8 benefits of video chat for customer service

People do business with people. That’s the main reason why telephone is still such a popular channel. It’s more personal than digital channels. But there’s one channel that has even more possibilities. Video chat. You don’t just hear the other person but see them as well. And it has many advantages when used for customer service.

Speak face-to-face

Is it a new channel? Not really, especially in health care, video chat has been in use for a few years. No need to go somewhere for an appointment but still speak to each other face to face. This also works great for financial and technical issues because of the personal attention. With shops during lockdown, video chat is also a good alternative to re-create the in-store experience. Customers can be assisted with choosing and matching outfits. And with items like luxury goods, live video chat certainly beats just seeing an image on a website. It’s almost the same as seeing it in real life.

Many advantages

But that’s not all. Video chat is packed with advantages:

1. Increases personal connection
   You don’t just hear someone’s voice and emotion in the voice, but you see their non-verbal communication as well. This increases the emotional connection and makes the conversation more personal
2. Positive effect on conversion
   This personal connection has a positive effect on conversion; people do business with people. The fact that agents can not only hear emotions but also see non-verbal communication makes it easier to anticipate to a callers’ needs
3. Share screens
   Video chat allows agents and callers to share screens which works great for customer onboarding, technical or financial explanation, go through documents together, etc.
4. Improve customer service metrics
   Issued are solved faster because of options like screen sharing, and the more personal connection. This improves metrics like call handling time, average resolution time, first call resolution and customer experience
5. Appeals to the younger generations
   The younger generations frequently use video in daily life so this channel appeals to them more than regular telephony. If they are your target audience, you’ll need this in your mix
6. Survey becomes part of the journey
   You can easily ask callers to fill out the customer survey after the call in the same window so it’s part of the video chat journey
7. Add entertainment
   Video chat offers your brand the possibility to show personal video or offer during wait time which makes the wait more entertaining and less of a nuisance
8. Add branding
   The video chat journey can be branded to your company’s look-and-feel

Easy implementation

Video chat can be integrated with many omnichannel contact center platforms. This makes it easy to add the channel to your mix. All you need besides the regular tools is a camera. These are either already on agents’ laptops or can easily be added separately for relatively low costs. Yes, probably not all your agents will be happy to jump on video calls, but chances are your younger employees won’t mind. Start with a few volunteers and see what happens. Do your customer service metrics improve? Then scale up from there.

Switch channels

When integrating video chat in your omnichannel contact center platform, it’s also possible to switch channels during an interaction. From regular chat to video chat for example. This decreases the need to escalate or transfer a call and helps solves issues faster. This has a positive effect on many important customer service KPI’s. If this matters to you and it sounds like an appropriate channel for your brand and audience, don’t wait any longer and look into video chat. 

Vidaoo is a video chat tool that integrates seamlessly with many omnichannel contact center platforms. Download our quick guide about live video chat or plan a free online demo here.