When we are faced with the design or redesign of an omnichannel service process, using Service Design can be the basis to obtain those results we expected thanks to empathizing with the current client (and above all, with the future).
At a retail conference that we attended as listeners, one of the speakers commented on the fantastic opportunity for many businesses to focus on their relationship with customers in an omnichannel way. You could not agree more with him, but I think that staying at this level does not contribute much when someone asks us how this strategy is possible.
It’s funny what happens with terms like “omnichannel”. It happens the same as to others such as “digital transformation” when I listen to it, the alerts are active because a multitude of curious or different elements can be heard, and not always well brought or explained. In some cases, when they tell me about omnichannel they have told me about setting up online stores or going one step further, considering that it can be bought online and collected in physical stores. They are very hackneyed concepts and they do not always discover the potential and it is corresponding operational and commercial implications.
If we base ourselves on the definition itself, we could identify that the different communication channels and customer relations are managed to achieve a unique customer experience. From this type of definition to the simplification of the collection of products purchased by an online store or in a physical store, I think there is a fairly large stretch. Maybe it could be a part, but I think it needs to be given a more complete thought.
The omnichannel concept aims to achieve a unique customer experience, regardless of the channel, so tools such as Visual Thinking within a service design process based on Service Design will help us to know those levers on which they should be based. and respond to our services. Therefore, if it is approached as any process of this type where there is a previous study to understand and empathize with potential clients, we can realize that there are aspects related to communication and how we promote our brand that must be assessed or rectify to adequately address our omnichannel strategy.
Tools such as empathy maps and the generation of a value proposition can find and specify which are the main aspects in which information must be offered throughout the process in which the potential client can come into contact with the organization. In addition, the proposal of a Person archetype can give us clear details about whether the service to be defined has value and sense, since many times when the process is designed, we can find some social, economic, or even operational aspects that may make adequate or efficient communication with our potential client impossible.
Apart from all these examples, if we take our Customer Journey as the basis for defining a service, we can find a multitude of aspects in which the way of communicating with potential customers must be adapted depending on the channel through which the communication is being carried out. with them.
Therefore, and seeing all the needs that can be obtained from Visual Thinking tools to define an adequate Service Design strategy, it is understood that obtaining the maximum level of empathy with potential clients (and non-clients) can be the basis for the successful definition of our business services.