How To Design The Right Channel Mix

Customer experience professionals have a wide array of customer interaction touchpoints at their disposal. With so many options, how can they choose the best combination that drives customer satisfaction while keeping costs at an acceptable level? Executives must take into account that channels are not created equally in their ability to serve the specific — and changing — needs of customers as they complete the tasks that lead to accomplishing their goals. To make the best channel choices, customer experience professionals must align the interface and system capabilities of channel options with the needs of customers and design cross-channel scenarios that support those needs. To get started, stakeholders should build a prioritized list of business goals, assess the usability of existing channels, research user goals and behaviors, and start developing a user-centered design process and culture.