BLOG
Transitioning from Multichannel support
to Omni-channel in Salesforce
to Omni-channel in Salesforce
• Date: December 2023 •
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Subscribe for more useful content
We promise we'll not spam your mailbox!
By submitting you agree to receive a newsletter from Twistellar. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Modern consumers demand convenience, connecting with companies from anywhere using smartphones or laptops. The true advantage emerges when customers have multiple options tailored to their preferences—a solution to the common pain point of limited accessibility.
Unfortunately, few businesses provide this diverse range of communication touchpoints, leaving customers yearning for flexibility. Offering customers choices not only defines exceptional service but addresses the pain points of limited access, elevating the customer experience and enhancing the quality of your product or service.
60% of customers express that their interactions often resemble communication with distinct departments rather than a cohesive company.
Additionally, 66% frequently need to repeat or reiterate information to various representatives.
48% of customers have switched brands for better service, and an overwhelming 94% agree that excellent customer service significantly boosts their likelihood of making repeat purchases.
Four Pillars of Customer Service
The challenge is apparent: how do you boost omni-channel Salesforce productivity without overwhelming frontline agents?
Many turn to process automation, now a cornerstone for almost 80% of high-performing service organizations.
Let's delve into its strategic implementation and impact.
Table of Contents:
- What’s the Difference between Multi-channel and Omnichannel Customer Service?
- Overview of Omnichannel Salesforce Customer Service
- Omnichannel Case Routing in Salesforce Service Cloud
- How to Address Major Challenges of Multichannel Customer Service in Salesforce
- Einstein for Service Benefits for Omnichannel Support
- FAQ: Salesforce Omni-channel Customer Service
What's the Difference between Multichannel and Omni-channel Customer Service?
Omni-channel and multi-channel customer service involve interacting with customers across various channels, but their approaches differ.
In multi-channel customer service, a company provides support and engagement through multiple independent channels. These channels may operate in isolation, and the customer can choose the most convenient one. However, the challenge lies in ensuring a consistent experience across these channels, as they may not be integrated, potentially leading to fragmented interactions.
Omni-channel customer service takes a more integrated approach. It focuses on providing a seamless and unified experience across all channels. In an Omni-channel strategy, customer interactions are interconnected, allowing for a consistent and cohesive experience as customers move between channels.
This approach emphasizes continuity, enabling customers to transition between channels without losing context, and ensures that the organization has a holistic view of the customer journey.
Multi-channel and Omni-channel Customer Service in Salesoforce
Overview of Omni-channel Salesforce Customer Service
The service industry focuses on three key aspects of omni-channel support, i.e., being:
- Thorough
- Consistent
- Connected
This means engaging with customers across any channel, maintaining a consistent service experience, and having a unified view of the customer through a single CRM.
A genuine omni-channel service center lets customers easily connect with support on different channels, giving support agents quick access to a complete customer profile. It's about avoiding separate departments' complexities and resolving issues promptly.
Omni-channel Performance Dashboard in Salesforce
At the same time, according to Salesforce's 'State of Service' Report, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more important in Salesforce's customer service toolkit. AI, which can gather essential information and suggest optimal steps, has seen an 88% increase in adoption since 2020, from 24% to 45% among service decision-makers. This emphasizes the growing role of support going omni-channel in Salesforce ecosystem.
Omni-channel Case Routing in Salesforce Service Cloud
Organizations often need a combination of case assignment strategies, especially global service teams requiring simultaneous criteria like product specialization, language, agent availability, and location.
In Service Cloud, Omni-channel Routing, or case assignment or case distribution, is the intelligent automation that ensures the correct Salesforce records reach the appropriate owner at the right time. This process involves various strategies, including assigning cases based on agent skills, capacity, language and handling diverse input channels.
To determine the need for extending omni-channel routing, ask yourself and your sales team a few questions:
- What if cases need to be reassigned after creation?
- How can case assignments reflect real-time workload, not just workload at the time of the assignment?
- How are cases weighted in terms of complexity, and can a unified score improve assignment accuracy?
- Are business hours respected to avoid assigning cases when agents are offline?
- How can additional inbound channels seamlessly incorporate the same complex assignment logic?
