.png)
• Omnichannel customer engagement creates consistent experiences across digital touchpoints by integrating in-app notifications, mobile alerts, and email based on actual user behavior.
• SaaS companies with omnichannel strategies gain unified customer views, helping teams identify opportunities and address potential issues early.
• Usage-based personalization creates an authentic connection across channels, boosting satisfaction and retention for subscription businesses.
• Leading companies like Spotify, Slack, and Semrush demonstrate effective approaches by creating device-spanning experiences and delivering insights through customers' preferred channels.
• Implementation requires auditing customer journeys, segmenting users, selecting appropriate channels, automating processes, and continuously optimizing based on feedback.
Ever feel like your website, email, and in-app messages sometimes feel like they're coming from different companies?
For many SaaS companies, that disconnect is real. As in REAL-ly hurting their metrics.
When customers encounter fragmented experiences among your touchpoints, they lose confidence in your platform. And dissatisfaction leads to less session time, lower feature usage, and eventually, churn.
So, why not learn how omnichannel engagement connects these interactions and builds relationships that drive sustainable growth?
By unifying your data and creating consistent product experiences for your customers, you'll deliver value that's genuinely hard to replicate.
Omnichannel customer engagement delivers consistent, personalized experiences across all digital touchpoints in a customer's journey.
For SaaS companies, this means coordinating channel messaging across in-app notifications, mobile app alerts, and email based on observed user behavior.
Omnichannel customer engagement differs from multichannel engagement, which maintains separate strategies (and often separate tools) for each channel. Omnichannel integrates these channels to provide consistent messaging and continuous conversations regardless of where interactions occur.
With this approach, omnichannel customer engagement focuses less on the individual channel and more on the customer’s needs.
B2B SaaS companies benefit from this approach because their customers don’t want friction in their buying process or product use. With subscription-based SaaS business models, each interaction affects whether customers stay or look for a smoother experience.
According to Salesforce's State of the Connected Customer (6th ed.), "65% of customers expect companies to adapt to their changing needs/preferences." This becomes even more important considering that "business buyers engage with companies across 10 channels, while consumers typically use eight."
SaaS companies that use omnichannel customer engagement gain real advantages over competitors using disconnected approaches. Let’s explore what makes investing in omnichannel worthwhile.
When product usage and engagement metrics exist in separate systems, your organization can’t see the complete picture of a user’s behavior. And that lack of visibility can lead to missed opportunities.
Omnichannel customer engagement platforms solve this by connecting these data points in unified customer views. Now, product teams can track which features drive engagement across different user segments. Marketing can identify precisely which messages convert for specific customer types. And customer success teams can spot early warning signs of dissatisfaction before they escalate.
This holistic visibility helps organizations make data-backed decisions across a customer’s lifecycle.
Today’s SaaS users expect experiences tailored to their specific needs. Omnichannel customer engagement delivers this by adapting communication based on actual usage patterns rather than best guesses.
For example, when a user regularly works with certain features, an integrated system might provide advanced tutorials for those capabilities, highlight related functionality, or customize support resources.
This personalized “We Get You” messaging across a user’s preferred channels gives that user a sense of being understood. This customization enhances the customer experience, which in turn, often improves customer satisfaction.
When SaaS users receive consistent experiences across email, in-app notifications, and support channels, they’ll be regularly reminded of the value the product brings to their workflow and business objectives.
This matters because subscription businesses live or die by retention. The smooth movement between communication channels keeps users engaged during their entire lifecycle, from onboarding to renewal decisions.
Consider what happens when customers receive help content that matches their usage patterns. Or when they get proactive support before encountering problems.
These coordinated, customized experiences optimize chances for increased customer retention.
Think of additional marketing potential with these long-time customers who have enjoyed their experience with the tool and the company. Perhaps a video testimonial, webinar guest spot, or a G2 review?
Interconnected channels in omnichannel customer engagement work together to nurture long-term relationships beyond retention. By analyzing behavior across touchpoints, SaaS companies can spot ideal moments for suggesting upgrades or additional products.
For example, when data indicates a customer is approaching the limits of their current plan, you can send timely upgrade suggestions across several channels. Because the customer has heard from you consistently throughout their subscription cycle, these notices will seem more helpful than pushy or salesly, and will optimize chances for expansion.
Over time, SaaS products in the same space end up having pretty much the same features – a phenomenon known as feature parity. When products become similar, customer experience becomes a deciding factor in which solutions win and retain business.
Omnichannel customer engagement provides a cohesive, personalized experience by connecting educational resources, in-app guidance, and marketing messages on the channels customers use most.
