Whether or not you like being on camera, expect that you will be in the future when contacting your customer service organization. Video has had relative limited usage for customer support but as costs decrease, many view video as a more natural way to engage with others and share information. The former stumbling blocks of video, such as difficulties with setup and support, non-friendly user interface and struggles with publishing content have been reduced through technical advances and cloud services. Also, as Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) becomes more widespread, video sessions will become even simpler to deploy.
The rapid rise in smart phones has more consumers interested in using video and receiving information through video channels. Video customer support includes live video chat with agents and video live streaming. Additionally, many consumers regularly use their smartphones and tablets for video conversations with friends over popular social media channels, such as Facebook, YouTube or Skype. This trend for video conversations and video viewing over social networks has set an expectation by consumers to receive more video content and engage in conversations with brands for both sales and service.
Brands spend much time and money trying to gain a competitive edge for their products and services. Providing video as a customer support channel provides a way to differentiate customer service and deliver quality support. Video for customer support enables faster delivery of content and information. Customers can absorb information more rapidly in a video clip than by reading information. This enables support organizations to spend less “live” talk time when streaming relevant video information to customers. However, it is important for the video to be succinct and not contain extraneous marketing comments. Video also adds an additional element of personalization, while also sending a message that the brand really cares about them
Video clips also get the job done faster than live conversations. Savvy customers often go to online communities to troubleshoot an issue. Short videos of customers who have solved the same problem provide credible insight and encourage customers to resolve problems. This works particularly well for explaining “how to” issues on products recently purchased. It can also be used to answer repetitive questions that require several minutes of an agent’s time to resolve. When a video clip is made describing how to fix a common issue, agents can forward the video clip to the caller’s smartphone and significantly reduce time for repeat questions.
I expect a sharp rise in video for customer support during the next few years as brands find that it adds an extra dimension to customer support and can also reduce agent talk time, which remains highest expense for customer support.