An omnichannel experience gives customers a seamless way to interact with a business across the channels they already use. A strong omnichannel experience connects customer data, conversations, and teams so customers don’t have to repeat themselves or lose context as they move from one touchpoint to another.
The goal is continuity: Each interaction should build on the last. Service Hub can help teams manage connected customer interactions, while HubSpot Smart CRM gives customer-facing teams shared context across the customer journey.
In this post, we’ll define the omnichannel customer experience, explain how it differs from multichannel, break down the four pillars of an effective strategy, show how to build a connected customer journey, and explore 15 brands that are putting omnichannel principles into practice.
What is an omnichannel experience?
An omnichannel experience is a customer experience strategy that connects interactions across channels into one continuous journey. Customer touchpoints such as websites, mobile apps, email, social media, live chat, phone support, and in-store interactions share context rather than operating in isolation.
With connected customer data, businesses can retain conversation history, preferences, and other relevant context as customers move between channels. That continuity helps teams provide more consistent, personalized experiences without asking customers to start over at every touchpoint.
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Omnichannel vs. Multi-Channel
Imagine a customer browsing a product on a website during lunch. Later, they add it to their cart in the mobile app, ask a sizing question through live chat, receive a follow-up email, and complete the purchase in-store.
In an omnichannel experience, context follows the customer throughout that journey.
- Website: The customer browses Trail Runner X, and the product view is saved.
- Mobile app: The customer adds Trail Runner X to their cart, preserving the product and cart context.
- Live chat: The customer asks about sizing, and the conversation is added to the customer’s history.
- Email: The customer receives a sizing reminder based on the product and the conversation.
- In-store: An associate can view the relevant cart and preference information, allowing the customer to complete the purchase without starting over.
A multichannel strategy also gives customers several ways to interact with a business, such as a website, email, social media, or phone support. The difference is that those channels may operate independently. Customers have options, but the experience can become fragmented when each interaction sits in its own silo.
An omnichannel strategy connects those channels into a continuous customer journey. Touchpoints share context and data so customers can move between devices and channels without unnecessarily repeating information.
As customer experience expert Shep Hyken explains, customers who switch from one channel to another “typically have to start the conversation over.”
That’s the core distinction: Multichannel gives customers multiple places to interact; omnichannel connects those interactions. A company can have an excellent website, an active social presence, and responsive support. Still, those channels do not create an omnichannel experience unless the relevant context travels with the customer.
Omnichannel Benefits
An omnichannel approach helps businesses create more connected, consistent, and efficient customer experiences across the channels their customers actually use.
Greater Reach
An omnichannel strategy can make it easier for customers to discover, contact, and buy from a business through the channels they prefer. The objective, however, is not to appear on every possible platform. Businesses should prioritize channels that address real customer needs and connect those touchpoints to ensure the experience remains coherent.
Pro tip: More channels aren’t automatically better. Start with the places customers already use, then add channels when they remove friction or improve an important part of the customer journey.
Seamless Customer Experience
Omnichannel allows customers to move from one channel to another without unnecessarily losing context or repeating information. Someone might begin on social media, continue the conversation via chat, and follow up by phone, while the business retains the relevant history of each interaction.
That continuity is what distinguishes an omnichannel customer experience from simply offering several independent contact options.
Boosted Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty
Omnichannel experiences can make it easier for customers to get help, make purchases, and continue previous interactions through their preferred channels. Reducing unnecessary repetition and disconnected handoffs can help improve the customer experience throughout the customer relationship.
Faster Issue Resolution
An omnichannel service strategy can help teams resolve issues more efficiently by providing context from previous interactions. HubSpot’s State of Service research found that 71% of CRM leaders believed the modern customer service experience takes too much time.
Connected service tools can help teams:
- Meet customers on their preferred channels.
- Preserve relevant context when a conversation changes channels.
- Resolve common issues through automation and self-service.
- Route conversations to the right team without forcing customers to restart the interaction.
Pro tip: Businesses can pair AI-powered chatbots, knowledge bases, customer portals, and human support so customers can start with self-service and escalate when they need more help. Service Hub brings omnichannel service capabilities together around shared customer context.
Increased Profits
Omnichannel experiences can support revenue by reducing friction between discovery, purchase, payment, and repeat business. The important distinction is that the buying channels remain connected rather than operating as separate multichannel storefronts.
Pro tip: Revenue Hub can connect quotes, invoices, subscriptions, payment links, and payment processing with customer and deal data, extending a connected experience through the purchase and billing stages.
