5 Omni-Channel Strategies That Boost Your Holiday Sales

The holiday season is here and as a retailer, you need to have the right tactics in place to boost your sales. 

In this blog, we reveal 5 omni-channel strategies that do exactly that and make it easy for your team to manage the busy season. If you want to learn how a digital employee can make this even easier, have a chat to sales here!

Here's an index of the various aspects we'll explore:

• • Introduction: The Difference between Multi-Channel and Omni-Channel Marketing
  • Strategy 1: Guided Selling & Recommendations
  • Strategy 2: Customer Service Engine & FAQ
  • Strategy 3: Online-Exclusive Coupons
  • Strategy 4: Convert Holiday Enthusiasm into Sales
  • Strategy 5: Turn the Holiday Rush into Real Consumer Insights

Introduction: The Difference between Multi Channel and Omni Channel Marketing

Before we get started, let's answer one key question – what's the difference between multi-channel and omni-channel marketing? 

First of all, let's define what channels are:

• • Your Store
  • Website
  • Mobile
  • Social (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Viber, etc)
  • Phone
  • Voice
  • Digital Human
    
    
    Multi-channel is where all of your channels are available to your customers and are not integrated.
    
    This means your customers can get hold of you via one channel (i.e. your website), and should they contact you through another channel like social, you've got multiple pieces of information that are not connected. This makes for a disjointed customer experience, particularly if they need to repeat what they asked another representative to assist them with. 
    
    
    On the other hand, you've got omni-channel marketing. This is where you've got all of your channels available to your customer and they're all integrated.
    
    This means your customer service overall is more aligned, and allows for your customer to enjoy a more personalised, relevant experience so they find what they are after, fast. 
    
    
    

Strategy 1: Guided Selling & Recommendations

Guided Selling is a useful tool when it comes to sales. It enables your customer to experience a personalised buying service that recommends products that compliment what they're after, and guides them towards making a purchase. 


Key features of Guided Selling includes the ability to:

• • Recommend complementary products
  • Check stock availability
  • Process a customer's order
    
    
    
    Here's how it works:

An example of a digital employee using Guided Selling to help a customer purchase a product.

Guided Selling allows your customers to interact with a digital employee to narrow down the exact kind of products you have that fit their needs.

Using the example above, the option available to customers lets them to ask a variety of questions from "does this TV work with my Chromecast" to "I want a TV that's high end please" and even down to buy additional add-on products that will compliment their purchase.

This makes a customer's buyer journey smoother, faster and efficient. It's a quicker way to help them find the best product, get them to check out and buy from you all in one shot. This drives online sales, increases conversion rates and drives brand loyalty.

A Digital Employee makes life easier for retailers - they're a team member that is always on the job 24/7, is always polite and has no need to even sleep!

Strategy 2: Customer Service Engine & FAQ

Customers want to know what your COVID-19 policies are, how to do contactless delivery, find out information about returns and refunds, and what their order status is.

Make this as simple as possible for your customers to find the right answers they are after for, as fast as possible.

Take a digital employee we built for Glassons (see image below). Her name is Charlie and she is surfaced on the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section of the Glassons website. Her purpose is to:

• • Assist customers with online order support which includes 'track my order', 'returns policy', and a COVID FAQ
  • Help customers track their orders and experience personalised order management
  • Assist and find customers' closest store location
    
    

Charlie the Glassons' digital employee helping a customer with their return policy.

She is an effective customer service rep as she is always online, customers can ask her for the information they need at any time of day, any day of the week and whenever they choose.

Strategy 3: Online-exclusive Coupons

Online-exclusive coupons entice customers to purchase from you without the need to come in-store. In light of the pandemic, this is the opportunity to capitalise on online sales for those who would prefer to shop from home.

Send to your customer database exclusive, customer-only codes as a way to reward them and entice them to make purchases with you. 

Use emails with language like "spend $50 to claim free shipping," or use a code that is exclusive to Christmas, such as "Use code XMAS20 to receive 20% off at checkout." The possibilities are endless!

An example of a digital coupon courtesy of an email sent from PETstock New Zealand.

Offer new customers 10% off their first purchase as a way to encourage them to sign up with you and become part of your customer base.

Strategy 4: Convert Holiday Enthusiasm into Sales

The festive season is a great time for retailers as everyone wants to spoil one another with great gifts – use and convert that holiday enthusiasm into sales!

Follow the 3 points below to maximise this:

• • Be prepared!
    Have enough products on the shelf, sort out your promos, sales, and have the right social channels optimised (and an affordable budget that will help you achieve it). It's critical that you have enough supply to meet your demand. You don't want to run out of stock of a product, especially if it happens to be a popular one.
    
    
    
  • Choose the right social channels
    Pick social channels that your customers use, and leverage them so that your audience can see your promotions and sales. If your contacts hang out on Facebook and read their emails cover to cover, target them there. If they prefer to use Instagram and Twitter, make sure your messages are conveyed to them on the appropriate channels.
    
    
    
  • Check your business can handle spikes in demand
    When the season gets busy, your business needs to be able to handle surges in customer service enquiries. A lot of customers want to know the same thing, and you need to deliver the answer to them fast.
    
    This is where a Digital Employee (DE) makes a huge difference. They handle large volumes of traffic with ease, hand over to live human agents when it is makes sense, and alleviate stress on your team. 
    

5. 5.

Strategy 5: Turn the Holiday Rush into Consumer Insights

Every time your customers engage with you is an opportunity to learn more about them.

From a purchase they've made, an enquiry to your customer service team, interests in particular products, key FAQ questions that are asked most, or what their main pain points – these are will all serve to tell you either:

A. What you already know about them, or
B. What you didn't know before about them, but now do

The more information you gain and know about your customers, the better (and easier) it is to serve them! A Digital Employee can help you find all this out with ease, and allow for your human agents to do what they do best.

At Ambit, we believe in fit for purpose technology, which means we want to ensure that you get the right solution that is right for your business and its needs.


If you want to get a better idea of how a Digital Employee could work for you, get in touch with our team to learn more over a brief chat.