Smart Help for Today’s Empowered Customers

By William Lim, Director, Creative Virtual Singapore

I was looking around for a new TV to replace my old one which had served me well for about 7 years until it started giving me problems lately. These days, when I buy something, I don’t just trust everything the sales person tells me. What if he is trying to push me a particular brand as the distributor could have offered him higher commission rather than helping me select the TV that best fits my criteria?

I’m not alone. Consumers these days are becoming more complex. They have become more empowered, more connected to companies and to each other. Enabled by technology, today’s consumers expect to interact with companies interchangeably across channels, from web to retail store to mobile, depending on their needs at any given point in time.

Omnichannel, a term not heard of until recently, allows companies to better engage their customers by offering them a seamless, integrated, consistent and personalised experience when interacting with their organisation.

Think of this scenario. I have some spare time late at night, and I decided to check out the website of the electronic retail store. I know a couple of features I want of the new TV – at least 55”, support digital TV signal and 3D. So I proceed to ask the Smart Help tool on the website a couple of questions, provide it what features I want and my price range, and the Smart Help loads up a few models that meet my criteria. After deciding on a model that interests me, I decide to visit the store just to confirm that it looks nice physically and not just on the website.

However, when I am at the store, I see another model that looks nicer and cheaper. Being an empowered customer, I decided to check with the store Smart Help on my mobile, just to make sure the specifications and reviews for this model meet my criteria. Remembering my previous interaction with it, it tells me that this model doesn’t support digital TV signal, an important feature that I needed.

This is the vision of what omnichannel can offer – being available to customers anywhere, anytime. Customers are able to self-help with personalised interactions, just like having a personal assistant anywhere they go.

Interested to know more about how omnichannel Smart Help can help you in your business? Request a live, personalised demo with an experienced member of our team.