In the digital era, customers are eager to go beyond the single-channel mode of brand interaction. This trend gained further momentum during the pandemic. With customers unable to visit physical stores or help centers, their reliance on digital increased – and they quickly discovered the convenience of interacting with brands through more than one channel.
According to research by Salesforce, 76% of customers prefer different channels for different types of interactions and messages, up from 71% before the pandemic. As a result, contact centers must adapt to keep pace with customers’ evolving channel preferences.
To do so, companies tend to opt for either an omnichannel or multichannel contact center solution.
Omnichannel vs. Multichannel Contact Centers: Definition
Both multichannel and omnichannel contact centers offer a choice of customer communication channels. However, in a multichannel environment, each channel exists in a silo. Whereas, in an omnichannel environment, all channels are fully integrated.
These integrations allow information to follow the customer as they switch between channels. The contact center can then funnel the context of each interaction that a customer has with the business into one location.
Of course, this brings many benefits to agents, as all this customer context lies at their fingertips. However, it also helps to centralize customer data, enabling sophisticated CX strategies.
Finally, omnichannel solutions also enable agents to engage with customers across multiple channels within the same interaction. Multichannel users do not have this capability.
4 Differences Between Omnichannel Contact Centers and Multichannel Contact Centers
Thanks to integrations, omnichannel and multichannel solutions differ in many respects. Here are four prominent examples.
1. Simplicity of Tech Integrations
Typically, omnichannel contact centers are hosted in the cloud because the environment enables effortless API integrations. As such, it is easier to add other new technologies into the ecosystem, like analytics, which can feed on the centralized data source. As AI tools become more prevalent across the industry, this omnichannel feature is critical to ensuring their success. Of course, it is also possible to host an omnichannel contact center on-premise or in a hybrid environment. However, such a goal is much trickier to achieve.