It’s 2019: Your customers are going to expect immediate communication and results. At one time, sure, this seemed like a lot to ask for. But when you can order tacos for the entire office with your phone, get a vibration in your pocket every time news breaks or even find a date by swiping on your phone, why shouldn’t companies pay attention to the value that expedited response times can bring to the business?
Perhaps the moment customers most expect immediacy is when they require support for a technical issue. When a customer has invested in your product, it can be remarkably frustrating when they’re not getting the results they had hoped for. Being bogged down by bugs and issues can quickly ruin a product experience.
Many think of sales and support in a bifurcated manner, but they essentially work in a loop to build and maintain customer relationships. A complementary support staff helps to retain sales and build company reputation, while the sales team steers the ship ahead.
The added value that video delivers allows support teams to operate at a reduced scale while providing shorter wait times and creating results-driven support that customers will appreciate. Not only that, it will keep support teams satisfied by not putting them in a position where they’re reiterating the same bits of technical advice 40 hours a week.
Video can mean more than tutorials; it can set the scenery and make customers feel as though a support team member is right there in the room with them, guiding them through the troubleshooting process. The following are some ideas to incorporate video into your support team’s repertoire.
Video Transcripts Reduce the Need for Repeat Calls
The typical worker forgets nearly half of what they learn in a training session within 30 minutes, so it should probably be understood that your customers will forget a great deal of the tech conversation they just had as soon as they hang up the phone. Support teams get tired of answering the same questions. Customers feel embarrassed to ask the same questions. Relationships erode, contracts go unrenewed. You get the picture.
An excellent service to avoid this awkward routine is recording and distributing video transcripts. You can reroute sales calls through video methods, using software-specific solutions like a VCMS (video content management system) or seek out web-based methods. The aim is to support the video call for the customer, then deliver it back to them and even transcribe what was said to be read as a sort of CliffsNotes to revisit when needed. Customers will be thrilled to receive a follow-up email with access to this archived response. It’s a really novel concept that can come in handy in a variety of ways. Moreover, you’ve just given your customers another positive way to view your company and return when new products and questions arise.
Screen Recordings Save Staff Time
Software support doesn’t necessarily lend itself to everyday conversation. Tech support and customers often seem to be speaking two completely different languages. If someone is in need of troubleshooting, chances are they’re not that well-versed in the technology and may not understand the terminology you’re using.
Screen recording can save your staff considerable time explaining technical terms and describing pull-down tabs and menus. The whole point of screen recording is to give clients an actual look into the process that they’ll need to recreate, guiding them through example rather than hypotheticals.
Include Support Videos in Your Online Knowledge Base
Digital archives are increasingly becoming the standard in solutions-based industries. At first glance, they seem like they’d require incredible amounts of time and resources to set up. You might be surprised to find that this isn’t really the case at all, particularly when you subtract time that would otherwise be spent answering repetitive inquiries.
Digital archives can include how-to’s for products, introductions to getting started with new products, FAQ-type video sources, recorded video conferences and deep dives on how to make the most of your product or service. You’ll find that once you get in the habit of recording everything that may be of use, you’ll have hours of archived footage that you can easily edit and upload in a flash.
Content can be hosted on your website via video software or a third-party source. Many platforms will make your knowledge base a more interactive experience, with additional search and sort functions, the tools necessary to catalog content into learning modules, or the option to search by content directly within the audio of your videos.
The extent of which you make video a key part of your customer interaction can present how forward-thinking your company truly is. Honestly, it’s an incredibly user-friendly method of cutting down on costs, increasing customer satisfaction and presenting your company in a current light. A little bit of time learning the ins-and-outs of video editing and sharing can go a long a way.