CX Network’s key insights:
- True omnichannel strategies increase engagement by connecting channels into seamless journeys that improve retention and lifetime value.
- A unified customer view enables meaningful personalization across the entire lifecycle, making interactions feel relevant rather than fragmented.
- Real-time insight allows organizations to respond to customer intent in the moment, driving higher engagement and revenue.
- Frictionless, coherent experiences across channels reduce effort and strengthen long term customer loyalty.
For years, organizations have claimed to be “omnichannel.” In practice, many still operate as a collection of loosely connected touchpoints, leaving customers to bridge the gaps themselves. As customer expectations rise, that disconnect is becoming increasingly costly.
Research consistently shows that customers who experience seamless, relevant interactions across channels are more engaged, more loyal and more valuable over time. Brands with mature omnichannel strategies significantly outperform those that remain channel-centric in both retention and lifetime value. The difference lies not in how many channels are offered, but in how well those channels work together.
Below are the omnichannel strategies that have been proven to increase engagement – not in theory, but in execution!
1. Anchor omnichannel strategy in a unified customer view
A recurring finding across CX Network research is that data fragmentation remains one of the biggest barriers to effective omnichannel engagement. When customer information is split across marketing, service and sales platforms, interactions inevitably feel disjointed.
Organizations that invest in unifying customer data are better equipped to recognize customers across channels, anticipate needs and avoid repetitive or contradictory interactions. From an engagement perspective, the impact is subtle but powerful: customers feel known, not managed.
For example, Adobe's customer journey analytics research highlights how organizations with unified analytics are better positioned to identify cross-channel customer intent and optimize experiences in real time.
2. Deliver personalization that extends beyond marketing
Personalization is often treated as a marketing lever, but its real impact on engagement comes when it spans the entire customer lifecycle. Studies consistently show that customers are more likely to engage with brands that tailor interactions based on preferences, behaviors, and prior history, while lack of personalization actively drives disengagement.
Consider the example of Gozney, a global outdoor cooking brand. By moving beyond basic email flows and using advanced segmentation to tailor messaging across markets and channels, Gozney saw a 32 percent increased in SMS average order value and a 29 percent year-over-year revenue lift directly attributable to those personalized flows.
Similarly, Balique skincare connected quiz-generated customer preferences into automated journeys across email and WhatsApp, yielding a 16 percent conversion rate on abandoned check out flows and establishing a more engaging dialogue with customers who would otherwise receive generic messaging.
3. Drive engagement with real time insight
Organizations that detect and respond to customer intent in the moment are better positioned to guide journeys toward engagement, not just measure them after the fact.
For example, Nike Hong Kong utilized artificial intelligence (AI)-driven segmentation to identify whether customers were more likely to purchase online or in store, shaping communications accordingly. This AI-assisted omnichannel orchestration resulted in:
- A 110 percent revenue increase from automated campaigns.
- A 32.5 percent rise in website visits from audience segments informed by real time behavior.
These results illustrate that real time orchestration does more than personalize messaging - it transforms engagement signals into revenue drivers. Research supports this shift toward real-time engagement, finding that 62 percent of consumers expect brands to anticipate their needs and respond in context immediately. Responding to signals like browsing activity, cart status, more support triggers - all in real time - enables experiences that feel intuitive rather than reactive.
4. Treat support channels as engagement channels
Too many organizations silo marketing and support, but support interactions are often high emotion moments that define long-term engagement. When support experiences are personalized and context aware, they shift from being transactional to relational.
For healthcare and service organizations integrating modern contact center as a service (CCaaS) platforms has reduced average response times and patient satisfaction, according to a study by Concentrix.
For example, through CCaaS implementation, a leading healthcare payer reduced its operating spend by 12 percent, as well as a 54 percent improvement in average speed of answer for specialized teams.
The adoption of modern contact center as a service (CCaas) platforms addresses this gap by:
- Unifying context across support and engagement channels.
- Providing agents with a holistic view of the customer journey.
- Powering proactive and predictive service based on past interactions.
5. Align channel expression without losing brand coherence
Customers expect omnichannel experiences to be contextual, not identical this means tailoring tone, timing and context to the norms of each channel while preserving the brand's core identity.
Iconic omnichannel examples such as Starbucks - where customers can order ahead via app, earn and redeem rewards, and locate stores in a single integrated journey - show how familiar, consistent experiences deepen habitual engagement. Similarly, Sephora's Beauty Insider Program blends digital data with install perks so that customer preferences carry across every interaction, augmenting engagement through relevance and reward.
These brands demonstrate that consistency isn't about uniformity; it's about coherence - preserving the bronze voice and value while adapting to the context of each channel.
6. Eliminate friction between channels
Customers rarely think in channels - they think in progress toward outcomes. When organizations treat channels as islands, they introduce friction at the very moments engagement should deepen.
A German retailer, CHRIST, connected its web, e-mail and mobile wallet communications to underpin loyalty and engagement. The introduction of a mobile wallet pass that customers could use both in e-mail and in store led to a 40 percent increase in commerce traffic over a key season and a 40 percent jump in CRM-driven revenue. Such results show that making transitions between channels feel natural, even invisible, lifts customer engagement by removing effort.
Eliminating friction between channels is also crucial for allowing customers to self-serve. A staggering 73 percent of companies have invested in omnichannels to support self-service, according to CX Network, reflecting how critical integrated self-service journeys have become for engagement and containment.