Multichannel Communications: How To Create A 5-Star CX

Everyone’s moving to multichannel comms these days. Businesses recognize that when support is easy and convenient, it builds better customer relationships.

In our 2025 CX Trends Report, 69% of businesses stated that they plan to add or integrate more communication channels into their customer experience. Preferred channels include social media, live chat, and, surprisingly, physical stores.

In this article, we explain multichannel communications, the different channels your business should focus on, and how to build a strategy that drives engagement and customer loyalty.

What is Multichannel Communication?

Multichannel communication is all about connecting with customers across multiple channels so they can interact with your business through their preferred channels. 

The idea is simple: Meet customers where they are, when they want, and how they want. This is especially important because different audiences prefer different channels, and by being available on multiple channels, you become easily accessible to all of your customers.

Why You Need Multichannel Communications

The average customer journey spans multiple channels. A person might scroll through social media for reviews, DM your team to check product availability, and call your support line when they need a refund. 

Multichannel communications let you connect with customers in a way that addresses their “in-the-moment” needs and emotions. Here are some more reasons to double down on a multichannel approach:

• Meet customers on their preferred channels: As customers use different customer service channels depending on their needs, a multichannel communications strategy ensures you’re available wherever they expect you.
• Improves efficiency and productivity: Handling requests across multiple channels in a structured way lets teams respond faster and reduces duplicated work. Besides, most multichannel communication software gives you AI-enabled customer journey mapping to further personalize your interactions.
• Increases customer engagement: Providing multiple customer service channels ensures there are enough organic connection opportunities throughout a customer’s lifecycle. This means higher participation and long-term brand relationships.
• Boosts customer satisfaction and loyalty: When customers can choose how they interact, they feel respected and in control. This, in turn, can improve your CSAT scores, not to mention repeat purchases. In fact, 86% of shoppers say they’re willing to pay more for better support.
• Enhances brand consistency: Most multichannel communication systems let you set up quick replies and templated messages across different channels. This ensures that customers receive the same information, reinforcing your brand voice and preventing mixed messages.

10 Key Channels Businesses Use for CX

From phone calls and emails to social media, AI bots, and self-service portals, there are multiple ways you can connect with customers. Each channel meets a different need: some deliver instant answers, others offer in-depth information, and some provide a human touch. 

Here are 10 of the core customer service channels and how they can benefit you:

1. Phone: While phone support might seem old-fashioned compared to digital communication channels (especially in the age of AI bots), it’s still the best way to address urgent or sensitive requests. This is also why you’d see most essential services and non-profits providing phone support, most often through virtual phone numbers. 
2. Email: The original digital channel, most customers still prefer email for customer support and promotional messages. It’s not intrusive, easy for customers to use, and lets them keep a record for future reference.
3. Live chat: Live chat works well for customers wanting instant answers, especially while browsing your website or app. It also helps reduce friction during the purchase and onboarding stages.
4. Text messaging or SMS: Perfect for short, time-sensitive updates like order confirmations, appointment reminders, or promotional alerts. While you’d often see healthcare providers and delivery services using them, most businesses can benefit from features like text-to-vote and drip campaigns.
5. Social media: According to GWI’s 2024 Report, the average person spends 2 hours and 12 minutes on social media. So finding out which social platforms your target audience prefers and showing up there can help you support them better, especially if you’re a B2C brand.
6. Video: Virtual calls and async video chats are great for face-to-face communication, where customers benefit from visual guidance, like when addressing sensitive or technical issues. Especially useful for global customer bases where regular phone calls might not work
7. Instant messaging: Apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Viber are another way to reach customers quickly and provide real-time updates without the formality of email campaigns or the text restrictions of Short Message Service (SMS).
8. Self-service portals: These let customers find answers and manage their accounts on their own. You’ll find them at businesses with large volumes of routine inquiries, like utilities or software providers.
9. Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Automated phone systems can route calls and provide basic information without a live agent, making them a great channel for phone-first companies with high call volumes.
10. Chatbots: These are great for handling routine requests such as password resets, FAQs, or order tracking. AI bots can take this another step further by resolving moderately complex issues.  

Finally, you’ve got the traditional channels like in-person customer service and print media. 

Retail businesses, in particular, are investing in kiosks and pop-up stores to build IRL relationships with customers. In fact, in Nextiva’s 2025 State of Customer Experience survey, 31% of respondents said they plan to invest in in-store experiences. 

Not to mention classifieds in local newspapers and direct mail, which continue to hold high credibility with customers.

The Challenges of a Siloed Communications Strategy

While multichannel communications can drive engagement and build customer loyalty, managing multiple channels isn’t always smooth. Here are four common obstacles, along with tactical tips on how to tackle them so you can set your multichannel customer service strategy for success.

Fragmented data 

When customer conversations are spread across multiple communication channels, such as email, social media, SMS, and phone calls, it becomes difficult to gain a complete view of their history and context. This can lead to repeated questions and overlaps that disrupt internal communications between agents and slow down response times.

Solution: Centralize customer conversations

Bring your conversations together using a multichannel communications management platform, like Nextiva. Features like unified inboxes, agent collaboration, and social listening can help you track customer interactions across all channels. Agent Copilots make this even easier by summarizing a customer’s previous interactions.

