The digital and virtual worlds posed a revolution for companies in the matter of customer journey. By first becoming phygital and then evolving to 3d (physical, digital, and virtual) the customer journey was disrupted by hundreds of new and unpredictable touchpoints for each step. Because of these evolutions in platforms and, consequently, customer journey infinite ramifications, both the multi-channel strategy (too fragmented for customers) and the omni-channel strategy (too resource-demanding in terms of budget and people for companies) are obsolete and inadequate.
Getting to the awareness that it is impossible to be everywhere and reach significant results anywhere, Giuseppe Stigliano and Philip Kotler theorized the Optichannel solution. Optichanneling means optimising one’s platform/worlds presence choices based on a thorough understanding of a multitude of significant variables with the aim of not losing the customers in between too many, not enough attended, channels. The company’s budget, its priorities and goals, the digital alphabetization of the customers combined with the digital maturity of the company, are all aspects to be analysed to realise an Optichannel strategy. As a result, data collection, awareness, and analysis skills are of indispensable value.