What you should consider when comparing video technology for customer experience
Video isn’t just a solution for collaboration in the digitally-transforming workplace. For years, people have relied on video as a tool for comprehension, communication, and learning. It only makes sense this technology would also find its way into the CX landscape.
Currently, studies suggest simply embracing video as part of an omnichannel strategy for customer service could reduce your contact centre abandonment rates by 70%. As companies continue to compete based on customer satisfaction scores and NPS ratings, ensuring you’re equipped to engage consumers with video could be the key to success.
The question is, where do you get started with your transition into the world of video CX?
Let’s look at some of the things you should consider when comparing video technology for customer experience in 2022.
Video in the CX environment can serve a number of different demands. Many companies are already using video as a tool for marketing and brand awareness, creating how-to video content and interactive webinars to educate their audience. You might start your journey into video in this environment, creating learning opportunities to help boost customer success rates.
Experts say we retain information up to 600% better when we have video guidance, compared to when we’re using text or visuals on their own. Video technology could be an excellent way to provide the initial training or onboarding content your customers need to get the most out of your service.
Alternatively, you look at video as a way of building on the self-service solutions your clients have to deal with common problems and service issues. Allowing users to access a customer portal and use videos to address their issues without contacting a service agent can save your clients and your team a lot of time.
Perhaps the most obvious way to implement video to engage your customers in your CX strategy is to add conferencing to your customer service plan. Allowing your clients to upgrade their conversation with a service agent from a live chat session to a video meeting at the click of a button can deliver quicker solutions to problems and improve brand/customer relationships.
However, to create this environment for video service, you need to make sure your VCaaS technology isn’t just a bolt-on for your contact centre. Customers don’t want to have to repeat their issues just because they’re switching from a voice call to a video call.
Ensuring your video technology integrates seamlessly with the rest of your CCaaS solution will allow for the transfer of context from one agent to the next in the CX environment. Your video solution should integrate not just with your contact centre technology but any other tools your teams might need to deliver a more personalised service, like CRM tools and ERP systems.
For video to really transform your CX strategy, every user needs a simple and streamlined experience. Suppose you’re going to be embedding video into your service desk technology with the use of APIs and CPaaS solutions. In that case, you’ll need to ensure the technology makes life easy for your customers. They should be able to click a single button to request a video call instantly.
Don’t forget to consider the experience of the agents interacting with this technology on a day-to-day basis too. For team members, it should be easy to track video calls just as well as they manage audio calls and messages in the same centralised inbox environment. Transferring a call to a colleague or sharing a screen should be as simple as clicking a few buttons.
Building your video strategy using tools your employees are already familiar with can be an excellent way to boost your chances of rapid adoption and high productivity levels. For instance, many companies are now looking at building CX functionality and contact centre tools into their UCaaS system on Microsoft Teams.
When choosing a solution provider for your video technology, don’t forget you can’t have a successful video conversation without the right endpoints. You will need to choose a software solution that can work with the existing tools and webcams your team already uses. Alternatively, you can consider looking at vendors who offer their own hardware and kits.
You’ll have two options when buying hardware for your video CX strategy. Some companies offer all-in-one room kits specifically designed for certain ecosystems using solutions like Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. Others allow you to build your ideal video strategy with agnostic software capable of working with any device.
Think carefully about whether you want to deal with multiple vendors for software and hardware or whether you’d prefer to get your entire system set up with the same vendor. You’ll also need to think about what kind of provisioning and deployment options any hardware vendors offer. For instance, some companies provide access to meeting rooms as a service.
Finally, when implementing your solutions for video to enhance customer experience, remember to think about the kind of innovations you might want to access in the future.
Although right now you might just want a solution where you can add video content to your helpdesk or stream webinars and live video events online, there’s a good chance you’ll want to experiment more with the potential of video in the future. As customers continue to search for more efficient and reliable ways to connect with companies, video is growing increasingly popular.
Ask yourself whether you might want to install things like extended reality in the future to take your demos and customer service strategies to the next level, and how easy it would be to implement those tools into any software or hardware options you choose.
