With the announcement of Zoom’s acquisition of Five9, there has been quite a buzz in the industry about video and contact center applications. Industry experts have weighed in highlighting the benefits to customers. Among the benefits, better ways for businesses to connect and interact with each other and with customers as well as the pros of using an integrated cloud platform for both unified communications and contact center applications.
Another outcome of this acquisition will be the mainstreaming of video in the contact center. The pandemic made everyone comfortable with video in business and consumer environments. The adoption of video has skyrocketed, making it a standard component of business communications. Zoom coming together with Five9 will no doubt drive the integration of video into the contact center.
Here at Lifesize, we have been offering video as a core part of our solution along with voice and digital channels like chat, SMS, and email. We have witnessed first-hand the demand and organic adoption of video in the contact center. Based on research conducted by Metrigy, video is the fastest growing customer interaction channel of 2021 and companies using video to communicate with customers see benefits in efficiency and customer relationships.
With CxEngage, the Lifesize cloud contact center solution, businesses deploy video to better support customers and agents. The use cases and industries where it is compelling to deploy video include:
- Field support
- Telcos and service providers looking to avoid truck rolls
- Banking and insurance
- Healthcare
- Technical helpdesk
- Education
- Retail
The top 5 benefits of video-enabled call centers include:
Enhanced real-time support
Lack of visual contact has always been a major challenge of call center interactions. Industries that involve hardware installation or maintenance, such as internet service or utility providers, can find it particularly challenging to deliver superior customer support. Diagnosing an issue is largely dependent on the customer’s ability to accurately relay equipment status and information, and voice calls or chats alone come with many limitations. Enabling video calls as a support option not only gives your call center agents the ability to directly observe equipment behavior and issues in real time, but also dramatically improves the efficiency of your customer support, contributing to boosted agent utilization and profitability across your contact center.
High-touch and personalized customer experiences
Video chat support inherently delivers a high-touch and personalized experience. Because customers can see your call center agents face to face on live video, they can connect with your brand on new emotional and non-verbal levels. Contact center directors and managers can even use video calling as a criterion for routing customers to particular agents based on the customer’s personal communication preferences and the agent’s personal skillset.
Reduced costs
Operational efficiencies and reduced contact center costs are often realized with the introduction of video calls to your omnichannel support flow. Because video calls can be an effective substitute for in-person meetings or truck rolls, your agents and technicians don’t need to go out on field visits, saving on employee and travel costs. This added channel also gives call center supervisors and managers new variables for tuning escalation paths and managing volume across support tiers.
Increased first call resolution (FCR)
Customers often get frustrated trying to explain problems they’re facing, while agents lose valuable time trying to understand the issue. With video, customers can use their camera, screen share or co-browsing to show their issue to the agent, increasing the likelihood of first call resolution (FCR) and cutting down average handle time (AHT) while leading to higher customer satisfaction. In turn, this also dramatically frees up agents to focus on other customers, reduces the caller queue and helps prevent customer abandonment or churn.
Increased revenue
Implementing video in your contact center can also have a direct impact on sales by allowing your call center agents to identify new upsell and cross-sell opportunities. During a typical inbound phone interaction, it’s not easy to move beyond the customer’s initial issue. But video empowers your agents to establish a firm dimension of rapport, observe context clues and even demonstrate new products as a natural part of the conversation.
Ready to explore video for your contact center? Contact us for a demo today at: https://www.lifesize.com/lp/demo/
