link their service channels; of those whose channels are disconnected, only 30 percent plan to link them in the next 24 months. Additionally, only 14 percent think they deliver a consistent experience across channels; 68 percent think their service experience is somewhat consistent across channels and 18 percent said their service is not at all consistent across channels.
Certainly, meeting customers' needs across multiple channels in a way that's cost-effective and operationally efficient is a challenge. Here are three examples of companies that are working to make those multichannel goals a reality.

Golfsmith
Golf and tennis retailer Golfsmith started out as a simple catalog company 43 years ago; today its channels include 74 retail stores, an online presence at golfsmith.com, and call center operations. In addition to these core channels Golfsmith has also expanded its brand presence and customer service tools to include an online ask-and-answer feature, click-to-chat technology, and a growing presence on Facebook and Twitter.

The newest tool, the ask-and-answer feature, follows the self-service channel model and lets customers ask questions about products directly from the online product pages. Other customers and Golfsmith's manufacturer partners can answer the questions, but Golfsmith agents monitor the conversations, as well, in part to ensure the quality of response.

"It allows customers to communicate amongst themselves," says Kody Sweet, director of customer experience for Golfsmith, "and it drives cost out of our business. If someone can get the answer they're looking for from the community, that reduces calls into the call center desk, or even an email or click-to-chat. By having this service available to our customers, it is creating a database of FAQs that live on the product pages. If the question is posted and answered, the customer will not have to wait to get their question answered."

Given today's constantly changing methods of customer communication, Golfsmith is also rethinking its hiring process for call center agents. "In order to run an effective contact center today, you must have blended agents available to speak to the customer in whatever form they choose, and not force a customer into a particular contact method," Sweet says. So far Golfsmith has trained current agents on all of the new technologies and tools, but "it takes a special agent to be able to handle click-to-chat," Sweet admits. "They've really got to be able to multitask, and hold four to seven different conversations at once." (Golfsmith may be ahead of the curve there: According to Gartner research director Johan Jacobs, companies trying to implement multichannel solutions often lack blended agents who can deal with more than one channel.)

Deploying a workforce optimization solution also helps Golfsmith deliver better service through multiple channels. "By using GMT Planet, we're able to forecast multiple channel campaigns such as catalog drops, email campaigns, and new product launches," says Sweet, adding that GMT Planet has helped Golfsmith reduce abandoned calls by 35 percent and increase agent productivity. "This allows us to better prepare for upcoming traffic across the entire contact center and all contact mediums. When we're prepared and know the contacts are coming, we are ready to handle them quickly, reducing long wait times and creating a much better customer experience."

Nikon
When David Dentry joined Nikon Inc. eight years ago as general manager of technical support, multichannel customer service wasn't a focus for the photography brand. But after implementing a solution from RightNow Technologies in 2002, that changed. Nikon first used the tool to enhance its website by offering an online FAQ section, and to improve its email support capabilities. Soon after, Nikon began using the solution to support the contact center, too. Today customers can contact Nikon through live agent phone interaction, IVR, online, and email—and customers' service histories are accessible to agents across all channels.

For Nikon, the path to achieving multichannel success has been a one-step-at-a-time process—even with an e-service suite solution. "It's easy to sit down and map out a multichannel customer service strategy, but that could be a tremendous project," Dentry says. "[It's] better to take one real pain point, address that channel, and then grow it organically as you need to."

The process began with establishing a knowledge foundation, which included expanding FAQs and allowing customers to look up service status, track orders and returns, and retrieve software license codes. It also provided information to help agents respond to customers' email queries, Dentry says. And because Nikon's online resources cover many common issues, agents can simply direct customers, via email, to professionally produced tutorial pages rather than having to explain it all. "By being more proactive…we reduce the need for the customer to contact us," Dentry says. "[And] by reducing call volume we can focus on emails and respond faster than if our time was split between other channels."

Consistency of information across channels is also essential: "It's very important that everyone is…sending the same clear message to our customers," Dentry says. "We use RightNow tools to pass information both internally to our staff and then externally to our customers, and since we centralize all information, it helps us be clear and concise in our messaging. We [also] keep all contact with customers in one central record, so when we speak to a customer we can see all previous interactions and direct the conversation as needed."

The results have been outstanding: Nikon has seen a 50 percent reduction in call response time, a 70 percent reduction in email response time, and customer satisfaction scores that topped 95 percent—all while sales were growing.

RCN
Customers in the broadband services market can be fickle, so effectively managing pricing and promotions is essential to acquisition and retention efforts. That challenge was the impetus behind regional broadband services provider RCN Corporation's rethinking its multichannel sales and service strategies. The company, which competes against bigger industry players, needed to update its e-commerce capabilities to support its growing roster of products, as well as its customers' channel preferences.

RCN took a phased approach, implementing Sterling Multi-Channel Selling (MCS) from Sterling Commerce to support its efforts. Phase one, launched last October, updated the capability for new customers to place orders online. Phase two introduced functionality that allows existing customers to place orders online for additional services or features. And phase three, expected to be completed in early 2010, will provide internal sales staff with access to the Sterling Commerce platform, "so we can streamline processes and enhance our guided selling," says Edie Ashton, RCN's vice president of IT.
While Ashton admits that there are still some integration points that need to be fully developed to ensure that every customer interaction is available to agents, she says that by integrating Sterling MCS with the company's existing CRM and data warehouse platforms, RCN is now able to share more meaningful data about the customer at the right touchpoint.

Placing an order online or over the phone "should feel like the same experience to the customer and should be streamlined internally, ideally utilizing the same platform," Ashton says. "By understanding the details of the customer who is transacting with us, we are better able to support them through the ordering process and improve their overall experience with RCN."

Already, that value is evident: After implementing the Sterling Commerce solution, RCN saw a 100 percent growth in online sales, and improved its conversion rate by about 50 percent.

The improved e-commerce platform has also helped RCN to move customers from the call center to the Web for customer service. The company offers a Web-based "My RCN" self-care platform, has a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter—the RCN care department monitors Twitter and responds when necessary—and had planned to add live chat in the last quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year.

"Even though we're still working through the process, we can see the benefits of a multichannel approach and a tool that supports that—just from how the company talks internally about pricing and approaches the customer," Ashton says. "The benefits are broad and deep, and it's been a very good way to ensure the business strategy is cohesive."