Customers don't see channels, only businesses do. And digital isn't a channel, it's the thread running though everything a business has to do to give customers a good brand experience. Optus spoke "heresy" to marketers in Sydney today.
Speaking at the Forrester Marketing and Strategy Summit, Optus senior executive of digital business, marketing and ecommerce, Gregan McMahon, said marketers shouldn't think of digital as a channel. Instead, it should be seen as an enabler for bringing other aspects of the customer experience together and creating a truly customer-centric business.
"The issue is, customers don't see channels. Only businesses do. Customers see brands or something they need to do. It might be heresy but I most of our customers don't think about Optus at all until they need something from us."
Optus has build a cross functional team from call centres, telesales, retail teams and customer service to make sure it has a "unified" approach, across all those channels.
McMahon said: "Part of our strategic thinking is digital is not a channel, it's a thread running though the rope of customer experience. If a customer goes into a store why should they not have a digital experience? They absolutely should. If a customer calls us they should have a digital experience."
The network has built systems that allow it to push information to customers' computer or tablet while they are on the phone or web chat so the Optus rep can talk them though the options and they then have a "digital experience".
"The future of digital is not everyone buying everything online, self-serve for everything. I don't think that's necessary or sensible. What I see is that digital is a part of all customer experience whether it's in a store, face-to-face with an Optus person, a phone call, video chat or in social - it's all about a digital enablement of a customer experience, rather than a digital experience," he said.
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