What is omnichannel retailing?

Omnichannel retailing provides customers with a fully integrated shopping experience, enabling them to switch seamlessly between different engagement channels, including web, in store and telephone. The aim is to provide your customers with the most convenient shopping experience possible, letting them select their preferred transaction channel and facilitating easy cross-channel switching. This is different from a multichannel retail strategy which offers different engagement channels but each one still operates as an unconnected silo. Omnichannel retailing is not only about letting customers use their channel of choice but also enabling them to switch seamlessly between channels if needed.

It’s clear that consumers now expect to be able to take advantage of a seamless omnichannel shopping experience and that retailers who deliver this have a significant advantage over those who do not. As McKinsey argues “Offering a compelling omnichannel experience used to be the bleeding edge of retail. Now it’s a requirement for survival.”

Our research own backs this up. Over 80% of consumers agree that it’s important to them to be able to contact a company via whatever method is most convenient to them, and over 60% agree that they like to be able to switch between channels when dealing with companies (download our free research report here to learn more about this). This puts pressure on organisations – retailers in particular – to provide consumers with a truly omnichannel experience, whilst simultaneously ensuring that their payment details are kept secure across all channels. An effective and secure card payment system can facilitate this.

Offering customers a true omnichannel experience across all your engagement channels means your customers are more likely to have a positive shopping experience and, ultimately, to spend money with you. An omnichannel strategy prioritises the convenience of the customer and their own preferences. Putting customers first leads to greater customer loyalty which in turn leads to increased customer lifetime value as well as increasing the likelihood of existing customers recommending your organization to others.

However there are also operational benefits for organizations who offer an omnichannel retailing experience. Enabling customers to move seamlessly across engagement channels means that you only have to collect their details once rather than multiple times. Each staff member, whether in the contact center or in store, has access to the same information about the customer and to a full customer profile, increasing the chances of securing a sale (or a cross sell or upsell). It has long been known that customers in an omnichannel environment both spend more on average per transaction and engage in a higher number of transactions than those in a single channel environment.

CardEasy Digital offers secure card payment across all your customer engagement channels

When using CardEasy Digital there are no restrictions on the applications your agents can use, meaning they can take secure payments via all of your existing engagement channels. For example, if an agent is talking to a customer via web chat there is no need to redirect that customer to another channel at the point at which they want to make a payment. When a customer is talking to an agent via any digital engagement channel and needs to make a payment, the agent generates and sends a single-use secure HTML payment link or QR code. This provides the customer a secure branded payment page on which they enter their payment details. 

As with all of our CardEasy products, your contact center environment and agents are never exposed to your customers’ payment details, which fully de-scopes both from PCI DSS. For any live chat options, the agent remains connected to the customer at all times during the transaction. CardEasy Digital provides the agent with real-time visibility of the customer’s progress, but the card details are only visible as asterisks. If payment is requested via email or SMS channels, the agent can send the customer a secure link to complete payment, which can be set to expire after a chosen duration. 

Sofology uses CardEasy to ‘join up’ its contact center and instore shopping experience for customers

Sofology prides itself on being the only fully omni-channel sofa retailer currently operating in the UK. Customers can place orders via the Sofology website, through the direct telephone sales channel and within the retail stores.

Staff within the retail stores are issued with iPads which they use to register customers’ details as they are speaking to them. They are then able to build a basket for customers as they move around the store, enabling customers to look at different options and store the details of anything that interests them. Customers can then access this basket from home enabling them to consider the options, add or remove items and make whatever changes they want until they’re ready to place an order. 

Once the customer has left the store, the direct sales team can follow up with them by phone if they don’t immediately place an order. The direct sales team member can see the customers’ basket and answer any questions they may have about it. Once the customer is ready to place an order they can make payment on the website, over the telephone either with the direct sales team or with the store that they visited, or in store using an application on the staffs’ iPads. 

Rolling out secure telephone payments to our stores has really helped the business. It’s taken a lot of pressure off our direct sales team, but it’s also helped each of the retail stores to boost their sales figures and revenue.

Ashley Hill, IT Service Delivery Manager, Sofology

How we can help you

Talk to us today about how CardEasy can help you secure payments across all your customer engagement channels.