From the start of our discussions, it seemed quite evident that seamless cross channel is a major struggle for many of our Retail Hive members. The main issue is that too many factors, such as working silos and internal structures are preventing or blocking them from achieving a seamless customer journey.

What quickly became clear was that those retailers who have put the customer first and developed a focused customer experience are those closer to realising their ambition.

Our top 10 takeaways about Seamless Cross Channel Customer Journeys are shown below:

1. A focus on building consistent experiences across all devices is fraught with challenges; you must have a cross device strategy and identify broken customer journeys.
2. If a project is going to take more than 6 months don’t do it as it will be obsolete and we don’t yet know what experience customers in the future will demand!
3. Channel agnostic view first.
4. Adopt a fully agile approach with a fast turnaround – keep in the right direction.
5. Embrace change quickly – be fast, be bold and be best. Don’t be afraid to start again.
6. Find quick wins – Speedy implementation and development is key.
7. Culture change is key to making cross-channel seamless.
8. The organisation needs to accept and be ready for change. Cross-party collaboration to break down silos and get stakeholder engagement across the business.
9. Business units (i.e. IT and Finance) all need to remember that in retail, the customer strategy should be first to be profitable as Customer lifetime value is the ultimate objective.
10. Investigate click and collect – use NPS.