Implementing connected customer engagement requires upfront investment in technology and process alignment but offers a powerful, sustainable advantage for SaaS businesses focused on long-term growth rather than just acquisition numbers.
Building an effective omnichannel customer engagement strategy for SaaS requires systematic planning and implementation. Here's a 5-step plan to build an omnichannel strategy that delivers results.
Map customer interactions to find where engagement succeeds or fails. This reveals the gap between customer expectations and reality.
Identify friction points causing drop-offs. These represent your best improvement opportunities via omnichannel customer engagement.
Pay attention to interactions during critical moments:
Use this audit as a blueprint to build communications that transform casual users into loyal customers.
Product managers, CS managers, and Lifecycle marketing managers all use your platform differently. So, define distinct user personas based on roles and their respective needs.
Analyze product usage data to understand behavioral patterns for each segment, then create tailored journey maps showing how each persona naturally progresses through your platform.
Connect your CRM, analytics, and support tools to your omnichannel customer engagement tool to optimize your channel and messaging mix for each persona. Seeing this data on one platform will make it easier to tailor your messaging to whichever platform (or platforms) makes sense.
Speaking of messaging across platforms, be sure to keep a consistent voice and branding, regardless of channel. If you need a refresher on your organization’s style and messaging guidelines, take the time to review them before you begin crafting your communications.
Now, you’re better prepared to map channels along each persona's journey. For instance:
Create automated workflows for common scenarios—onboarding sequences, renewal reminders, and feature announcements— while maintaining the consistent, personal touch that builds customer relationships.
Even if you’re an AI skeptic, explore AI-powered automation to deliver and scale personalized interactions based on behavior triggers. (You’ll thank us!)
Once your workflows have gone live, optimize their potential by continuously gathering customer feedback through either NPS or CSAT surveys.
Use these insights to refine your approach, adjust channel selection, and improve messaging. Test different messaging approaches, timing, and channel combinations to determine what resonates most with each customer segment.
If any company puts the “omni” in omnichannel, it’s Spotify. They create smooth, personalized customer experiences across multiple devices.
First, it allows users to access the platform from nearly every device with internet access. Users benefit from almost the same experience across mobile apps, desktop applications, web browsers, smart speakers, wearable devices, smart TVs, and car audio systems.
Spotify uses customer engagement data across these devices to personalize content. “Discover Weekly,” “Release Radar,” and Daily Mixes are auto-generated playlists based on a user’s listening behavior. These mixes feature never-played-before songs and previously listened-to tunes to keep listeners engaged with minimum user effort.
Its annual Spotify Wrapped campaign summarizes yearly listening data from all devices into shareable content that promotes user engagement on social platforms.
The platform’s channel-appropriate messaging includes mobile push notifications for time-sensitive alerts, in-app messages for context-specific guidance, and email for detailed communications.
Slack demonstrates an effective B2B omnichannel strategy through integrated engagement:
Its coordinated onboarding combines email welcome sequences, contextual in-app tutorials, and community resources to drive adoption.
Notifications follow a logical progression. Think about when someone DMs you on Slack. You’ll get an in-app alert first, then a mobile push notification. If you don’t respond, you’ll get an email with a reminder. Clearly, Slack wants you to get back in the app and keep the conversation going.
Slack also uses onboarding questions to personalize the customer experience. Here, it asks a user if they work with people at other companies.
This information triggered these customized product tips for better collaboration.
Semrush uses effective omnichannel customer engagement with its competitive intelligence tool, EyeOn. This feature showcases how delivering consistent value across multiple channels enhances the customer experience:
The platform monitors competitors' online activities and provides insights through channels that fit into users' existing workflows. Users can:
By delivering actionable insights through channels customers already use, Semrush becomes “sticky” and an essential part of their strategic decision-making process.
Finding tools that create smooth customer experiences can be challenging. We've compiled this practical guide of user engagement tools that bridge the gap between multichannel and omnichannel engagement.
Purpose-built for B2B SaaS organizations, Appcues creates personalized, omnichannel user onboarding that adapts throughout the adoption journey.
Appcues combines in-app guidance with perfectly timed emails and mobile notifications that, on the back end, are manageable for teams without technical expertise.
Users experience contextual guidance that feels natural while using your product. When they're away, relevant communications bring them back to valuable features.
This digital adoption platform coordinates these interactions in one system, delivering more potent results than single-channel approaches could achieve on their own.
Userflow provides in-app experiences with an emphasis on quick, no-code deployment.
The platform lets users create lightweight, intuitive onboarding flows that reviewers describe as having a "slick" user experience.
Vero helps teams coordinate messaging across email, SMS, and push notifications. Although the platform doesn’t include in-app notifications, Vero offers localization features for multilingual campaigns.
