A channel represents a mode of communication and engagement with customers, and is typically described by the communication medium, i.e. Face to Face, Email, Phone, but can be defined even more granularity based on the type and technology of the communication, i.e. Rep triggered Email can represent a different channel from Mass Email.
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We recommend defining channels at the more granular level as it will allow bigger flexibility in both planning in a differentiated way (Rep triggered vs mass email) and also assigning different weights, costs and reach.
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For both planning and analysis purposes (done outside CEX360, in your analytics solution) we may want to group more channels under a common category or parent channel, i.e. we can create a channel Email which is actually the combination of the Rep Triggered Email and Mass Email channels, or Interactive Channel which is the combination of Face-to-Face, Phone, Video channels, because these channel have in common the fact that there is a real time interaction between the Rep and the Customers, unlike for the Email channels.
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Parent channels are not real channels, there is no communication happening through them.
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We recommend using caution when using parent channels in planning
Using parent channels in planning makes sense when using the Team Planning standalone as it will give Reps the flexibility to choose which actual channel (from the children of the parent channel) to use to deliver the engagement.
However this approach does not take into account the fact that different child channels from the same parent (category) may have different impact on customers so they are not fully substitutable.
Moreover using parent channels in Product Planning, in defining customer experiences does not really make sense in general.
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Not all channels have the same impact on customers, a Face-to-Face interaction would be a much richer communication medium than an Email. In this content the impact refers to the extent to which the recipient (customers) remembers the message (argument) not to whether they were convinced by the message, because that depends on the message not on the channel.
Because they have different impact, a contact on a channel cannot be substituted with a contact on another channel and expect to achieve the same impact. To quantify this difference in impact, we use the concept of channel weight. A weight is a decimal value (i.e. 0.4) associated with a channel which signifies the relative impact of a contact on that channel with a standard assumed to be 1. Conventionally Face-to-Face channel is being assigned a weight of 1.
Represents the percentage of effective interactions out of the interactions attempted on that channel. How to define effective interaction on a channel is up to the system admin and it varies from channel to channel, i.e. an effective interaction over email could be considered an open email, or an email from which the attachment was open, or there was a click through. The reach represents an average or a benchmark, it does not imply that every attempted interaction has exactly the same chance of translating into an effective one.
Represents the cost of delivering ONE interaction over a given channel. It should only take into account the cost that can be directly attributed to that specific interaction. For example the cost of developing a content asset (eDetail) that is used in an interaction should not be included, as the same content asset will be used in other interactions as well. The channel unit cost evaluation should generally include: people, logistics and technology costs
Channels represent a key component of the marketing mix and before using a channel in a planning exercise it first needs to be created in the system. To manage channels go to the Setup entry in the top menu and select Channels from the Tabs below:
Accessing Channels
In this screen we can see the list of channels already defined and we can create, edit or delete a channel. For each channel we can see and manage: the channel name, channel description, weight and datasource.
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