Queue-Based Routing
In this method, agents are grouped into distinct queues, typically reflecting a single skill or specific business aspect, such as Billing or Technical Support.
Omni-channel then assigns work items to these queues, with agents being members assigned tasks based on queue priority.
Smaller companies favor queue-based routing with fewer product offerings and agents operating in confined geographies. Its simplicity makes it an attractive choice for streamlined setup and efficient operations.
Skills-Based Routing
Skills-based routing involves tagging agents with specific skills and assigning work items based on these skills.
This method proves highly effective for larger organizations with extensive product ranges, complex skill sets, and multilingual support requirements.
Agents are matched with work items requiring their unique expertise, optimizing the allocation of tasks.
Leveraging this native Salesforce feature is advantageous for organizations navigating diverse product portfolios and catering to global audiences, ensuring a targeted and efficient approach to customer support.
External Routing
External routing is the solution if you already have a preferred routing system and are introducing Salesforce into your workflow.
Your company can retain its established routing system by seamlessly integrating third-party routing through a partner application with Omni-channel.
Skilled developers can leverage Salesforce's standard and streaming APIs to write code that facilitates the collaboration between third-party routing systems and Salesforce. This method allows your organization to route work efficiently to the Service Console while maintaining the routing system of your preference.
How to Address Major Challenges
of Multichannel Customer Service in Salesforce
What if your service agents had more time to focus on high-priority cases? If you offload some of the routine tasks your service team has to a smart assistant that could deliver real-time results, you can make your team more effective.
Solving Customer Problems with Einstein for Service
Possible customer support issues to name a few:
- Needing help locating the right knowledge articles
- Occasionally misrouting cases due to data typos
- Challenges in finding approved responses for use in chat and messaging interactions with customers
To increase your team's productivity, you can turn on a few Einstein for Service features to help your agents help your customers. With a smart assistant, your agents make fewer mistakes, they find relevant information faster, and your service processes are easy to enforce.
Einstein Case Classification in Salesforce
How does it work?
Here is a list of the most prominent features of Einstein for Service:
- Einstein Bots: Automating issue resolution in chat, enhancing efficiency and customer satisfaction.
- Einstein Case Classification: Predicting field values for efficient categorization of incoming cases.
- Einstein Case Routing: Collaborating with Case Classification for effective case triage and routing.
- Einstein Case Wrap-Up: Enabling quick and accurate case completion for chat agents.
- Einstein Article Recommendations: Recommending relevant knowledge articles for timely responses.
- Einstein Reply Recommendations: Analyzing chat transcripts for pertinent reply suggestions.
- Einstein Next Best Action: Utilizing data insights to recommend optimal agent offers and actions, enhancing customer engagement.
Now that you're familiar with Einstein for Service's capabilities, you're ready to help your customers and service team. But where within the organization is this help needed?
Einstein for Service Benefits for Omni-channel Support
Increased Productivity for Agents and Admins
Einstein Case Classification and Routing simplifies processes by predicting case fields, eliminating manual data entry, and accurately directing cases to the right team. The outcome: increased agent productivity, fewer case transfers, and minimized escalations. This straightforward approach aligns to improve operational efficiency in the Salesforce environment.
Enhancing Self-Service and Scalability
Einstein Bots tackles common queries and processes. Automating these tasks and efficiently collecting case details facilitates a seamless handoff to agents. This not only decreases average handle time (AHT) but also achieves increased customer satisfaction (CSAT) and case deflection.
Efficient Case Closing
Einstein Case Wrap-Up offers a valuable advantage by suggesting case field values. This saves agent time and allows for more focused customer interaction, contributing to increased overall productivity within the Salesforce ecosystem.
Decreased Time Spent Searching for Answers
Einstein Article Recommendations provides a a relief to overwhelmed support agents by promptly surfacing the most relevant knowledge articles to address customer inquiries efficiently, resulting in improved first-call resolution (FCR) and customer satisfaction (CSAT), streamlining the support process in Salesforce.
Dynamic Recommendations at the Point of Impact
Einstein's Next Best Action delivers real-time recommendations. This dynamic advantage elevates agent productivity, increases first-call resolution (FCR), and fosters revenue generation, ensuring optimal decision-making at critical customer touchpoints within Salesforce ecosystem.
