How to Transition from Multichannel to Omnichannel in Contact Center Operations

For a long time, voice was the primary communication channel. Today, it has become essential to expand digital contact options based on customer preferences, allowing them to choose between channels such as social media, email, WhatsApp, and others.

Digital transformation, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), has accelerated across organizations. According to Bain & Company, in Mexico, the pandemic accelerated digital adoption by 3 to 5 years. During the contingency period, over 70% of Mexican consumers experienced some form of online service for the first time. Companies had to adapt and remain flexible, as customer and employee priorities and expectations shifted.

A McKinsey survey revealed that two-thirds of customers prefer remote human assistance or digital self-service when making a purchase, and 80% of business leaders stated that omnichannel sales were as effective—or more effective—than traditional methods. The next-generation operating model is built around delivering simplicity, speed, and convenience to customers, agents, vendors, and partners—primarily through digital channels.

Consumers are increasingly demanding and show a strong preference for digital and asynchronous channels, which allow them to resolve their needs without interrupting or delaying their daily activities. They seek solutions that enable self-service, powered by AI, machine learning, and voice recognition. They don’t mind interacting with bots or humans—as long as they get fast, accurate answers. However, there are moments when customers want or need to speak with a human. In those cases, the omnichannel platform must ensure a seamless transition. Agents must have access to the complete interaction history, so customers don’t have to repeat the same information over and over.

“Early adopters of automation report efficiency gains of 10% to 15% and potential sales increases of up to 10%.”
— McKinsey

From Multichannel to Omnichannel

According to Deloitte, multichannel experiences have evolved into omnichannel strategies to ensure customers enjoy a consistent and unified interaction, regardless of the channel.

Today, multichannel is no longer enough, as it lacks customer context across different touchpoints. In a multichannel environment, customers perceive differences in how they’re served depending on the channel, which creates friction.

Omnichannel refers to the strategy and channel management approach that aims to integrate and align all available channels, delivering a seamless user experience across them. For example, a customer might start a purchase on a website, continue it on a tablet, share it with a family member via mobile, and resolve questions through phone, chat, or social media—all with a consistent interface and no need for special configurations. That’s an omnichannel experience.

At the heart of an omnichannel contact center strategy is the customer—who engages with services across multiple channels. Companies must encourage channel usage by offering attractive digital service options. The goal is to provide a unified relationship experience, regardless of the channel the customer chooses to interact through.
— Source: Deloitte

What Is Omnichannel Really?

• Having a unified platform that allows customers and users to interact through their preferred voice or data channel at different stages of their journey, without losing continuity.

• The company must be able to use different outbound channels based on which are most efficient at each stage of the process to contact or serve its customers.

• The agent must be able to manage any inbound or outbound interaction—voice or data—simultaneously, through a single console with a standardized interface.

• Systems must provide visibility into the customer experience as a unified interaction, regardless of the channels used throughout the process.

• Information must be analyzed in an integrated way to anticipate customer needs and requirements.

• Systems must be capable of real-time reporting across all channels to enable smarter decision-making.

What Does Digital Transformation Involve?

1. Anticipating change: Traditionally, organizations entering the digital space focus on automation to do more with fewer resources. However, true digital transformation must aim to anticipate trends and personalize offerings.

2. Describing and predicting patterns: Technologies like cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence should be used to gather deeper customer insights, understand profiles, predict behaviors, and proactively meet needs.

3. Creating new value propositions: New technologies allow us to develop new products or delivery models that satisfy customers at scale while maintaining a personalized experience.

4. Building new partnerships: Services are no longer created and delivered by a single company. It’s essential to build ecosystems and strategic alliances to operate and deliver products and services more efficiently, securely, and competitively.

5. Preparing for new processes: Those responsible for operations must be equipped to manage organizational assets using technology.

6. Security: Increased digitalization brings risks such as privacy breaches or system vulnerabilities. Securing platforms and data is critical.

7. Fraud prevention: Digital transformation must address risks like internal fraud, asset misappropriation, and misuse of sensitive customer data.

8. Software reliability: Ensuring secure data transfer and robust digital infrastructure is essential for business continuity. System availability is key to customer satisfaction.

What Are the Benefits of Omnichannel?

With an omnichannel platform, all communication channels are synchronized in a single management console, centralizing user data to efficiently resolve issues. Supported by artificial intelligence, data can be analyzed to understand customer behavior, satisfaction levels, and operational efficiency—enabling customer profiling and proactive strategy development to anticipate needs and improve satisfaction.

An omnichannel contact center enhances agent autonomy, digitizes processes for greater efficiency, transforms products and services with a strong digital component, and most importantly, strengthens customer connections. It also enables real-time analysis of user experience, optimizing response times and improving customer satisfaction and business profitability.

Key pillars supporting these benefits include:

1. Agent autonomy: Empowers agents by giving them access to relevant information, enabling better decision-making and customer service. Internally, systems and self-service tools promote well-being, security, and human connection—leading to more engaged and productive teams.

2. Digitalization for efficiency: Organizations with strong tech integration save time and resources by connecting people to productivity, boosting competitiveness and achieving business goals.

3. Transformation of products and services: Products and services must have a strong digital component, supported by:

• 24/7 availability: Digital products must be accessible at all times, solving customer needs around the clock—requiring companies to operate continuously.

• Smart products: Products that improve autonomously, supported by AI that interprets customer behavior logic. This logic or algorithm becomes a competitive asset for digital companies.

• Data exploitation: Digital products generate data, and leveraging that data can lead to new services. Turning data into actionable insights increases competitiveness.

• Customers define a good service experience as one where they receive fast, satisfactory responses without repeating their issue multiple times. By storing all customer data—services purchased, contact history, channels used—in one place, we simplify the user experience and optimize service quality and response time.

• A study by Zendesk found that interactions rated highly in Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) are 2.5 times faster to respond, 4 times faster to resolve, and leave customers waiting only 20% as long compared to other interactions, regardless of channel. This highlights wait time as a key factor in defining a good support experience—and omnichannel strategy helps solve this challenge.

With an omnichannel contact center, valuable insights can be obtained by optimizing both material and human resources, saving time for both the customer and the agent. Beyond delivering satisfying experiences, the omnichannel strategy also generates economic benefits.

The Triumph of Digital Transformation

By stepping into the customer’s shoes to understand their specific needs—especially during the moments that matter most—customer experience leaders in the financial sector have not only eliminated unnecessary steps, requirements, bureaucracy, and resources, but have also leveraged lower-cost channels, such as digital platforms.

— Bain & Company

We are witnessing how the physical world has evolved into one organized around digital collaboration platforms and networks, enabling communication and information exchange across multiple points—regardless of distance or borders.

Thanks to digital transformation, physical and technological barriers have been overcome, allowing for cost optimization and enabling any company to place the customer at the center of its business strategy. And of course, automation—which should not be seen merely as robotic process automation, but as the result of combining automation tools, platforms, and machine learning.

Automation and digitalization are becoming increasingly essential to achieve all of the above. However, without a robust technology platform that integrates speech and text analytics, artificial intelligence, and mobile technologies, it will not be possible to truly meet customer expectations in a modern contact center environment.