What Do You Do When Cobrowse Isn’t Good Enough?

That may seem like a strange question coming from a tech guy at one of the leading cobrowse companies. Don’t get me wrong, cobrowse is awesome! If you have a website, a SaaS app, or a hybrid mobile app, you should definitely consider using cobrowse to instantly help customers who are lost and/or confused. Cobrowse enables your agent to solve many customer problems, and it is so fast, effortless, and intuitive that it seems like magic.

But there are certain circumstances where cobrowse just isn’t enough. Sometimes, your agent may need to dig further into the computer or quickly show the customer something from the agent’s computer. To solve the problem, you will need to give your service agent some powerful additional tools — and if your cobrowse-only vendor doesn’t have a fully developed and integrated platform of visual engagement technology then you may not be able to solve the customer’s problem.

Here are some examples:

1. The agent needs to see something that isn’t in the customer’s browser
Sometimes supporting your app really extends to the work your customer is doing outside of your app. For example, we have a client that provides a SaaS email marketing solution to small businesses. Their customers may have drafted the email copy in a word processor, created images in a graphics program, and compiled a mailing list in a spreadsheet. The customer then assembles all these components into our client’s browser-based app to accomplish the task of sending an email announcement to a list of people.

In this scenario, when the customer calls with a problem, the solution could actually involve the work they have done in another disconnected app that your agent cannot see via cobrowse. Maybe the graphic is the wrong dimension, or the list is the wrong file format, or some other thing is simply not correct. What do you do? How can you help? Or do you just tell the customer “tough luck?”

Because Glance offers multiple visual engagement technologies, we can give our clients the capability to “escalate” a cobrowse session to a screen share session, to enable the agent to see other apps and other documents that aren’t part of the client’s website or SaaS app. With our Glance client, the agent can quickly and easily move from a cobrowse to a screen share and back again. The agent can then see the customer’s entire screen and can help them with problems extending outside of the HTML of the client’s web page or SaaS app.

This is a very powerful capability and gives agents the ability to solve many different types of problems for customers.

2. The agent needs to guide the customer to modify browser settings
Cobrowse is a great solution for viewing your website displayed in the customer’s browser window, but it does not enable the agent to view the entire browser app. That is, cobrowse does not show the agent the bookmark buttons at the top of the customer’s browser, or any menus, buttons, or ribbons that are part of the customer’s browser controls, etc. So, if the customer is experiencing a problem that can only be solved by manipulating browser settings or controls, cobrowse will not help the agent to directly solve the problem.

Sometimes management will just give the agent a “cheat sheet” that describes the menus of the most popular browsers and then the agent can try to explain verbally what the customer needs to do. But browser manufacturers upgrade their products, and settings menus can change at any time. A more durable solution is to equip agents with the ability to escalate to a screen sharing session that allows the agent to see every aspect of the browser (including the browser controls and settings) as well as any other applications or system settings running on the customer’s desktop.

Again, this enables agents to solve many different types of problems for customers, even if the solution requires manipulation of browser settings or UI elements.

3. The agent needs the customer to clear the browser cache
Sometimes a customer returning to your website or SaaS app will have web pages cached on their machine, so they need to clear their browser cache in order to get it working properly – think stored passwords that have been updated or account settings that need to be cleared from the browser. Unfortunately, any cobrowse session will be terminated when the cache is cleared. The agent can try to relaunch a cobrowse session after the cache is cleared but depending on your application and/or call center configuration that can be tricky and disruptive for the customer and the agent.

Some of our clients experience this scenario fairly often, so we equip their agents with the ability to escalate from cobrowse to screen share. A screen share session will not be affected if the customer needs to clear the browser cache.

4. The agent needs to present something on the agent’s machine to the customer
This is my personal favorite example, and it is a common scenario for our financial services clients. Agents need to not only see what the customer is seeing in the browser, but they also need to show the customer something that is not accessible to the customer’s browser.

For instance, a customer using the online app for managing his or her financial accounts calls with a question. The agent joins the customer in the browser to solve the immediate problem. Once the problem is solved (and while the customer is perhaps experiencing a rush of satisfaction & gratitude), the agent can switch from break/fix mode to advisory sales mode. The agent escalates to screen share and shows the customer a PDF or presentation about the latest product or portfolio advice. If all goes well, the agent not only solves the problem the customer originally called about, but also closes a sale for the new product. Our financial services clients love this and tell us it increases their incremental sales to existing customers.

Once you scratch the surface, there may be many challenges your agents face each day that extend beyond the capabilities of cobrowsing. At Glance, we can help you audit your customer engagements to fully understand the different scenarios your agents face, and we can help you put together a plan and a business justification for solving them with all the powerful capabilities of an enterprise-grade visual engagement platform. To learn more, visit the Glance visual engagement platform page or request a demo.