To Wrap up
Omni-channel support elevates customer service, fosters efficiency, and ensures a cohesive customer journey. Salesforce's robust features, showcased in our exploration, offer a transformative solution.
Salesforce is a strategic ally for businesses aiming to elevate customer interactions. Its omni-channel capabilities enhance processes, increase agent productivity, and surpass contemporary customer expectations.
Consider seeking a professional Salesforce consultation for a tailored approach and expert guidance. This commitment to excellence will reshape your customer service landscape and position your business as a leader in the competitive market.
FAQ: Salesforce Omni-channel Customer Service
For example, Nike's Omni-channel strategy ensures a seamless shopping experience for customers across various touchpoints.
Whether browsing the website, using the mobile app, or visiting a physical store, customers can effortlessly explore, purchase, and even customize Nike products.
This integrated approach allows for a consistent brand experience, with features like online product customization reflecting in-store options. Nike's commitment to omni-channel engagement provides customers flexibility and convenience, fostering a unified and personalized journey in digital and physical spaces.
Whether browsing the website, using the mobile app, or visiting a physical store, customers can effortlessly explore, purchase, and even customize Nike products.
This integrated approach allows for a consistent brand experience, with features like online product customization reflecting in-store options. Nike's commitment to omni-channel engagement provides customers flexibility and convenience, fostering a unified and personalized journey in digital and physical spaces.
Omni-channel customer service entails businesses prioritizing the creation of a cohesive customer journey across various channels.
Businesses can effectively engage with a broader customer base by delivering a fully integrated experience that bridges brick-and-mortar stores, mobile apps, websites, and beyond.
This approach enhances the reach and impact of businesses by ensuring a seamless and unified experience across diverse platforms.
Businesses can effectively engage with a broader customer base by delivering a fully integrated experience that bridges brick-and-mortar stores, mobile apps, websites, and beyond.
This approach enhances the reach and impact of businesses by ensuring a seamless and unified experience across diverse platforms.
Salesforce multichannel customer service involves interacting with customers independently across various channels.
In contrast, omni-channel Salesforce customer service provides a seamless and integrated experience, allowing customers to transition between channels effortlessly and maintain continuity in their interactions.
In contrast, omni-channel Salesforce customer service provides a seamless and integrated experience, allowing customers to transition between channels effortlessly and maintain continuity in their interactions.
Omni-channel CRM is a comprehensive customer relationship management approach that seamlessly integrates and synchronizes various communication channels.
It ensures a unified and consistent customer experience across platforms such as web, mobile, social media, and more. With Salesforce's omnichannel CRM, businesses can streamline interactions, optimize customer engagement, and provide a cohesive journey regardless of the communication channel.
It ensures a unified and consistent customer experience across platforms such as web, mobile, social media, and more. With Salesforce's omnichannel CRM, businesses can streamline interactions, optimize customer engagement, and provide a cohesive journey regardless of the communication channel.
Salesforce Omni-channel implementation ensures a seamless and unified customer experience across multiple channels. It involves intelligent automation for case assignment, prioritizing interactions based on agent skills, capacity, and language.
This approach eliminates silos, allowing smooth transitions between channels for customers and providing support agents with a comprehensive view of the customer journey.
This approach eliminates silos, allowing smooth transitions between channels for customers and providing support agents with a comprehensive view of the customer journey.
To enable Omni-channel in Salesforce:
- Go to Setup
- Search for "Omni-channel Settings"
- Enable Omnichannel
- Configure routing settings
- Aactivate Omni-channel
- Assign necessary permissions
- Test, and
- Optimize configurations
Twistellar's team has carried out a number of industry-oriented projects and we are always open to discuss yours!
Our deep understanding of Salesforce platform ensures successful handling of projects in any domain
By submitting you agree to receive a newsletter from Twistellar. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Our Best Articles and Salesforce Overviews
Feeling like teaming up with us at Twistellar? We are excited too! Whether you'd like to customize your org, build a bespoke application or integrate a third-party tool, Twistellar is ready to help you.
Get in touch to discuss your Salesforce ideas!