Video Call Support. In 2020 and 2021, video calls across all contact centers or call centers’ customer support channels have gained a lot of steam. Video chat is a relatively new feature in customer service and can link an organization to its consumers by providing a tailored customer experience. A video feature lets call center agents to interact with clients face-to-face and resolve problems more efficiently than by chat or regular phone calls. According to a report by Webhelp, 70% of European customers now want to interact with organizations through video calls rather than email, live chat, or regular phone calls. This is your complete guide about boosting your customer experience using video calls rather than regular calls, live chat, or email.
Benefits of Video Call Support Centers
There are several benefits to offering video call support to customers rather than regular calls, which isn’t a surprise. But what are these advantages? Are they as beneficial as we would think? Let’s discover them in detail.
Better Real-Time Customer Support
A lack of visual contact has long hampered customer service calls, and it is sometimes challenging to give exceptional support to specific industries — for example, internet service and utility providers who deal with hardware installation or maintenance. The consumer’s ability to correctly communicate equipment status and information is crucial in determining the issue and how to resolve it. A survey by Lifesize revealed that 31% of respondents find video calling a more accessible option to connect with customers and resolve their queries in a better way. Enabling video communications as a support option allows your call center agents to see equipment behavior and problems in real-time and improves customer support efficiency, contributing to improved agent utilization and profitability. 
Video Call Chat. © Rawpixelimages | Dreamstime.com
Improved Customer Experience
Personalization is built-in to video chat support. Customers can connect with your company on new emotional and non-verbal levels because they can see your call center agents face to face during live video chats. Contact center managers and the system can use video calls to route consumers to the appropriate agent based on the customer’s particular communication preferences. If a customer prefers video calling a representative, then his experience will automatically improve. When offering video calls to your customers, you simply improve their journey, and as a result, they will love interacting with your company.
Issues are Solved More Quickly
Customers often find it difficult to express their issues, yet agents waste valuable time attempting to understand them. Over the phone and on video, customers can present their problems using video recording, screen sharing, or co-browsing. This eventually increases the probability of first contact resolution (FCR) and reduces average handle time (AHT). In turn, this frees up agents, so they can focus on their next customers. So, naturally, it also reduces the caller queue and lowers customer abandonment or churn.
Cons of Video Call Support Centers
There aren’t only advantages to video calls for contact centers. In fact, some disadvantages are often underlooked. Let’s go through them both.
Agents Need Additional Training
Adding a video call system to a contact center will require additional training for agents. First, you must train agents to use video chat properly, just as you do with phone calls, live chats, and other contact channels. It might be time-consuming for businesses to add another contact channel for the system itself, the manners on the call, and more. However, because this is similar to any other form of instruction, this expenditure will be offset in the long run by a more efficient and higher-quality staff. Body language training, visual signals training, and even sign language (if you deal with many deaf/hard of hearing people) may all be required for employees.
Multitasking is Difficult During a Video Call
Agents can’t multitask when they’re on a video session with a client as they can with other channels. For example, they may handle two or three online conversations simultaneously, but a real-time video chat requires full attention, and multitasking could make the agent look unprofessional. This might be viewed in two ways. First, not being distracted by other interactions may assist agents in giving superior customer service. Second, if your employees can’t manage several dialogues at once, this may decrease their productivity. Video calls are great to provide better support, but the decrease in productivity should be considered before implementing it.
When to Use Video Calls for Customer Support
First and foremost, expressing a complex problem or a technical difficulty by chat or email is not always straightforward. Neither is describing an intricate repair. This is precisely where video calls come to the rescue in these situations since they allow for more context and information to be conveyed visually. Facial expressions and vocal tones will be apparent to the participants in the video conference. This implies they may change their instructions or explanations as needed, resulting in a more pleasant assistance experience. Secondly, having the opportunity to see your clients in real-time is a great reason to use video calls. It’s a fantastic resource for high-end purchases or issues that need a more hands-on approach from the buyer. A video meeting might be helpful in a medical or counseling setting, for example. It is best to use video calls when your customers have complex issues or provide the fastest and most personalized experience for your most exclusive buyers.
When Not to Use Video Calls for Customer Support
There are some situations in which you shouldn’t prefer using video calls. First of all, to answer frequent common questions. They’re simple, and customers can find ways to answer the question, such as checking your website, social media. Alternatively, a chatbot can handle the support interaction effortlessly. In this scenario, video conferencing is a waste of both your and your customers’ time to, because chatbots can be used to answer brief, straightforward website inquiries. However, you can always get on a video call for complex customer queries, share your screen, and resolve issues while sharing documents if needed. Video calling ensures your customers’ queries get solved while keeping your customer experience as smooth as possible! In addition, video calls aren’t to be offered for first-time inquiries. Although they are beneficial for prolonged support interactions, they may be too invasive for first-time clients.
Since a video chat is a face-to-face encounter, it needs your agent’s full attention, and the customer will definitely have numerous questions. This will eventually make you lose money on productivity. A video session might be too much of an inconvenience for beginning inquiries, putting consumers off contacting you. Plus, until your agents know the type of assistance required, you have no clue if video chat is appropriate. Lastly, video calls aren’t really made for general chat with your organization. Video contact support is only practical when text-based communication isn’t enough to serve the consumer ultimately. While chatting with your team, many consumers will want to multitask and continue browsing your site. Just like frequently asked questions, general chat isn’t worth the effort to make a video call unless it is a potential future big buyer. In order to optimize the amount of time your agents dedicate to the video calls, it’s essential to provide seamless communication throughout the customer journey, to minimize the questions a potential customer may ask.
In Conclusion: Should You Offer Video Calls to Your Customers?
Businesses are recognizing the value of providing exceptional client service. With voice and video chat for customer support, companies can now provide faster service and increase customer satisfaction. Developing a personal relationship with your clients fosters trust and credibility, which can go a long way in keeping your brand visible, you can strengthen your relationships by asking for feedback. In addition, you won’t miss out on any chances to surprise and delight your consumers by utilizing video chat technology. In conclusion, yes, you should definitely offer video chat support but mostly with complex issues or loyal customers rather than a general chat. *Contributed by Georgi Todorov, founder of ThriveMyWay, a website dedicated to teaching successful digital marketing strategies.
Enhance Your Video Chat Experience with Commbox
Meet Commbox – an omnichannel customer communication platform, delivering a unique customer experience across all digital channels. Commbox offers unique Video Chat & Web Call features that equip businesses with advanced communication capabilities.
Commbox’s Video Call Feature
- Video on browser and mobile: Commbox video chat app allows your customers and representatives to see and hear each other directly from the browser or mobile app. It delivers video and audio to just about any device without installing plugins, and offers synchronous and asynchronous conferencing. You can also record and take snapshots during the video chat.
- Auto assignments – You can enable auto-assign conversations to agents by several parameters like workload, skill, permissions, etc. Additionally, you can allow agents to associate responses and assign the conversation to the last agent.
- Auto messages – You can now send automatic auto-messages after a user’s first message, to provide an instant response via voice chat. Customize the message according to your business’ specific use case.
- Customer Satisfaction Survey – manage the possible answers customers can choose from when responding to the survey. You can also send a “Thank You” response message.
How Companies across sectors Use Commbox’s Video Call
Maccabi, one of the two largest healthcare providers in Israel, implemented Commbox to support millions of customers via video call support, a feature that proved to be critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, when more patients asked for remote healthcare. Another company using Commbox’s advanced features is Pelephone, one of Israel’s largest telecom companies. Pelephone uses Commbox’s Video Chat & Web Call features to solve requests of more than 2.4 million subscribers.
