In today’s dynamic business landscape, customer-centricity is vital for success. Meeting customers exactly where they are in their unique buyer journeys is key. In fact, personalizing customer journeys can deliver a big payoff, helping businesses increase revenue by 5% to 15% across their full customer base.
We’ve gathered examples from leading brands that have redefined their customer journey strategies with Adobe Journey Optimizer. By harnessing the power of real-time insights and crafting personalized content delivered at precisely the right moment, these brands have not only increased customer engagement and lifetime value but also set a new standard for consistency across customer experiences.
In this blog, we’ll share examples of:
- Elevating fan engagement for a professional sports league
- Increasing customer conversion and loyalty during the holiday season with personalized content
- Optimizing experiences with timely offers based on customer actions
Additionally, we’ll cover:
What is an omnichannel customer journey?
An omnichannel customer journey defines the way customers interact with a business across multiple channels, touchpoints, and devices. The aim is to provide them with a unified, consistent, and seamless experience across all platforms and devices.
The most effective omnichannel customer journey provides more than multiple channels for interaction — it offers a unified experience, with each channel complementing the others and maintaining cohesion.
Channels you can use in an omnichannel customer journey.
To optimize your omnichannel customer journey, it’s recommended that you incorporate a variety of channels so they work together to create a seamless and consistent experience. Each channel should play a role in meeting customers where they are in their journey and guiding them toward conversion with your brand. Common channels include:
- Website: Often the central hub of digital engagement, your website should be user-friendly, responsive, and aligned with other touchpoints in functionality, tone, and key messaging.
- Mobile app: A dedicated app enables personalized experiences and provides convenient access to services or products on the go. Features like push notifications can help boost engagement.
- Email: An effective channel for personalized communication, email lets you nurture leads and keep customers informed with tailored content.
- Social media: Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X are ideal for fostering real-time engagement, providing customer support, and sharing brand stories.
- In-store or physical locations: For brands with a retail presence, it's important to connect the in-store experience with digital platforms — for example, by offering click-and-collect services.
- Live chat and chatbots: These tools provide efficient, instant support and guidance, helping improve customer satisfaction and reducing the likeliness of issues affecting conversion.
Three omnichannel customer journey examples.
Nowadays, customers expect seamless experiences across every channel. Omnichannel strategies are no longer optional — they're essential for building loyalty and driving growth.
Below, we’ll explore three real-world examples of omnichannel customer journeys that illustrate how brands can create cohesive, personalized experiences across various platforms and channels.
1. Welcome home journey for engaging professional sports fans.
The welcome home journey is meant for sports fans who are traveling back home to attend their favorite team’s game. The goal of the professional sports league is to ensure fans have a great experience before, during, and after the game, maintaining customer loyalty while also capturing upsell opportunities. For this journey, segment qualification occurs when a sports fan flies back home from out of town and crosses into a geolocation fence within their sports team’s area limits. This event sends the customer into one of two customer journey flows.
The first journey flow sends the fan a newsletter about the upcoming game. When the fan passes by the team store, they enter another geofence, which triggers a real-time mobile push with a merchandise offer. This perfectly timed message encourages the sports fan to purchase their team’s jersey before the upcoming game.
The second journey is designed for the sports fan who is still in the consideration stage of going to the game. This fan enters a journey flow on one of two paths depending on whether they have purchased a ticket or have yet to do so. If the customer has purchased a ticket, the condition triggers the fan on the first path with a message about game details as well as an upsell opportunity to purchase a premium seat. The second path sends a reminder message that there is still time to buy a ticket to attend the game. If no action is taken by the fan, the ticket purchase journey waits a day before sending a game reminder notification to encourage conversion.
2. Personalized holiday shopping offer journey.
Holidays are prime time for brands to highlight unique products with exclusive offers. In this omnichannel customer journey example, a grocery chain capitalizes on the timing of customers looking to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving. The grocery chain prepares for the busy holiday season by automating and personalizing offers to its large customer base. To do this, the grocery chain crafts a journey that sends a personalized email with special pricing to qualify customers who have made product purchases in the last year. This allows the grocery chain to meet its goals for increasing conversions and driving higher sales for the holiday season.
