When organisations confront fragmented omnichannel experiences, the reflex is to layer on tools or launch another campaign. What we find is simpler: no shared story, and no workable standards. Put a codified narrative and portable experience rules in place, and trust compounds. Consistency lowers friction and sharpens decisions.
→ Watch more videos in this playlist on YouTube
What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.
Customers don’t just notice inconsistency; they feel it as friction. A lively social post followed by a flat onboarding email is enough to make people question whether they’re dealing with the same organisation. Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer notes that six in ten millennials expect a consistent experience wherever they encounter a brand — a simple truth that turns fragmented delivery into a credibility risk.
The real challenge isn’t adding more channels or stitching together tools. It’s aligning the story those channels carry. When promises, tone and behaviours drift, people opt for brands that are easier to recognise and easier to trust.
Think of omnichannel not as a distribution job but as narrative architecture. One story should inhabit many rooms: website, sales deck, product, service, and post-purchase. The content changes, the room changes, but the storyline doesn’t. That storyline sets the promise, the standards for how it shows up, and the trade-offs you’re willing to make to honour it.
Treat technology as the orchestra pit, not the conductor. Systems should enable the expression of the narrative, not decide it. Start with the brand’s non‑negotiables and let channels adapt within those guardrails.
Codify a brand narrative with experience standards that hold under time pressure. Keep it practical and testable, so teams can use it mid-sprint, not just in workshops.
In our experience with leadership teams at inflection points, coherence emerges when these standards are brief, accessible, and used as decision criteria rather than as reference material.
Measure whether the story holds as people move between touchpoints, not just whether channels hit their individual targets.
This is a leadership posture before it’s a marketing programme. Set one source of truth for the narrative, empower teams to adapt within clear boundaries, and remove options that dilute the promise. Governance should speed decisions, not add process for its own sake.
Do this well and omnichannel stops being a maze of tasks and becomes a flywheel of trust — the same promise, carried consistently, compounding with every interaction.
Brand clarity often begins with the right questions — we’d be glad to explore them with your team. Start the conversation.