The 4 Pillars of an omnichannel Experience
The four pillars of an omnichannel experience are marketing, sales, service, and data & integration. Marketing, sales, and service manage different stages of the customer relationship, while data and integration allow all three functions to share context rather than operating in isolation.
1. Marketing
Omnichannel marketing connects messaging, campaigns, and customer data across channels to create a consistent customer journey. Whether someone discovers a business through search, social media, email, paid advertising, or its website, each touchpoint should feel like part of the same experience.
An omnichannel strategy goes beyond running campaigns on multiple platforms. By connecting campaigns and customer data, marketers can use previous behavior and preferences to make later interactions more relevant.
2. Sales
Omnichannel sales connects prospect interactions so people can move through the buying journey without losing context. RAIN Group research found that it takes an average of eight touchpoints to generate an initial meeting or another conversion with a new prospect, making continuity particularly important throughout a longer sales journey.
With customer engagement connected to a CRM, a sales rep can see relevant marketing activity and earlier conversations before reaching out. Sales Hub can help sales teams manage those interactions around shared customer data.
3. Service
Omnichannel service integrates customer support interactions so customers receive contextual help wherever they reach out. A customer who switches from chat to email or phone should not have to explain the same problem from the beginning if the business already has that information.
Service Hub provides service teams with omnichannel support capabilities and customer context to help them coordinate conversations as support operations scale.
4. Data & Integration
Data and integration make the other three pillars work together. Without connected systems, marketing, sales, and service can each collect a separate version of the customer story.
HubSpot Smart CRM provides a shared data layer across HubSpot’s customer platform, helping teams use the same customer information across marketing, sales, and service.
How Omnichannel Works
Omnichannel works when customer-facing channels exchange the context that teams need to continue the same journey. That requires connected data, integrated tools, clear ownership, and workflows that carry information across marketing, sales, and service. A strong cross-channel strategy, therefore, starts with integration rather than simply adding more channels.
1. Shared Customer Data
A customer relationship management system provides a central record for customer information and interactions. When marketing, sales, and service tools connect to that shared record, teams can see relevant history and use it to inform the next interaction.
Pro tip: Prioritize a CRM and customer platform that can connect the tools your teams already use. HubSpot Smart CRM connects HubSpot’s marketing, sales, service, content, data, and revenue products around shared customer information.
2. Integrated Service Workflows
Ticketing software helps service teams organize and resolve customer issues, but omnichannel service depends on more than creating tickets. Conversations across different channels need to share the same customer context so agents can understand what has already happened.
Service Hub combines an omnichannel help desk with service tools that help teams coordinate support. SLA management software can also help teams prioritize requests and maintain consistent response expectations.
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How to Build an Omnichannel Marketing Campaign
Building an omnichannel marketing campaign means coordinating messaging, customer data, and next steps across the channels customers use. Start with the customer journey, then choose and connect channels based on the needs you identify.
1. Map the customer journey first.
Identify the moments when customers discover the brand, compare options, make a purchase, ask for help, and return. Customer journey mapping helps teams identify touchpoints, friction points, and handoffs rather than choosing channels in isolation.
Pro tip: Look at the experience across teams, not only within marketing. A total-experience approach can help reveal problems that arise when ownership passes from one department or channel to another.
2. Connect channels, data, and ownership.
Once teams know which touchpoints matter, connect the systems and people responsible for them. A shared inbox, for example, can bring conversations together, while Marketing Hub can connect marketing activity with customer data.
Customer feedback can reveal where those connections are breaking down. Customer feedback software can help teams turn feedback from individual touchpoints into insights about the broader omnichannel customer experience.
3. Keep the message consistent but adapt the execution.
Customers should recognize the same campaign across channels, but teams do not have to publish identical creative everywhere. A social video, an email, and a landing page can use different formats while maintaining the same offer, positioning, and consistent brand voice.
Pro tip: Adapt content to how people use each channel, rather than copying and pasting the same asset everywhere.
4. Give customers a channel-appropriate CTA.
An effective omnichannel call-to-action (CTA) gives customers a clear next step appropriate to the channel and device they are using. A mobile social ad should lead to a mobile-friendly destination, while an email might direct the customer to schedule a meeting, view an offer, or continue an earlier action.
Content Hub and other marketing tools can help teams build and test digital conversion experiences. Where appropriate, use A/B testing to test the experience customers actually receive on a given channel.
