5 main reasons why you need video in your conversational platform

Introduction

The new post-pandemic reality has underscored the need to find a solution that maintains the quality of customer service at pre-pandemic levels despite the lack of face-to-face contact with the customer.

Call centers have long been a sought-after resource, but in post-pandemic times, what should have been a reliable line of support has become even more frustrating and problematic.

• 50% of consumers believe that most companies urgently need to improve online customer service; 
• Because of contact center congestion and lack of resources, the waiting time has increased by 50%;
• Similarly, 43% of consumers think long wait times and the inability to get clear information from an agent are the most frustrating parts of customer service;‍‍
• 1 in 4 consumers did not get their questions solved the first time when reaching out to a customer support.

Faced with customer dissatisfaction, companies began looking en masse for solutions to enable customer self-service. So knowledge bases with answers to common questions and training videos have emerged, but they can be hard to sift through and fail to offer solutions tailored to each client's unique situation.

Fortunately, video communication comes to the rescue, as in pandemic times, it has become the only way to make up for the lack of face-to-face interaction in online communications.

In 2022, 58% of companies use video conferencing in their day-to-day operations and get a lot of benefits from it!

So what's stopping it from being used in communication with customers, whether it's sales or support issues?

Here are 5 key reasons why you need to start thinking about pushing the boundaries of video use and integrating it right into your chat with your customer!‍

1) Bridges the physical distance and personalizes the customer experience.‍

"Sales must be done in person!" - all the well-known speakers used to tell us. However, the digital world and the pandemic have radically changed the way companies interact with customers and even business partners. Despite all the digital communication tools, they cannot completely replace face-to-face interactions with customers.

Chatbots are great for answering simple questions, but they lack genuine empathy. And even if it's a live chat with an online consultant, it doesn't feel like real interaction - pre-arranged responses, unemotional correspondence, minimal customer involvement in the conversation, and, as a result, incomplete satisfaction with the service.

Numerous studies, analyses, and surveys confirm that it's more important than ever for companies to provide a seamless and tailored experience for everyone.  80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company that provides a personalized experience, and 69% of customers expect companies to provide a more digital and personalized experience when receiving goods or services.

‍Video bridges the gap between physical and online interaction.

Imagine customers being able to make a video call right from the chat with a support agent or sales representative! With the click of a mouse, clients can get personalized service with minimal effort on their part as well as on the part of your agent.

⇢ An invitation for a video call is sent by your agent right in the chat;
⇢ The customer joins the conversation in one click without having to navigate to other services or create different accounts.

Thus, in a couple of seconds, you'll deal with a customer's problem one-on-one or jointly select a quote from your service package right during a live interaction. In this way, the customer gets the experience of interacting with an agent online just as they would with live in-person interaction.‍

2) Delivers seamless customer experience, which leads to greater retention.

The main advantage of the video within the chat is to reduce the number of digital touchpoints and offer the most seamless CX possible.

By embedding video into a chat with the customer, all the customer-agent interaction occurs in one place - the video call is activated with one button at agent initiation.

On the customer side, this significantly reduces wait time, minimizes effort, increases service satisfaction, and provides a seamless customer experience where all customer needs are met in a single interaction. The client can even pay online right during a video call!

Consequently, satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal to your brand, make repeat purchases, and pass on their positive experiences to others.

3)  Improves business metrics.

First, integrated video to chat with your customer instantly increases your sales!

You simply show the customer the product LIVE, or talk to the client face-to-face to close objections - the deal is closed. Usually, with a single chat, the conversion rate in correspondence is a maximum of 5%. With video support right in the chat, the conversion can reach 100%, which was the case with Nickis.

NICKIS, a luxury children's clothing brand, increased conversion rate up to 100% after implementing video in the Zendesk chat!

On top of all this, with voice, video or screen sharing in chat, you not only increase customer engagement and sales, but you also increase customer service metrics such as:

With voice and video chat support, you not only increase customer engagement and sales, but you also increase your customer service metrics.

⇢FCR (First Contact Resolution) & AHT (Average Handle Time);
With video or screen sharing, customers can show their problem to an agent, which increases the First Call Resolution (FCR) and decreases Average Handle Time (AHT), leading to an overall increase in customer satisfaction

⇢ The total number of open tickets.
Since all issues can now be resolved in a single interaction without leaving the chat room, which means you reduce the workload on your customer support team.

4) Boost overall customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Score.

Visual interaction is a widespread trend among businesses to improve customer service standards and customer experience. Video chat is a proactive support channel: it allows you to identify problems faster from the first interaction and provide effective answers.

Allowing customers to video chat and screen share directly from an agent's chat helps customers close a deal or solve a problem with a minimum number of interaction points, as opposed to reactive channels (email, phone calls, chats, etc.).

Thus, video chat results in a satisfaction rate of 73%, the highest of all customer service channels, compared to 61% for email and 44% for phone.

5) Cost-efficient.

All businesses dream of reducing costs without sacrificing quality.

Built-in video chat can save up to 50% or more in support costs compared to other methods. The cost savings come from the fact that you no longer need to use telephony or pay for other programs to communicate with customers.

What's more, using video within chat reduces the cost of hiring additional agents - customer questions are resolved much faster in the same amount of time, and the infrastructure to manage conversations.

If we're talking about sales, the ability to pay during a video call allows you not to lose leads and increase conversion rates.

Canada's largest home appliance supplier CAS achieved a 500% return on investment after introducing video to their LiveChat with a customer.

Thus, video reduces the cost of servicing and attracting customers by several times, but also increases the quality of their customer service and business profits.

Incorporate video into your client conversations.

Think about your customers' experiences, especially all their possible interactions with your business. Are there opportunities to improve any point of interaction to make it more engaging, intuitive, or personalized?

Thanks to SnapCall video can be effortless, which means no installations, no plug-ins, no accounts, and no phone numbers! So it's easy to integrate it into your sales or customer support processes.

⇢ Make payments right during the conversation, sending the payment link in real-time;
⇢ Stream YouTube videos during the call;
⇢ Join more than one party at the meeting;
⇢ Seamlessly navigate between web and mobile by simply scanning a QR code.

SnapCall offers unlimited calls worldwide. One-click integration into your Chat widget!

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