3. Win-back journey for a fast-casual restaurant chain based on customer actions.
The win-back journey gives brands the opportunity to engage with customers when they have taken certain actions, such as after a purchase, or to encourage customers with timely offers. In this journey example, a fast-casual chain creates an audience of customers who have opted-in to receive messages. Customers are qualified based on whether they have placed an order. If the customer has placed an order, it triggers a real-time in-app or SMS message to pick up their beverage from their nearest location. If the customer has not placed an order, an in-app or SMS message is personalized according to local weather. For example, if the day’s forecast shows chilly weather, the customer will receive an offer for a hot beverage, while if the weather is hot, they’ll receive a cold beverage offer. With this journey, customers are given the optimal experience — receiving either a real-time message for picking up their ordered beverage while it is still hot or a timely personalized offer to prompt a beverage purchase — so that the fast-casual chain increases its conversion rate.
Align journey use cases to your business objectives.
Take a moment to digest these three journey use cases, then consider the possibilities for how your brand can leverage customer data to deliver personalized content at the right time and shape impactful customer journeys. With the right tool, initiating customer journeys can be an exciting opportunity to create customer-centric experiences.
Learn how Adobe Journey Optimizer can help manage your cross-channel campaigns and one-to-one engagement with millions of customers within one application.
Further recommended reading:
Ariel Sultan is a product marketing manager for Adobe Journey Optimizer. She combines her MBA from NYU Stern School of Business specializing in marketing and sustainable business innovation with an entrepreneurial background from founding a video production and content marketing company. Her multifaceted expertise, shaped by roles with an outdoor apparel brand and in advertising, showcases her capability in branded content for globally recognized customers in the retail, travel, and consumer goods industries. At Adobe, Ariel applies her experience to enhance product value and customer storytelling.
FAQs
What are the 4 C's of omnichannel?
To create a truly effective omnichannel strategy, businesses should aim to be present across different platforms and ensure every touchpoint is integrated, intuitive, and customer-centric. This is where the 4 C’s of omnichannel come into play: consistency, convenience, communication, and customer-centricity. Let’s take a closer look at these pillars:
- Consistency
Customers expect a unified experience no matter where or how they interact with your brand. That means consistent branding, messaging, service quality, and tone across all channels — digital or physical. - Convenience
Businesses should respect customers’ time and preferences. An omnichannel journey should reduce effort and simplify interactions. This includes flexible purchase options, easy navigation, minimal wait times, and the ability to switch channels without starting over. - Communication
Clear, personalized, and timely communication is essential for a successful omnichannel experience. Customers want engagement on their preferred platforms — and expect every message, whether promotional, transactional, or service-related — to add value and support their journey. - Customer-centricity
Every decision in an omnichannel strategy should be based on customer needs. This involves using data to understand behaviors, personalize experiences, and design journeys that prioritize value for the customer — not just the brand.
Omnichannel vs. multichannel customer experience
Although often used interchangeably, omnichannel and multichannel represent two distinct approaches to customer experience.
A multichannel strategy uses various channels — like websites, social media, physical stores, and email — to engage customers. However, these channels typically operate in isolation. For example, a shopper might add items to their Macy’s online cart, but when they visit a store, the sales associate can't access that cart or apply the same promo code. Their online and in-store experiences are disconnected.
In contrast, an omnichannel strategy connects all channels into a unified system. Customer data, interactions, and preferences are shared across platforms to enable seamless, personalized experiences. For instance, Starbucks lets customers order and pay through the app, then pick up in-store or at the drive-thru — while syncing rewards and preferences across every touchpoint.
To visualize the difference, tools like user flow diagrams can help. A multichannel flow shows separate, siloed paths. An omnichannel flow reveals an integrated journey, where touchpoints overlap to create a more cohesive, intuitive customer experience.
What is the omnichannel customer approach?
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