5. Add new channels only when they solve a customer need.
A mobile app can be valuable when it offers customers functionality or convenience they cannot easily find elsewhere. An app might simplify account access, store preferences, send relevant notifications, or support a task customers perform frequently.
The same test applies to any new channel: Add it because it improves the customer journey, not simply because another channel is available.
How is AI used in omnichannel customer experience?
AI strengthens omnichannel customer experiences by enabling businesses to deliver faster, more personalized, and more connected interactions across channels.
HubSpot’s 2024 State of Service research found that 77% of CRM leaders were using AI, and 92% said AI had improved their customer service response times. The findings illustrate why AI has become part of the service technology stack. Still, the value of AI in an omnichannel strategy depends on connecting those tools to customer context rather than deploying them as another isolated channel.
1. Self-Service Models
AI-powered self-service models help customers find information and resolve common issues without waiting for a human agent. Many businesses can’t offer 24/7 agent support or keep up with a surge in support requests. Instead, customers run into the dreaded queue as they wait for help.
Self-service can help close the gap between the support customers need and what human agents can provide. In HubSpot’s State of Service research, 78% of service leaders said their customers weren’t afraid to handle problem resolution themselves.
AI chatbots are one way to support that behavior by answering routine questions, surfacing information, and helping customers complete basic tasks. Other examples include AI assistants and tools such as Agent Hub and Shopify Sidekick.
When a chatbot or other service model links customer interactions to that customer’s CRM data, it enables omnichannel engagement.
HubSpot’s customer portal provides another connected path to support, helping customers find information and manage their service experience without disrupting the continuity of the broader omnichannel journey.
2. Personalization
AI-powered personalization uses customer data and behavior to tailor recommendations, content, and service interactions across channels.
HubSpot’s State of Service research found that 78% of customers expected more personalized interactions than before. AI can help teams respond to that expectation by finding patterns in customer history, identifying intent or sentiment, and using those signals to tailor the next interaction.
For example, a service system might detect negative sentiment and prioritize a human handoff instead of forcing a frustrated customer to continue through an automated flow. Learn more about omnichannel personalization.
3. Analytics
AI-powered analytics can combine customer data from multiple channels to reveal patterns that isolated channel reporting may miss.
A team looking only at individual conversations could miss that the same customer contacted the business through social media, live chat, and email about the same recurring problem. Connecting those interactions gives teams a more complete view of the customer journey.
Service analytics can help teams measure performance, customer satisfaction, support volume, and customer-journey activity, enabling them to identify gaps and improve the omnichannel experience.
Featured reading: Learn more about how to create an intelligent customer experience.
15 Omnichannel Experience Examples
These 15 companies show how omnichannel strategies can connect digital, physical, marketing, service, and product experiences. The specific channels differ, but the principle is the same: Each touchpoint contributes to a continuous customer journey.
1. Disney
I think Disney gets the omnichannel experience right, down to the smallest details.
The My Disney Experience app connects planning and in-park activities, including reservations, park maps, real-time wait times, and Lightning Lane passes. Disney MagicMobile and MagicBand+ extend that connected experience to functions such as park entry, PhotoPass, eligible purchases, and resort access.
When I entered my Disney resort room, the smart TV welcomed my family by name. That kind of personalization is especially effective when it builds on the same guest profile customers use throughout their trip.
What I like: Disney connects digital planning, mobile tools, resort experiences, and in-park touchpoints into a single trip.
2. Virgin Atlantic
When passengers book a Virgin Atlantic flight, the airline has multiple opportunities to maintain continuity between booking, trip management, notifications, check-in, and customer support.
Virgin Atlantic has also documented work to consolidate five legacy CRMs into a single system, illustrating the less-visible data integration required to make customer-facing channels work together.
What I like: Virgin Atlantic demonstrates that a connected travel experience depends on linking customer-facing communications with the data behind them.
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3. Bank of America
Bank of America connects online and mobile banking experiences. Its mobile app supports transfers, bill pay, mobile check deposit, alerts, digital-wallet functions, and access to Erica, its virtual financial assistant.
Customers can also choose whether certain alerts arrive by mobile notification, SMS, or email, giving them multiple channels without separating those notifications from the underlying account.
What I like: Bank of America uses shared account context to connect digital banking tasks, alerts, and assisted service.
4. Oasis
Oasis now connects its website and mobile app around the same shopping account. Customers can browse and shop in the app, track orders, manage their accounts, and save favorites that sync between the website and app. Customers can also opt into push notifications for order and promotional updates.
