A customer orders online, collects from a store and later discovers a problem with the product.

The store can see the transaction, but not the delivery history. The contact centre can see the original enquiry, but not what happened during the store visit. The warranty team uses a separate process. The customer receives different answers depending on whom they contact.

Inside the retailer, several systems and departments may be involved.

To the customer, there is only one retailer.

That difference between how the organisation is structured and how the customer experiences it sits at the centre of many modern retail service problems.

Retailers have invested heavily in digital channels, fulfilment options, customer platforms and in-store technology. Yet adding channels does not automatically create a connected experience. In many cases, it creates more boundaries for customers and employees to navigate.

The next stage of customer experience improvement is therefore not simply to add another interaction channel. It is to make existing channels work together when the customer’s situation becomes complicated.

Retail journeys rarely stay within one channel

A straightforward purchase may require little assistance. The real test begins when something changes.

The product is unavailable. A delivery is late. An online promotion is not recognised in store. A customer wants to return an item purchased through another channel. A warranty claim requires additional information. A click-and-collect order cannot be located.

These are not unusual edge cases. They are part of normal retail operations.

Australia’s online retail market continues to operate at significant scale. Australia Post reported that 9.8 million households shopped online during 2025, while its recent peak-season research found that expectations for faster delivery rise during major trading periods.

When these digital journeys encounter an exception, the work often moves into stores and contact centres. Staff must interpret what happened across ordering, stock, payment, fulfilment, delivery, returns and customer-service systems.

This is where the promise of omnichannel service can break down.

The customer remembers the hand-off

Retailers often measure channels individually. The website may perform well. The contact centre may meet its service levels. The store may resolve most enquiries presented locally.

But customers experience the journey between those channels.

They notice when:

• they must repeat their details or explain the issue again
• a store cannot see what the contact centre has promised
• an agent cannot confirm what happened during a store visit
• online and in-store policies appear inconsistent
• nobody owns an enquiry that crosses organisational boundaries
• an internal referral becomes another task for the customer

These moments shape trust because they expose the retailer’s internal complexity.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 2025 review of more than 2,000 retail websites found potentially concerning return policies and terms on some sites, illustrating how returns and remedies remain both an important customer issue and a compliance consideration.

Australian Consumer Law also requires businesses to provide appropriate remedies when goods or services fail to meet consumer guarantees.

The quality of a retailer’s issue-resolution model therefore matters beyond customer satisfaction. It influences consistency, operational efficiency and the organisation’s ability to deliver its obligations through every channel.

More channels can create more searching

A common response to customer-service pressure is to introduce new technology: another messaging channel, chatbot, customer portal, knowledge tool or AI assistant.

These capabilities can be valuable. But they can also add another layer to an already fragmented environment.

A customer-service employee may need to search across:

• CRM records
• ecommerce platforms
• order and fulfilment systems
• delivery information
• store notes
• warranty or repair systems
• knowledge articles
• service-management tools
• conversations held through voice, email, chat or social channels

The problem is rarely a complete absence of information. It is that the right information is difficult to find, interpret or act upon at the moment it is needed.

This creates two forms of effort.

The customer repeats the problem.

The employee reconstructs the journey.

A well-designed customer experience should reduce both.

Knowledge must support action

Knowledge management is often treated as a library: a central collection of policies, scripts and frequently asked questions.

That is useful, but insufficient for complex retail enquiries.

Employees also need knowledge that is:

• relevant to the customer’s current situation
• consistent across stores and service channels
• connected to current policies and processes
• clear about permitted actions and exceptions
• easy to find while the customer is waiting
• linked to an escalation path when the answer is uncertain

AI-supported search and agent assistance can make knowledge easier to access, but the quality of the response still depends on the quality, ownership and currency of the underlying content.

An assistant that retrieves an outdated policy faster has not solved the problem.

Retailers therefore need governance around who creates knowledge, who approves it, how changes are distributed and how employees flag information that does not work in practice.