Case in point: Nepal’s largest ISP, WorldLink, managed 400,000 customers across emails, social media, SMS, and multiple chat apps. By centralizing these channels in Nextiva’s all-in-one inbox and using automated workflows:

• Agents handled 20,000+ tickets per month
• Cut first response time to under 15 minutes
• Boosted CSAT to 78.9%

Inconsistent messaging

When businesses communicate across multiple channels, messaging can quickly become inconsistent. One agent might provide one answer, while a social media manager gives another, leaving customers confused or worse, frustrated. 

Some reasons for this inconsistency include outdated information, a lack of a centralized brand guide, and teams following different tones across channels.

Solution: Standardize messaging with templates and guidelines

You can address this challenge in two ways. First, by using tools with features like message templates, shared knowledge bases, and workflow automation to ensure consistent responses across channels. 

For example, IKEA used Nextiva’s survey templates to send brand-compliant surveys via all channels and build intelligent workflows that route queries to the right teams.

Second, by clearly defining a brand voice and tone that all teams follow, so messages sound the same. You can also take this a step further by feeding your multichannel communications software your brand guidelines. It can then flag agent replies that don’t match the brand voice.

Difficulty evaluating performance 

Tracking performance across multiple channels can be messy. It’s nearly impossible to calculate key metrics like average resolution time, first response time, or ticket volume across the board. 

You can’t see the big picture either, like which agents are performing well, where bottlenecks occur, or how customer interactions impact satisfaction. Without clarity on what’s happening, you cannot optimize workflows or measure ROI.

Solution: Building a single pane of glass

The key is adopting an all-in-one platform that centralizes all performance metrics in one place. One option is integrating your tools with your business intelligence (BI) platform.Another option is using a unified CX platform like Nextiva to manage all your channels. It’s easier, plus you’ll benefit from “data accessibility” with all your customer and performance data in one place. You can pull the metrics you need, view real-time dashboards, and get automated reports without digging through multiple tools.

High start-up costs 

Another challenge in setting up a multichannel communications strategy is the upfront cost. Paying for separate tools for email, SMS, social media, chat, and more quickly adds up, not just in subscriptions, but also in setup, integrations, and premium support. 

This can feel even steeper when you don’t yet have a clear way to measure ROI. You start with $50 for SMS and $100 for email management, and before you know it, you’re looking at $500–$1,000 for a full multichannel communications setup. 

Without clear data showing how these investments improve customer experience, it’s hard to justify the spend.

Solution: Start small, scale smart

Start with the most impactful channels and add new channels gradually. When you’re ready to go all-in, choose a single software vendor instead of juggling eight different tools. This can reduce complexity, lower costs, and make it easier to track ROI as your channel count increases.

This is exactly what Cedar Financial, a debt collections agency founded in 1997, did. Over 25+ years, they added more channels until they were using seven different vendors to handle comms. When the bloat became too much, they switched to Nextiva,  consolidating all tools into one and cutting costs by 30%.

Best Practices for a Successful Multichannel Communications Strategy

Setting up multichannel communications is more than just showing up on every channel. This ‘checkbox’ approach will only result in scattered touchpoints and disconnected experiences that frustrate customers and burn out agents. 

You need to create a multichannel communications strategy where your channels ‘talk’ to each other and your customers. Here are some tips to help you get it right:

• Know your audience: Go beyond surface-level audience demographics and buyer personas by digging into your customers’ actual preferences and activity patterns. Spend time on the channels they use so you know how they use them and if they want to hear from you there. 
• Select the right channels: Not every platform is suitable for every business. Select three to six channels that align with both your industry and target customers. And if one channel underperforms, don’t hesitate to pivot to another that delivers better results. 
• Maintain consistent multichannel messaging: People remember brands like Duolingo because their voice is true to brand on all channels. The level of formality can shift; a social post might be more informal than an email, but the essence (values and vibe) of your brand should stay the same. 
• Segment your customer base: Not all customers want the same thing. Use CRM data and automated workflows to tailor messaging, offers, and even channels to each group. For example, you can launch a VIP-customers-only Slack group to give them faster support. 
• Create personalized experiences: Segmentation groups customers with similar traits, but personalization goes further, making interactions feel one-to-one. This can be product recommendations, retargeting ads, and AI agents that adapt in real time to the customer’s intent.
• Collect customer feedback: You probably already use CSAT. We suggest pairing it with post-purchase surveys, social listening, and channel-specific feedback forms to figure out why customers gave your business that score. That way, you’re not left guessing.
• Analyze and optimize: Don’t just track performance after the fact, improve it as it happens. One idea is setting up real-time dashboards to give managers “over-the-shoulder” visibility. That way, they can step in with timely suggestions before small issues turn into big ones. 
• Be customer-centric: Build your multichannel communications strategy around what your customers need, not just what each channel can technically do or what your team prefers. Another idea is setting limits on how often you reach out across channels so customers don’t feel spammed. 

Streamline Your Customer Communications with Nextiva

Setting up successful multichannel communications largely depends on how well your channels work together. The more unified your CX stack is, the easier it is to eliminate data silos, measure ROI, and keep costs under control.

If you’re looking to explore multichannel customer communications or integrate your many tools, Nextiva’s all-in-one customer communications platform gives you all of the core channels in a single unified system. This includes VoIP, text messages, messaging apps, social media platforms, and video. 

It also comes with 99.999% uptime and military grade security so your communication line is always open, and your data is strictly protected.