Customer experience has become the yardstick for measuring success across industries. In the digital age, customers want and expect the brand to be reachable and present at all times, in a consistent, personalized and engaging manner. In an era where most businesses provide omnichannel retail experiences, here is how you can stand out from the crowd.

1. Your Offline Presence Should Reflect Your Online PresenceBranding should always remain consistent. Your website should be able to seamlessly adapt from your offline to online presence. Ensure that your customer reps have means familiarized themselves with the purchasing history and digital behaviour of consumers to provide a better in store experience.
2. Train And Empower Customer Service RepresentativesCustomer Service representatives should be empowered with the right resources to provide an incredible experience, helping them find answers for not just the usual situations but also unusual circumstances. For instance, it should not be easier to Tweet a company than call in for an in-person answer. It is important that your offline and online representatives provide a consistent experience and one way that can be done is through good training. More often than not, different ways of reaching a business can yield varying results and answers.  Customer reps should be have systems that allow them to find the answers as easily and seamlessly, no matter the medium.  Rely on technological solutions when needed. Montreal based company NewKnow provides frequent training for sales reps on all devices with push notifications and engaging training modules.
3. Customers Appreciate Clear CommunicationLive chat has become ubiquitous. With platforms like Drift, even pop-up retailers are offering live chat services. Try to limit the wait time, t  a partner like Drift also allows you to state how long they should expect to wait. Be sure to ave a clear FAQ section readily available on your website as well.
4. Make Your Online Experience As Easy As Possible In an age where all the brands have an app, provide an easy-to-navigate tool that provide on-the-go ordering access. The Starbucks app is a great example of that. Sometimes simple is better.
5. Test Your Own Customer Experience Get your employees to test out your omnichannel customer experience and see how it performs. The golden rule after all, is to provide your customers with the experiences that you want for yourself. One way to test this is to make it a part of your hiring process. Ask candidates or new employees to create online profiles and test the experience in-store.

The goal is to provide incredible experiences for your customers to build lasting relationships - a critical consideration when developing your omnichannel strategy.