Amplitude reveals insights about your customers' journey within your product.
The product analytics tool tracks behavioral groups of users organized by specific actions and usage patterns (aka cohorts). This approach helps you identify your product's "aha moment" and optimize your onboarding to guide users toward it.
Later in the customer journey, you can track metrics like retention and customer churn while mapping each user's unique path through your product.
Mixpanel focuses on product analytics with detailed tracking of in-app user behavior across web and mobile platforms.
The platform shows you who your power users are and which behaviors contribute to retention. It also highlights where customers stop using your app, allowing you to focus resources on what works and discontinue what doesn't.
E-commerce businesses rely on Klaviyo to create highly targeted customer communications.
The platform integrates with your existing e-commerce apps to power personalized emails and SMS messages.
Its granular segmentation capabilities enable relevant messaging that resonates with customers at different stages of their journey.
Marketo focuses on personalizing email communications based on user intent and CRM activity.
While it doesn't include a built-in CRM, Marketo integrates easily with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.
These integrations allow for the personalization and segmentation of emails, resulting in higher engagement rates.
Since Appcues integrates with Amplitude, Mixpanel, Marketo, and Klaviyo, you get the insights and capabilities to deliver satisfying customer experiences across every touchpoint.
Despite the potential of omnichannel customer engagement, many SaaS companies stumble when implementing these strategies. Here are the most common missteps and ways to avoid them.
Issue: Attempting to maintain a presence on every possible channel often leads to mediocre execution across the board.
Solution: Focus on channels where your customers actually engage and gain footing there before expanding.
Issue: Generic messaging across channels defeats the purpose of omnichannel.
Solution: Use customer segmentation, behavioral triggers, and automation to create dynamic content that adapts to individual customer needs and engagement patterns.
Issue: When departments operate independently, even on the same omnichannel engagement platform, the customer experience becomes fragmented.
Solution: Marketing, sales, product, and customer success must collaborate toward shared omnichannel goals with consistent messaging. Create cross-functional teams with representatives from each department to exceed customer expectations on all touchpoints.
To track omnichannel effectiveness, focus on metrics that reveal customer behavior patterns across touchpoints.
Customer retention metrics tell you if your omnichannel approach have kept users engaged over time.
Track customer retention rates across different entry channels. Does a customer who discovers you through social media stick around longer than one who finds you through paid search?
Compare customer retention rates between users who engage on multiple communication channels versus those who use just one.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measured per channel helps identify experience gaps. If your mobile app scores significantly lower than your website, you've found a problem area.
These customer satisfaction metrics show how your omnichannel customer engagement strategy creates lasting relationships.
The most valuable insights will come from seeing how satisfaction correlates with customer loyalty and retention among customers who use multiple touchpoints versus those who don't.
Product adoption metrics reveal how effectively users navigate between communication channels. Monitor how quickly users adopt key features across web, mobile, and other platforms to identify friction points in the cross-channel experience.
Average session duration should remain relatively consistent regardless of which channel initiates the customer journey. This can be calculated by dividing the total number of sessions by the total duration of sessions (in seconds).
Time to adopt will reflect the strength or weakness of your messaging. Track how many days pass between account creation and meaningful engagement with core features across each channel.
Look for usage patterns that indicate channel-switching behavior. Do users who move between platforms engage more deeply than those who stick to a single channel?
Compare feature usage frequency between multi-channel and single-channel users to determine if your omnichannel customer engagement strategy drives deeper product engagement.
Monitor expansion revenue to determine if omnichannel customer engagement correlates with higher upsell acceptance rates. Many companies find that customers who receive consistent messaging across email, in-app, and customer success touchpoints upgrade more frequently.
Expansion revenue can contribute to an increase in Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Track CLV segmented by entry channel to understand which touchpoints create the most valuable relationships. Then, track how multiple channel engagement affects customer value.
New technologies are reshaping how businesses connect with customers. Let's explore a few emerging trends that will define successful engagement strategies moving forward.
AI-driven engagement technology can anticipate what customers might need before they even ask. When you implement these systems, you'll see how they can spot early signs of customer frustration and gently offer help immediately.
Hyper-personalization makes every customer interaction feel uniquely tailored. Modern platforms have moved beyond simple demographic categories to understand customer behavior patterns. We’ve already seen some examples, but even deeper personalization is on the horizon.
Privacy-first engagement reflects a key shift in how we connect with customers. Innovative platforms now create personalized experiences while respecting customer data boundaries. Finding this balance between personalization and privacy has become a meaningful advantage as regulations continue to evolve.
.svg){kind=icon}