What I like: Oasis’s current experience shows that omnichannel does not have to depend on flashy in-store hardware; even synchronized preferences, orders, and account data can reduce friction across digital touchpoints.
5. REI
REI connects online research with its physical stores. Its shopping app lets customers browse products, check in-store availability, save items, and choose delivery options, including same-day store pickup when available.
“When we are doing research, we think about the experience that our customer might have — not just in-store, but also online,” shared Jennifer Dennie-Lu, customer research lead at REI. She continued, “We’ve done a lot of work with customer journeys to understand all of the touchpoints a customer must go through for an initiative.”
REI’s Re/Supply program provides another example of a journey that spans digital discovery and physical inventory.
What I like: REI focuses on the complete customer journey instead of treating ecommerce and stores as separate experiences.
6. Starbucks
Starbucks connects its loyalty experience across its digital and physical channels. Customers can use the Starbucks app to manage Rewards activity, pay, order ahead, and interact with participating stores.
Because the app connects the customer account with ordering and the in-store purchase experience, it does more than simply give Starbucks another mobile channel.
What I like: Starbucks makes its mobile experience useful at the moment customers transition from digital ordering to a physical store.
7. Chipotle
Have you ever ordered food online only to arrive and discover the order still isn’t ready? I hate when that happens.
Chipotle connects its website, app, rewards program, pickup, delivery, and restaurant experiences so customers can place an order digitally and complete the journey through the fulfillment option they choose.
Customers with accounts can also save information that makes later orders faster.
What I like: Chipotle connects digital ordering to the physical fulfillment experience rather than treating the website or app as an isolated channel.
8. Timberland
Timberland currently connects online shopping with stores through buy-online-pick-up-in-store, curbside pickup, and reserve-online-buy-in-store options. Customers can select an eligible store online and receive an email when an order or reservation is ready.
What I like: Timberland connects product discovery, inventory, notifications, and in-store fulfillment into a single purchase journey.
9. Orvis
Orvis connects ecommerce and its stores with a reserve-online-pick-up-in-store process. Customers can choose an eligible product online, select a store, submit their contact information, and receive an email when the item is ready.
What I like: Orvis uses digital inventory and notifications to make the transition from online product research to a store visit more predictable.
10. Sephora
Sephora gives customers several connected fulfillment options, including buy online and pick up in store, curbside pickup at eligible locations, Fast Delivery, and other delivery choices. Customers receive notifications when pickup orders are ready and can use the order information to complete the in-store handoff.
What I like: Sephora lets customers choose how a digital purchase is handed off to a physical store without forcing them into a separate purchase process.
11. Amazon
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once declared, “If there’s one thing Amazon.com is about, it’s obsessive attention to the customer experience, end-to-end.”
That end-to-end philosophy is visible in the connection between Amazon and Whole Foods Market. Customers can sign in to the Whole Foods Market app with an Amazon account, use Prime benefits in stores, place pickup or delivery orders, and access many of the same features through the Amazon Shopping app.
What I like: The Amazon account can carry useful customer context into digital shopping, delivery, pickup, and physical Whole Foods Market experiences.
12. Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble connects its stores and mobile experience through the B&N App. Customers can browse books, access their membership card, and order or reserve products for in-store pickup in the app.
What I like: Barnes & Noble uses its app to connect membership, product discovery, and physical-store fulfillment rather than treating its stores and digital channels as competing experiences.
13. Google Chrome
Google Chrome provides an omnichannel-style product experience across devices. When users sign in to Chrome with the same Google Account, they can access saved information such as bookmarks, passwords, settings, history, and open tabs across supported devices.
What I like: Chrome shows that omnichannel principles can apply to the product itself: Users can change devices without recreating their browser context.
14. Spotify
Spotify provides web, desktop, and mobile experiences that let customers continue using the same account and music library across devices. Its Play Queue is available on mobile, desktop, and the web player, giving customers a consistent way to manage what plays next.
What I like: Spotify reduces the friction of changing devices by keeping the experience centered on the listener’s account rather than a specific screen.
15. Apple
Apple connects experiences across devices through the same Apple Account and iCloud services. For example, Messages in iCloud keeps conversation history updated across supported Apple devices signed into the same account, including when a customer sets up a new device.
That continuity illustrates a core omnichannel principle: The customer’s context persists even when the device changes.
