When worlds collide, the customer is usually caught in the middle

Omnichannel or omnishambles? Time to join up the dots.

[Image courtesy of Dave Gray at Flickr Creative Commons]

Life used to be so simple. You wanted something, so you went to a shop. Either they had what you wanted, or they ordered it in. Maybe you phoned ahead, or maybe you just took a chance.

And then came the internet.

You could have anything you wanted, whenever you wanted it. Or almost. Because if you had to have it right now, you still had to go to a store. But the good thing was that most had an online presence, so you could check what they had in stock and save yourself a wasted trip. 

Well so goes the theory. The practice is quite another matter, as I found out last week. Not once, but twice.

Sweet surprise

I checked the website of Boots the chemist to see if they had a box of strips for glucose testing kits at my local store. They had not only one, but lots. So off I went.

When I got there, I scoured the shelves but couldn’t find what I was looking for. No problem, I thought – it’ll be behind the counter. So I asked the assistant, and she went to check with the pharmacist. The confab lasted longer than it should have, and she came back with that look on her face. You know the one. 

No, they didn’t have what I was looking for. They had bigger boxes of the strips, but only on prescription. So I’d have to go to a doctor – for something that in theory was available over the counter.

Just not that counter. 

Or I could order on Boots.com, said the assistant. But she said it as if it was a separate company to the one she worked for. When I pointed out that I’d specifically checked that store’s stock online, she gave me a look of blank incomprehension and said, “I don’t know anything about that”.

So much for joined-up service.

Computer says no

The second experience didn’t happen to me, but to a friend of mine.

Here’s the quick version: PC World, a monitor, stock levels that looked fine, a reservation number and confirmation email, and a wasted trip to the store, when they told him that the monitor he’d reserved was actually on display, and so obviously not for sale. 

Add in an assistant who was new and didn’t know what he was doing, a call to his manager that wasn’t returned while my friend waited in store and much confusion, and you get the picture. My friend couldn’t wait any longer, so he asked the assistant to call him once he’d heard from his manager. 

He got the call – six hours later. By which time, he’d bought the monitor on the PC World website and paid £10 for next-day delivery.

Customer care everywhere

You couldn’t make this stuff up, could you? It shows how complicated it is in practice to link the online and offline world. And how it should work in theory: integrated systems, trained staff and a consistent message.

Not to mention a consistent customer experience.

As part of the humungous project on customer care I’ve been working on recently (nearly there) I’ve found out lots about how companies are trying to pull together the disparate strands of their service into something coherent and consistent.

It’s not easy, but it is possible. 

Automation and artificial intelligence have made great strides in recent years, and systems have been simplified to deliver a similar experience whether you’re on a website, social media, chat or a voice call. But somewhere, somehow, that all needs to be linked to the offline experience. 

And that’s not just systems but training too. Put a monitor on display, tick it off the system. Customer complains about glucose strip shortage? Report it to the online team. 

None of this requires artificial intelligence. Just a little bit of old fashioned human intelligence, basic initiative and common sense. Because that’s what will make the omnichannel truly omni.

And keep blood sugar levels down.