Page 18 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

“Omnichannel is bullshit” -

business polemics on its principle

and touchpoints

Recently I read an interesting interview on the One- He argues for a 360 degree view to create real-time
toOne portal, featuring Nils Hafner, a true expert in cus- relevancy across all channels and points out that there
tomer relationship systems, a professor at the Universi- are certainly some touchpoints that are irrelevant to
ty of Luzern and alumnus of the marketing network customers from specific sectors. Not to mention that
MTP.
the fewer the customers use a touchpoint, the less

Titled provocatively "Omni-Channel is Bullshit", the arti- pays off the necessary monitoring or the operation of
cle got my attention immediately - and not just for the this touchpoint.
sake of satisfying my curiosity – with Hafner complain-
ing: “I can no longer hear it - omnichannel here and But not everything that customers do not (yet) use, has
touchpoint management there - do we really believe the to be useless on the other hand. Especially when it
customer wants all that? Is there really anybody who comes to email alternatives, it may be useful to intro-
understood how to implement what the customer wants duce customers successively to chat or video chat. The
or how that contributes to profitable long-term relation- British bank RBS, for instance, tries to "educate" the
ships? I do not think so!” consumer with respect to the use of certain touch-
Well, we have to admit that in a time of ever-decreasing points, shooting videos in which the advantages of the
advertising effectiveness and ever-increasing intercon- chats were presented as a meaningful, synchronous
nectedness, many spontaneous activities in the form of service tool for the customer and company. Over time,
recommendations or warnings about the performance it was observed that more and more customers began
of companies, made communication less and less con- to use instant messaging services, considered as a
trollable and dialogues more important - and with it - the direct consequence of the realization that especially
touchpoints where these dialogues can take place. with complex service issues, often not every touchpoint
is equally suitable.
Actually, Hafner is questioning the basic idea of the om-
nichannel principle, doubting that the customer really In a nutshell, not everything that customers want is ac-
wants all this. Rather, he believes that the decisive fac- tually useful and not everything that customers want
tor is to complement the way of looking at the touch- makes sense to offer from a business point of view.
points – from different perspectives - since not every- Besides, some companies are simply missing the skills,
thing that is technically feasible is appreciated by the e.g. in social, which often results in mediocrity at the
customer. touchpoints. But especially for new or potential custom-
18 Asian eMarketing - December 2015 Omnichannel Marketing
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