Sometimes we click all the right buttons and follow all the steps, and things stay broken.
It’s often challenging to describe a software issue or problem with a new product beyond the buttons we push or saying that we’ve followed the directions provided. As customers, we don’t have intimate knowledge of everything that’s behind-the-scenes, so we struggle on the surface and have difficulty going deeper to resolve things on our own.
This becomes even more of a concern now that we’ve got a million different versions of TVs, tablets, operating systems, software versions, phone systems, and more. When there are numerous options for everything we use each day, it’s overwhelming.
It can be overwhelming for the support agents we contact too.
Video is one way to combat this overload. Sharing your screen or taking a video of an issue can quickly demonstrate all of those needed characteristics without having to review each element individually. As the customer, videos and screen shares also give us a better chance of describing the problem with the information the service agent needs.
I don’t inherently know when a software version is going to make a difference for the location of buttons needed to complete a task. Most people outside of that software company’s development team won’t either. Jumping right into video removes that need because the agent can see the software and adjust their recommendations without even needing to discuss software versions.
There are many amazing video chat services available, and they’re seeing a significant increase for customer support. We think Zight (formerly CloudApp) for customer support has a smart role in that ecosystem by making it easy for you to capture and review these video service interactions. With simple annotation, clips, gif creation, and other elements, you can generate a robust response.
Let’s dive into what that means and might look like for the future of high-quality customer service.
Every interaction can be personal
Video capture creates a record for the customer to use, especially if it is a repeat problem or a common concern. If you’re working with companies and providing service to all of their team, then you can even generate a video specifically for that company.
Software services may be the biggest beneficiary of this new methodology because many new integrations and iterations of programs are customized by the end-consumer. Whether it’s adding support for a CRM, restricting access by user profiles, or working with legacy platforms, there’s customization embedded.
Your customer support team must address the unique nature of the client’s deployment in these cases. Your best reps can do this repeatedly without missing a beat, but the new crew members may struggle. Generating videos for clients ensures that they get support specific to them, regardless of who is providing the help.
It’s also a great way to build your knowledge base for employees, which we’ll return to shortly.
At the heart of these interactions is one principal element: the custom work your reps do can be visible to all. Customers get a chance to see something built just for them, and you get the credit of always having an individualized touch ready.
When follow-up emails and video are customized, clipped just to show the problem with the specific setup each customer has, you’ll get due credit for always having a personal touch. And if that’s not enough, personalized customer service experiences are tied directly to increases in revenue and customer loyalty.
The future of FAQ
Who has problems with the products or services that you offer? Customers.
Who asks questions about your offering when trying to decide to spend their money? Potential customers.
Who usually writes the help materials and knowledge base used to address those problems and questions? Employees who are trying to brainstorm what problems someone may have.
There’s often a disconnect between the frequently asked questions that live on a website and those that reach your reps. It’s not too often that a customer support FAQ will address core issues or common problems — they tend to provide basic information like contact details and hours of operation that are still extremely useful!
What we want to call out here is that the hiccups interaction between customers and your offerings aren’t always captured until someone speaks to a representative. You’ll get questions you didn’t imagine or become aware of unpredicted concerns, like how an app performs on older or brand-new versions of Android.
When your customer service agents respond to these questions and walk a customer through a response, they deliver a high-quality customer experience. Capturing their screen and video steps of these walkthroughs can then enable your website to answer those questions for subsequent customers. Your FAQ can readily and easily evolve with your customers and the new challenges they face.
It’s especially important to be dynamic because customers tend to have at least two touch points on your site before they contact support for their issue. They’re searching for a response, and you can provide one earlier in the steps. Potentially, you’ll limit frustration and give customers a quick way to resolve issues.
Video allows you to answer more questions with greater accuracy, clearly demonstrating the steps that customers must take. When the issue evolves, like that latest version of Android arriving, you’ll have a smaller set of requests moving to your agents. These customers can tell you that the video on the website isn’t right, letting you know it’s time to change that FAQ answer.
Evolution of responses allows customers to get back to enjoying what you offer more quickly and frees up your customer service teams to focus on high-quality issues as well as those with up-sell opportunities.
Agents benefit from seeing too
We briefly touched on how your employees can benefit from seeing the customer support videos their coworkers create, and we should take a moment to dive in a little deeper there.
At the top level, it seems like a video recording of someone providing service will show your new team members how to resolve an issue. They can follow the same steps and perhaps even share the edited versions with the customer so that they have a paint-by-numbers program to follow to fix an issue.
However, there are a few deeper levels of usefulness that people outside of customer service may not realize. Video capture can usually record the entire interaction. Customers will give you a variety of clues about how they’re feeling with how they act and the way they ask questions. Service managers can use videos to demonstrate these cues and the proper way to respond.
Customer complaints and actions can be seen alongside images and videos of the products they’re struggling to use or the problems they’re having.
Imagine that you can recreate an issue on a system in your office. Record the steps that cause it and what the error looks like. Now, your training can show agents separate videos of:
- What the problem looks like to the customer.
- How the customer talks about that problem to your service team.
- What types of responses can put the customer at ease.
- The exact steps of how to resolve the issue.
For frequent or recurring problems, this empowers your agents. They can tell a customer that they know the problem, have seen it themselves, and have a straightforward way to solve it. Breaking down videos into meaningful steps allows your agent to walk the customer through resolution at their own pace, so no one is hurried, but everyone is helped. Ultimately, this leads to a higher customer satisfaction score (CSAT).
This type of learning can also show agents what doesn’t work or what frustrates a customer, helping them understand how to deliver the best service. Instead of relying on manuals, they get to see real-world situations. They get live updates too.
The future of the customer experience happens in real-time. Video is the best way to develop this capability for your staff and deliver that service to your customers. For more on this, check out guide to customer experience management.
Ready to deliver the next level of customer service?
We believe in what we say and want you to believe it too. So, let us show it to you. Join us by signing up for a free Zight (formerly CloudApp) account and then asking any question you have. You’ll find lots of video and gifs in our support documents, but our reps also are ready to show you how to make the most of this new customer service adventure with Zight (formerly CloudApp).