Get CX tips: Turning omnichannel insight into innovation

Omnichannel feedback strategy can help CX professionals better trac customer sentiment across channels. Sasha Fard, director of Omnichannel at AnalyticsAssurant, will be sharing about how to use feedback to drive change and secure buy in at All Access: Digital CX. Get a preview of the session in this interview: 

CX Network: How do you define an effective omnichannel feedback strategy, and what distinguishes it from a multichannel approach?

Sasha Fard: “Omnichannel” has become somewhat of a buzzword in CX. Some organizations claim they have an omnichannel strategy when they’re doing multichannel. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – it really depends on the organization’s listening maturity and goals.

I define an effective omnichannel feedback strategy as one that goes beyond simply collecting feedback from multiple touchpoints. It integrates signals across all key moments in the journey to provide context, highlight patterns, and create a more holistic understanding of the CX. This enables companies to drive personalization and inform improvements. For example, it could mean mapping the customer journey and stitching together feedback from digital interactions - like app, web, and email – with agent and in-person touchpoints. Technology has advanced so much in the past few years that this level of integration is now achievable, allowing teams to act in near real-time with a full view of the customer.

On the other hand, a multichannel approach captures input from various sources but often does so in silos. There’s no connecting the dots to understand the journey, which makes it more difficult to identify friction or determine the next best action.

Overall, I think multichannel is a good starting point for companies new to CX management. But as programs mature, evolving into an omnichannel approach is essential for unlocking deeper insights and taking meaningful, coordinated action.

CX Network: What role does omnichannel feedback play in shaping long-term CX strategy and business outcomes?

SF: Omnichannel feedback plays a critical role because it enables organizations to see the full picture of the customer journey—across both online and offline channels. In my experience, there’s no such thing as a purely “digital” or a “non-digital” consumer. Customers often switch between them based on their needs.

An effective omnichannel strategy helps us understand how touchpoints are connected, where friction exists, and where journey’s break down. This helps teams prioritize improvements and design a good experience. More importantly, omnichannel feedback allows CX teams to better link experiences to outcomes, such as conversion, retention, or cost-to-serve. This makes it easier to build business cases for CX investments that deliver value for both the customer and the organization.

Join us for All Access: Digital CX to hear more from Fard about turning digital CX insights into innovation on April 22, 2025. Register for free now.

CX Network: How do you prioritize which feedback channels to invest in, especially when resources are limited?

SF: Resources are almost always limited, which means CX leaders need to be intentional about where to invest. In my experience, stakeholders often want to listen to everyone, everywhere - but that is sometimes not feasible or even necessary. My general rule is to prioritize the quality of insights over the quantity of listening posts.

I typically start by first understanding the organization’s channel strategy. For example, if the company is mobile-first, then it makes sense to focus on setting up listening posts for the app – whether that’s through post-interaction email surveys or in-moment digital intercepts. The key is aligning feedback channels with both customer behavior and strategic priorities.

It’s also important to regularly assess whether the channel is generating actionable and relevant insights. In the past, I’ve seen digital intercepts that provided broad, relationship-level feedback that wasn’t useful to the digital team. So, we adjusted the feedback form to focus more specifically on the interaction. If those changes hadn’t improved the quality of the feedback, we would have removed the survey entirely to avoid wasting internal resources and more importantly – our customer’s time.

CX Network: What metrics or KPIs do you rely on most when measuring the success of your feedback strategy across channels?

SF: I think it’s important to track a combination of interaction, perception and outcome metrics. This gives a balanced view to ensure we’re not just listening but also driving meaningful impact to the business.

Perception metrics generally come from surveys and show how customers feel about their experience. I typically rely on Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) or Customer Effort Score (CES) for touchpoints, and NPS when I want to measure relationship-level sentiment. Interaction metrics provide context on the experience, so depending on the channel it could include average handle time and wait time or page views on websites. And outcome metrics show the impact to business results, so this could mean churn rate, conversion rates, containment rates, operational costs and revenue.

In addition to these, it’s been helpful to measure servicing channel optimization. For example, each channel leader could have a goal to shift certain interactions - such as routine service calls - to more effective digital channels. Tracking that shift can help improve both customer experience and operational efficiency.

Lastly, it’s important to monitor the health of the feedback program itself. This includes response rates and closed-loop metrics – such as how many alerts were addressed and whether they were resolved in a timely manner. All in all, the strategy should enable action and drive outcomes instead of simply measuring customer sentiment.

CX Network: How do you balance listening at scale with making customers feel heard on a personal level?

SF: Technology has made it much easier for organizations to listen to customers at scale, but to really win in CX you need to deeply understand customers, empathize with them, and design an experience that meets their unique needs.

The key is to close the loop and to communicate that the feedback was received and acted upon. This builds trust and makes customers feel that their voice matters. For example, if a customer comment signals a “cry for help,” CX teams can prioritize a personal follow-up to address their concern directly.

Omnichannel orchestration enables this kind of personalization at scale by providing rich context around the customer journey, allowing teams to tailor responses based on the customer need. Importantly, customers are often willing to share more information if they see it leads to a better and more personalized experience.