The workflow around the platform matters

Many retailers already have strong CRM, ecommerce, order-management and contact-centre platforms. Replacing those systems is rarely the first or most sensible response to cross-channel friction.

The larger opportunity is often in the workflow around them.

For example:

• Can a store create a customer-service case without asking the customer to call again?
• Can an agent see that a customer has already visited a store?
• Can the contact centre send an actionable request to the right store or fulfilment team?
• Does the receiving team understand the priority and expected response time?
• Can both teams see the latest status?
•  Is the customer updated without needing to chase the organisation?
• Can recurring exceptions be analysed and removed at their source?

These capabilities depend on integration, but they also depend on operating decisions.

Somebody must define ownership. Somebody must decide which team acts, which information travels with the case and when an issue should be escalated.

Without those decisions, workflow technology simply moves uncertainty faster.

Five principles for closing the channel gaps

1. Design around customer situations

Do not begin with a list of channels or products.

Select a high-friction customer journey, such as a failed click-and-collect order, return, warranty claim or delivery issue. Map what the customer and employee experience from beginning to end.

This gives the retailer a concrete problem to improve rather than an abstract ambition to become “more omnichannel”.

2. Give staff a shared view of the issue

Stores and contact centres do not necessarily need access to every system.

They do need enough shared context to understand:

• who the customer is
• what has already happened
•  what has been promised
• who currently owns the issue
• what action is required next

The aim is continuity, not unrestricted access.

3. Make ownership visible

Every case should have an identifiable owner, including cases that cross departments or suppliers.

Ownership does not mean one team performs every task. It means one team remains accountable for progression and communication.

4. Connect knowledge to escalation

Employees should know not only the standard answer but what to do when the standard process does not fit.

A useful knowledge model combines guidance, authority and escalation.

5. Learn from recurring exceptions

Customer issues are a valuable source of operational intelligence.

If stores repeatedly receive the same delivery, order or return enquiry, the answer should not be to train staff to manage the workaround more efficiently. The retailer should identify and address the upstream cause.

Interaction analytics and service reporting can reveal which problems recur, where hand-offs slow down and which policies generate avoidable contact.

Where AI can help and where it cannot

AI can support a more connected service environment by summarising previous interactions, surfacing relevant knowledge, recommending actions and helping employees navigate several sources of information.

It may also help customers resolve simple enquiries through self-service.

But AI does not remove the need for a clear service model.

It cannot independently decide:

• which team should own a cross-channel exception
• whether policies are operationally realistic
• what authority store and contact-centre employees should have
• how an unresolved case is escalated
• who is responsible for maintaining the underlying knowledge

Those are organisational decisions.

Retailers should therefore apply AI to well-understood journeys with trusted knowledge and established escalation routes. The goal is not simply to automate more conversations. It is to make good resolutions easier to deliver.

Questions for retail and CX leaders

Before investing in another customer-service capability, consider asking:

1. Which enquiries most often move between stores and the contact centre?
2. Where do customers have to repeat information?
3. Can employees see what another channel has already communicated?
4. Which cases lack an obvious owner?
5. How are policy changes reflected across stores, agents and digital self-service?
6. Which recurring contacts indicate a problem elsewhere in the journey?
7. Can an employee escalate an unusual case without starting the process again?
8. Are service measures focused on individual channels or complete customer outcomes?

These questions shift the conversation from channel performance to customer resolution.

One retailer requires one support experience

Customers do not need every retail system to become a single platform.

They need the organisation to behave as though its channels belong to the same business.

That means preserving context, sharing trusted knowledge, establishing ownership and helping stores and contact centres work together when the standard journey breaks down.

NEC helps retailers connect customer interactions, knowledge and operational workflows around their existing platforms. Through omnichannel contact-centre technology, knowledge management, workflow integration, analytics and managed services, we help employees reach clearer answers and resolve cross-channel issues with less effort.

The result is not merely a more connected contact centre. It is a retailer that is easier for both customers and employees to navigate.

Give store and customer-service teams clearer paths to the information and support they need.

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