Visual engagement has become established as a major key to customer engagement. Here are five facts every management team should keep in mind.
Customer engagement fact 1
Agent productivity skyrockets when you add a collaborative visual component to your customer service interactions.
Recent research on visual engagement has shown that 40% of customer service professionals already use visual engagement technology and love it, while, not surprisingly, another 51% of customer service professionals say they want cobrowsing and screen sharing tools. The reasons are compelling. Companies that have cobrowsing and screen sharing report:
- 52% better understanding of customer issues
- 38% improvement in customer satisfaction
- 14% reduction in average handling time
One Glance customer cites a 10% improvement in Customer Resolution Rate directly related to adoption of Glance cobrowsing capability. And benefits don’t stop at productivity. The company’s Net Promoter Score (willingness of customers to recommend) also rose 18%.
Customer engagement fact 2
When a customer sees the agent’s face, frustration and anger “triggers” are defused.
In customer service, technical support, and sales, a smiling face can go a long way in providing a great experience and a faster resolution. Online constituents deserve a personal experience that is as robust as any in-person interaction.
Read: Three Things You Must Do To Get Video Calls Right
According to Forrester, 44% of online customers rate having access to a live person during an online purchase as one of the best features a business can offer. Live interaction improves the quality of conversations and has been shown to reduce abandonment. With Glance agent video, agents use onboard or external cameras to easily provide a one-way view of themselves that takes the customer experience to the next level.
Gartner has predicted that by next year, 20% of the Global 500 will have adopted video engagement tools for customer-facing interactions. As Gartner’s Brian Manusama said,
“Video chat provides customers with a richer sense of presence, personalized experience, and the support of emotional expression in the real-time sharing of content.”
When online agent video is the equivalent of one-way glass, it provides an interesting advantage over face-to-face sessions: customers feel more comfortable. This quote from a tax preparation software user who experienced Glance agent video is typical:
“The agent had me share my screen. Instantly, they could see everything in my browser window while I saw my agent. I got the answer I needed faster and easier than I expected. I felt like there was a tax angel on my screen.”
Customer engagement fact 3
Knowledge transfer vastly improves when online interactions include visual engagement.
Visually walking customers through the process of paying a bill online gives them a vivid memory that sticks with them. That not only makes happy customers – that’s makes customers who don’t need to call back every month with the same problem.
Cobrowsing, screen sharing, and one-way video are knowledge transfer power tools that let service agents and expert advisors teach clients as they collaborate. Full visual engagement not only conveys directions and guidance with precision, it actually teaches clients how to solve issues and access information for themselves more efficiently in the future. Agents can help clients “learn their way around” the user interfaces of crucial systems for financial services, bill paying, healthcare, insurance, and others, so they know how to get the most from admittedly complicated self-service situations.
When agents teach customers how to navigate a site or find an item of information or a suitable product, customers feel empowered. And empowered customers are satisfied customers.
Read: Building Great Relationships With Visual Engagement Software
Today, clients and customers from all walks of life—seniors as well as computer-savvy millennials—are more often than not fully familiar with communicating via online video. In an era when grandparents use platforms such as Skype and Facetime to keep up with children and grandchildren, all have begun to expect—and soon will demand—the ability to conduct effortless, friction-free browser-based video conversations with every company and service of interest to them—and without the need for downloads or plugins.
Customer engagement fact 4
Every second required to establish online agent-customer connections reduces customer satisfaction.
One key to convincing both agents and customers to adopt new technology is to make it as easy as possible to use. For cobrowsing and one-way video to be adopted, the technology has to support use on all devices, all browsers, and all operating systems.
Glance visual engagement capabilities integrate easily into existing systems and are able to be launched with a single click directly from the customer interface. Even better, agents can launch visual engagements with a single click. Agents don’t even need to know what interface customers are using or wonder if they are online, because the Glance solution handles that for them.
See visual engagement in action:
Anyone who has ever set up or signed into an online meeting knows that any delay in connection can spark frustration and annoyance. Companies are looking to lower average handle time (AHT) and research from Forrester shows that 73% of U.S. online customers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide good service.
Glance technology is uniquely designed to fast-trigger a secure connection between customer and agent, with zero lag time. There’s no downloading of apps, Java code, or other client-side software. The agent’s browser pulls assets directly from the company’s website or content delivery network, not Glance, and private information never transits from the customer’s computer or device. Glance sessions flow seamlessly, even if the customer browser is running HTTPS or has a mix of secure and non-secure content.
The first 30 seconds of this video illustrates the point in an entertaining way.
Customer engagement fact 5
Users on mobile devices perceive highest value from guided collaboration with reps.
Eighty-nine percent of general mobile app users responding to a Radius Global Market Research poll said they would recommend an app if a customer support agent proactively contacted them while they were experiencing problems. Conversely, the study showed that nearly half (47%) would just delete an app that frustrated them and didn’t provide any customer support.
Rebecca Wettemann of Nucleus Research notes that, “The future is in apps that…provide in-app interaction with a real or virtual agent in a meaningful way. In-app support is reassuring because it personalizes the experience.”
For any company, the satisfaction level and brand loyalty of its online constituents are the twin enablers of long-term revenue streams, follow-on business, and growth. Customer-facing teams that assist, facilitate, enroll, upsell, explain, or debrief constituents via their mobile devices must deliver a friction-less interactive session. In today’s mobile app age, nothing less will suffice.
Read: How Mobile Can Improve Customer Experience
As the sponsor of the Radius study put it, “These results underscore the point that people want to communicate with customer service agents the way they communicate with everyone else — through messaging and apps.”
Gurjit Sandhu of Yes Lifecycle Marketing points out that retailers (and by extension, telesales and customer service teams) need to be laser-focused on making the path-to-purchase (or path-to-solution, or path-to-answer) hassle-free on mobile devices. Otherwise, “customers are liable to move on in no more than a split second.”
When constituents seek you out using a mobile interface, they want an effortless level of collaboration. They want to see you helping them accomplish their goals. Agents may communicate verbally or by messaging, but they collaborate visually: moving the mouse, drawing guidelines and typing annotations, even entering information on the customer’s behalf.
Read: Do I Need Visual Engagement Software?
Ready to see how Glance visual engagement solutions can empower your customers and increase sales for your business?
Sign up for your personalized Glance demo today!
About Glance Networks
Glance helps enterprise organizations create the ultimate customer experience with smart, omni-channel visual engagement solutions based around integrated cobrowse, screen share, and one-way agent video. We are one of the world’s simplest, most reliable and secure platforms that enable companies to see, show and share anything online, creating a frictionless path to great experiences in sales, support and customer service. The result is improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, increased revenue growth and operational savings. From financial services and healthcare to retail and travel and leisure, even the most advanced technology and SaaS organizations – we transform the customer experience for today’s business. Learn More »