What I like: Apple makes moving between devices feel like continuing the same experience rather than beginning a new one.
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Omnichannel Marketing Platforms
Omnichannel marketing platforms help businesses coordinate customer data, campaigns, commerce, and interactions across connected channels. The best option depends on which parts of the customer journey a team needs to connect.
1. HubSpot Smart CRM
HubSpot Smart CRM provides the shared customer data layer that underlies HubSpot’s customer platform. Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub, Data Hub, and Revenue Hub connect to Smart CRM, enabling customer-facing teams to work from the same customer context.
Key Features
- Shared customer data: Connects customer information and interactions across HubSpot’s core products.
- Cross-team context: Gives marketing, sales, and service teams visibility into the customer journey.
- Connected product ecosystem: Works with Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub, Data Hub, and Revenue Hub.
Best for: Teams that want marketing, sales, service, data, and revenue workflows connected around a common customer record.
Pricing: HubSpot offers free CRM tools, while paid functionality and pricing vary by product and edition.
What we like: Smart CRM addresses one of the hardest parts of omnichannel execution: Giving multiple customer-facing teams a shared source of context.
2. Shopify
Shopify combines ecommerce with in-person selling through Shopify POS. Its current POS offering includes online and in-store selling, customer profiles, multichannel gift cards, and omnichannel features such as buy online, pick up in store.
Key Features
- Online and in-person selling: Connects ecommerce and Shopify POS.
- Customer profiles: Carries customer information into retail workflows.
- Omnichannel fulfillment: POS Pro supports workflows such as buy online, pick up in store.
Best for: Retailers that need to connect ecommerce with physical-store selling and fulfillment.
Pricing: Basic, $39/month; Grow, $105/month; Advanced, $399/month; Plus, starting at $2,300/month on a three-year term. POS Pro costs an additional $89/month per location on Basic, Grow, and Advanced; Plus includes POS Pro for 20 locations.
What we like: Shopify’s strongest omnichannel story is operational: It connects customer, inventory, fulfillment, and purchase activity across online and physical retail.
3. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign combines marketing automation with cross-channel marketing capabilities. Teams can connect with customers via email, social, and WhatsApp. Active Campaign also supports segmentation.
Key Features
- Marketing automation: Builds multi-step workflows based on customer behavior.
- Cross-channel marketing: Coordinates campaigns across supported channels.
- Integrations: Connects with ecommerce, CRM, advertising, and other marketing tools.
Best for: Marketing teams that primarily need automated cross-channel campaigns rather than a full customer-service and commerce platform.
Pricing: For 1,000 contacts, Starter, $15/month; Plus, $49/month; Pro, $79/month; Enterprise, $145/month, billed annually. Pricing scales with contact count. ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day free trial.
What we like: ActiveCampaign gives marketing teams flexibility to layer additional channels onto automation workflows as their strategy grows.
Omnichannel Retail
Omnichannel retail connects the channels customers use to research, buy, receive, and get support for products. A retailer might connect physical stores with its digital customer experience, including an ecommerce website, mobile app, social commerce, pickup, delivery, and customer service, while maintaining relevant customer and order context across those touchpoints.
This approach is especially visible in business-to-consumer retail, but the principle also applies to business-to-business (B2B) customer journeys. A B2B company might integrate digital research, demo requests, sales conversations, quoting, payments, onboarding, and support through shared customer data.
Payment can be part of that connected experience. Payment links in Revenue Hub can be shared through destinations such as email, websites, forms, meetings, quotes, and invoices, while payment and billing information remains connected to customer data.
Regardless of business type, omnichannel is most effective when teams align their customer data, messaging, and handoffs across the journey rather than optimizing each channel in isolation. For more retail-specific ideas, explore how to improve the retail customer experience.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Omnichannel Service
Build your omnichannel experience.
An effective omnichannel strategy isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about connecting the channels that matter most to customers and making sure each interaction carries the right context forward. As Hyken says, “Omnichannel is not just about having multiple ways to communicate; it’s about ensuring those ways are connected and provide a seamless experience.”
Marketing, sales, service, customer success, and product teams need to align around the same customer journey, shared data, and goals so the experience can scale without creating new silos.
Start by identifying the biggest points of friction, connect the channels that address those gaps, and expand only when a new touchpoint improves the journey. Service Hub can help teams keep service interactions connected as they scale. The objective is fewer disconnected handoffs, more useful shared context, and an omnichannel experience that improves as customer needs evolve.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
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