Subscription services have surged in popularity in the past few years, with subscribers ordering everything from clothing and cat food to movies through subscriptions. For example, more than

19 million UK households had subscribed to a video-on-demand service as of August 2022.

It’s a competitive industry, and keeping subscribers satisfied is vital to achieving long-term success. Providing well-planned, well-executed omnichannel experiences will help, but how do you do that? And why do subscribers care so much about omnichannel anyway?

This post will explore why subscribers prefer omnichannel experiences and how to create your own.

What are omnichannel experiences, and why do subscribers want them?

Businesses that deliver omnichannel experiences interact with subscribers across multiple channels, including web, mobile, in-person, and social media. The aim is to provide a consistent subscriber experience across marketing, sales, and subscriber support.

No matter how subscribers contact your business, their experience should be the same from channel to channel. And it should always be of the highest quality to keep them happy.

Why do subscribers want omnichannel experiences? Here are three of the most important reasons:

• Omnichannel experiences maximises convenience. They can easily interact with companies across their preferred channels, whether social media, phone, live chat, or face-to-face.
  
• Subscribers want a seamless experience. Subscribers want to see consistent messaging and branding across your website, social media, and app. And they’re looking for easy ways to continue interactions across channels. For example, if a subscriber submits a customer support request online, it should be easy to access and respond to that thread when using your mobile app and vice versa.
  
• They want fast responses, which is more likely with omnichannel experiences. More than 25% of subscribers are more inclined to buy from companies that respond sooner than expected.
  

Now that we better understand omnichannel experiences, we can move onto the next step — how to set yourself up for omnichannel success.

How to create omnichannel subscriptions

Here are five key steps to follow when creating your own omnichannel subscriptions.

Know your subscribers

Do you know who your ideal subscriber is?

If not, figuring this out it is crucial to delivering omnichannel experiences. You will find it easier to plan and put it into practice when you have the answer.

Here are a few good questions to ask about your subscribers:

• Who are they?
• What do they care about?
• What channels do they prefer to use?
• How do they likely want to interact with your business?
• How much do they tend to spend on subscriptions?

Aim to be as specific as possible about your ideal subscriber and research their typical shopping habits and buying tastes. Perhaps they love click-and-collect services because they have a busy lifestyle and limited time to visit stores in person. They may spend lots on subscription services and always choose the most expensive tier.

When you have a clear idea of your ideal subscriber, you can start tailoring your omnichannel experiences to them.

Pick the right channels

Choose your channels carefully based on what you know about your ideal subscriber. Go where you know they are and pick channels your subscribers are most likely to use.

They may contact subscriber support through Facebook or Twitter only and ignore any attempt to interact by phone or email. Regardless of their preferences, any good omnichannel strategy must incorporate a variety of options.

These may include your business website, email, in-store service, live chat, and even a mobile app. Just be realistic about the time and resources you have available. For example, if a mobile app won’t appeal to your ideal subscriber, you don’t want to spend precious time and money building one. Tighten your focus on other, more viable channels instead.

Map your subscriber journey

Identify which channels your subscribers will encounter during their subscriber journey and determine how they are likely to overlap. Create a visual outline of your subscribers' process, from their first encounter with your business onwards.

To avoid oversights, incorporate touchpoints that bring in fewer subscribers. Don’t forget to consider the different demographics across your audience when mapping your subscriber journey. Gen Zers may be more likely to encounter your business on TikTok, for example, and navigate to a dedicated landing page directly from a video. Millennials, though, might find you on Instagram first instead.

Mapping your subscriber journey will also help you identify pain points that might put subscribers off before they complete a transaction, such as clunky registration forms or slow page load times.

Gather and leverage data

Collecting data from your existing and potential subscribers will give you the right insights for building omnichannel experiences. Analysing their responses will eliminate the need for assumptions and empower you to make valuable, data-driven decisions instead.

Invite subscribers to provide feedback about your products, services, and overall quality. Look for patterns in their responses to identify improvement opportunities and assign them priorities. If most subscribers complain more about your response times than anything else, focus on boosting your support team’s efficiency across all channels.

Collect data regularly to keep monitoring subscriber satisfaction and honing your omnichannel experiences.

Provide reliable subscriber support

Good subscriber support matters throughout a subscriber’s entire journey, not just in the pre-purchase stage. You should aim to consistently provide high-quality support to all subscribers, whether they are looking for information before they subscribe or they have been subscribed for years.

A key part of reliable subscriber support when creating omnichannel experiences is personalisation. Support agents should have access to data from subscriber interactions across all channels, covering their contact preferences, past discussions, and other key details.

Agents should only contact subscribers through their preferred methods and use helpful information from previous interactions to make the subscriber feel valued. That will also save time and prevent the subscriber from repeating themselves.

Learn more about successful subscriber experiences

Creating the right omnichannel experiences for your subscribers will take time, in-depth research, and monitoring. But it will pay off when you understand what your subscribers want and how you can give it to them. omnichannel

Learn more about providing great subscription services, making your subscription business the best it can be, and more on Limio’s comprehensive blog.

And get in touch with Limio for help creating great omnichannel subscriptions online, in the contact centre and beyond.