In today’s retail world buyers often start their purchasing journey in one place and on one device. They research products and services, make comparisons, read reviews, and more. But, by the time they click the Buy Now button, they are often on a different device and in a different place. This is where OmniChannel can help.
The term OmniChannel describes how businesses provide a seamless experience for their customers across multiple channels or devices, including physical stores, websites, mobile apps, catalogs, or even other forms of social media.
How does OmniChannel work?
A prerequisite for any OmniChannel strategy is to accurately identify and track authenticated users. The best way to do that today is through user validation and logging in. The user ID cookie that is set when logging in defines the omnichannel experience for that user. When that user logs in on a new device, they will be assigned to their omnichannel experience and will remain in that group on subsequent visits, regardless of whether they log in again, providing a consistent experience across devices and visits. But without a mechanism for accurate user identification, your OmniChannel testing plan cannot ensure continuity in the user experience across all channels.
SiteSpect's OmniChannel feature allows you to provide just such a consistent experience across multiple devices. To do this, SiteSpect assigns the user to a variation group determined by their user ID cookie and places the visitor in that same Variation Group on all devices the visitor uses to access your site. This ensures that the visitor has the same experience on a phone, laptop, or tablet. In addition, it means that your reporting is consistent: you know who is using your website and from what devices.
There are four main tasks to enable Omnichannel in SiteSpect:
- First, identify a cookie that exposes a user identifier upon login. This cookie should be set to persist across visits.
- Second, activate the OmniChannel feature for your site.
- Then, enable it when defining a new Campaign.
- Finally, you can report on it by adding OmniChannel as a Segment on Reports.