Don’t Miss Out on These 3 Important Trends for Omnichannel Retailers

Omnichannel customer experience tops the list of 2023 retail trends.

Over the past few years, retailers have had to make changes in the services and shopping methods they offer to consumers who’ve come to expect the convenient shopping methods that grew out of the pandemic.

Today’s consumers demand the omnichannel experience, which allows consumers to use more than one channel to make their purchases, pay for them, arrange delivery, contact customer service and more.

Not surprisingly, omnichannel and unified shopping experiences will be one of the top consumer trends for retailers in 2023, according to ecommerce technology provider ESW.

“Nearly 90 percent of consumers now expect brands to offer omnichannel experiences across their preferred online and in-store channels and touchpoints,” says ESW.

“Companies that offer robust omnichannel experiences can see a 20 percent  boost in total revenue. Brands using at least three channels in their retail strategies see a 287 percent higher purchase rate than single-channel brands.”

Read on for three retail omnichannel trends to watch in 2023.

1. The brick-and-mortar comeback may slow

“The enthusiastic, post-pandemic return to brick-and-mortar retail stores may have cooled since its early beginnings,” according to “Five Critical Trends That Omnichannel Retailers Must Understand,” a report from technology provider CallMiner.

“In fact, spending in brick and mortar has remained somewhat flat, with just a 3 percent increase between 2021 and 2022. The good news is that online channel growth has remained relatively high.”

CallMiner recommends that retailers should not over-index toward brick-and-mortar. Instead, pay attention to the entire omnichannel shopping experience:

“Today’s customer journeys are far from linear. For example, people may spend weeks researching a product online before going into a brick-and-mortar retailer to see the product in person. They ultimately may make the final purchase online and continue to interact with the brand on social media.”

2. Customer vulnerability will remain an issue

More than one-third (38 percent) of retail organizations reported to CallMiner that their top customer experience challenge in 2022 was an increase in “customer vulnerability” due to health or financial issues or fallout from increased caregiver responsibilities.

“Few customers, especially those in vulnerable situations, are transparent and forthcoming with their personal challenges,” says CallMiner. “Listen closely, pick up on contextual clues,

analyze sentiment and learn from past experiences to determine and act on customer needs.”

3. Retailers leveraging unsolicited feedback will gain a competitive edge

Retailers collecting only solicited customer feedback from surveys, reviews, focus groups and more are missing out on a “wealth of even more valuable and voluminous data that’s ripe for analysis,” says the CallMiner report.

CallMiner recommends that retailers leverage data throughout their omnichannel customer experiences, including calls to the contact center and social media:

“Using technology like conversation intelligence to capture conversations with customers makes it possible to detect important trends you might miss otherwise, such as churn-likely behavior, dissatisfaction with products/services, positive customer advocacy or behaviors within your own processes/teams that could be improved to reduce customer frustration and CX metrics like average handle times.”

Then use those gathered insights for training, coaching and other business improvements.

“Not only can you reward agents who are doing a great job, [your company will] also reinforce similar positive behaviors across your entire team through the use of AI-powered agent guidance,” says the CallMiner report.