Simply put, a multichannel contact center is a hub where businesses manage customer interactions across various communication channels. That’s it in a nutshell, but there are a few burning questions that organizations often have about multichannel customer support operations—especially when they’re looking to upgrade to something better:
In this blog, we’re revealing the answers to these common queries as we uncover the inner workings of multichannel contact centers, what they are, how they stack up to omnichannel contact centers, and more.
Let’s clarify the difference between multichannel and omnichannel. When discussing contact centers, these two terms are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings.
A multichannel contact center includes many avenues through which customers can communicate with your brand. Each channel is independent, and there isn’t necessarily abundant integration between them in the backend; each is run separately from the other.
In a multichannel environment, common channels include:
Phone (voice).
Email.
Live chat.
Chatbot.
Social media / direct messaging.
SMS/text messaging.
While managing customer interaction across each of these channels is necessary, a multichannel contact center requires agents to do so independently.
The value of multichannel contact centers is clear: By providing multiple channels for communication, businesses can offer greater convenience and accessibility to their customers, allowing them to choose their preferred channel that best suits their needs.
Consider this: A customer starts a conversation with your brand on social media and then decides to switch to email. A multichannel contact center agent can migrate with the customer, but they may not have access to the previous conversation history that took place on social media.
So, while there’s no visible ripple in the water from the customer's perspective, agents may need to ask them to repeat themselves or otherwise be left scrambling to gather customer information. This can slow down the process and end up frustrating customers.
An omnichannel contact center brings multichannel capabilities while also threading each point of contact together, offering seamless integration between channels—the same channels outlined above.
This means that customers can transition between those channels with minimal—if any—disruption, and their interactions are tracked and synchronized across touchpoints.
Furthermore, omnichannel contact centers have integrated tech and software that provide agents with a unified view of the customer's journey, regardless of the channel they use to communicate. This helps your brand to offer personalized and consistent support, meeting customers where they’re currently at and being ready to follow them to a new channel if they change course or their problem is better solved elsewhere.
In an omnichannel contact center, a customer can initiate a conversation on live chat, continue it over the phone, and then receive follow-up assistance via email, with all interactions seamlessly connected and tracked.
For agents, all integrations are brought into one unified view via cloud contact center software.
In summary, the key distinction between multichannel and omnichannel when discussing contact centers lies in the level of integration and continuity across channels.
Omnichannel contact centers prioritize a unified and consistent customer experience across all touchpoints, whereas multichannel contact centers manage channels separately with less integration between them.
No matter how you choose to run your contact center, there are common, popular communication channels that you should offer support through.
That said, each business and audience is different. The channel or channels that one group of customers prefers may be vastly different from what another deems their favorite. Knowing your audience is critical to optimizing your contact center—but more on best practices later.
For now, let’s focus on typical channels that are popular today:
77% of customers use email to contact businesses, making it the top channel among many.
This form of communication has been around long enough that it’s become a communication mainstay, providing a convenient channel for customers to seek assistance or resolve issues asynchronously.
The benefits of email are plentiful. Not only does it make sending detailed information and explanations easy, allowing customers to explain the breadth of their issues, but it also makes for quick documentation and follow-up communication.
Phone calls remain a crucial channel for customer service due to their immediacy and ability to help agents resolve complex issues. In fact, 81% of customer service professionals prefer phone calls over other communication methods when solving those more complex problems.
Inversely, many customers still prefer speaking directly with an agent for assistance—88% use a phone to engage with a brand.
Live chat support offers real-time assistance directly on a company's website or app. Like a phone call, live chat happens in real-time but instead of voice, it’s text-based communication. It's become popular amongst millennials, nearly 60% of whom already use live chat to solve quick inquiries, troubleshoot, and get immediate responses to simple questions.
Social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit) serve as channels for customers to reach out to companies publicly or find answers on their own. It’s effectively both a direct communication channel and a self-service option, depending on the platform.
For example, agents can interact with customers on X, formerly Twitter, to have public-facing conversations on their way to resolving a problem. Or, they can take it more private by using the direct messaging feature common on most social media sites.
A majority of consumers (63%) agree that their brand loyalty is strongly influenced by the quality of customer support on social channels—so you shouldn’t ignore it!
On the other hand, customers use platforms like Reddit to chat amongst themselves, share solutions, or talk about their experiences with different brands.
Social media monitoring and engagement are crucial for addressing inquiries, negative or positive feedback, and complaints in a timely manner.
Chatbots and virtual assistants offer automated support through text-based or voice-based interactions.
They can handle routine inquiries, provide basic information and assistance, and escalate complex issues to human agents when needed.
The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled brands to develop better, brighter chatbots to serve customers. In fact, for nearly 40% of consumers, chatbot interactions are preferred over virtual agents.
Self-service portals, like knowledge bases and FAQ sections, allow customers to find answers to common queries independently. Different from chatbots, this type of self-service relies mostly on the customer to A) know exactly what they need help with and B) are willing to look for a solution on their own.
Knowledge bases, for example, reduce the need for direct contact with customer support agents and empower customers to resolve issues in their own way, on their own time, whenever it works best for them.
Now that we know the key differences between a multichannel and omnichannel contact center, the inner workings of how they operate are largely the same.
By applying the following best practices to your content center operation, you can set your agents up for success and, therefore, enhance customer experience.
Train and empower agents: Empower agents to be proficient in handling inquiries across various channels, and enable them with the tools and resources needed to deliver exceptional service.
Use the right tech: Utilize contact center software and tools to streamline operations, automate processes, and track interactions across channels. A cloud contact center solution brings omnichannel functionality and multichannel support under one roof.
Practice proactive communication: Anticipate customer needs and reach out proactively through channels like email or SMS to provide relevant information, updates, or offers.
Collect feedback: Regularly seek feedback from customers about their experiences across different channels and use this feedback to identify areas for improvement.
Every business is different, so you should prioritize channels based on your target audience's preferences and behavior. If you’re unsure where to start or which channels are most relevant, a cloud contact center solution that offers multichannel support allows you to get a feel for each channel and determine which ones work best for both you and your audience.
AI is a powerful tool. Investing in technology solutions that take advantage of artificial intelligence—like chatbots, automated responses, and self-service portals—can help you handle high-volume, routine inquiries efficiently. In turn, this frees up human agents to focus on more complex issues.
There are a lot of valuable contact center metrics to track, but if you’re just beginning to collect data, focus on:
Customer satisfaction scores.
First contact resolution rates.
Average response times.
Channel-specific metrics like email response time or chat wait times.
If going in on your own, it’s imperative to implement robust security measures, including encryption and access controls, as well as ensure compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR or CCPA to safeguard customer data across all channels.
Or, you can rely on a secure, open, and flexible platform that’s already done all the security heavy lifting for you—so you can focus on your customers.
Searching for a solution to your multichannel contact center woes? Cloud contact centers provide scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency, as they can easily adapt to changing business needs and customer demands.
Cloud contact center platforms offer a range of features, including but not limited to automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), call routing, workforce management, analytics, and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Webex Contact Center is an AI-powered platform that drives both digital and human engagement, providing support for nearly any channel. Phone, text, email, chat, social media—you name it, Webex Contact Center supports it.
Learn more about Webex Contact Center.