Omni Core · Omnichannel Integration · Module
Channel parity
What can be done in each channel, and whether the differences are deliberate.
The idea
How it works
Complete parity is expensive and rarely worth having. Some things genuinely belong in some channels, and forcing every capability everywhere produces a worse experience in each.
The failure is the unintended gap: a customer who starts something in one channel and cannot finish it in another, for no reason anybody decided.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Map capability by channel
What can be started, continued and completed where. The gaps become obvious immediately.
- 02
Mark which differences are deliberate
A capability absent by design is fine. One absent by accident is the finding.
- 03
Never strand a customer
Being able to start something in a channel where it cannot be finished is the worst arrangement of all.
- 04
Prioritise by volume
Fix the gaps customers actually hit, which is a much shorter list than the full parity matrix.
One level in
The components of channel parity
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Being able to start something in a channel where it cannot be finished is the worst arrangement available.
The other modules in omnichannel integration
One identity
Recognising that interactions across channels involve the same person — the precondition for everything else in this object.
LearnContinuity of state
Carrying what happened in one channel into the next, so that a customer does not restart.
LearnThe seams
Where the joins remain visible to the customer, and which of them matter — the list that turns integration into a backlog.
Learn