For businesses that refuse to focus on customer experience as a differentiator, customer loyalty is at an all-time low. Any enterprise that does not understand the importance of a quality customer experience will probably have a very small pool of loyal customers.
Customer service is one of the greatest influencers of customer loyalty. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, 74% of millennials will switch to a different retailer if their current pick demonstrates poor customer service.
Even with good customer service, customers may still find live chat and bots lacking in some areas. In order to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction, top enterprises are hard at work trying to improve their online customer experience.
Visual engagement is a new trend that businesses are implementing to make their customer service stronger. Real-time solutions are a must, regardless of industry. Visual engagement platforms allow for CSRs to guide customers through tricky situations on a company’s website in real-time.
What Is Visual Engagement?
Visual engagement is the process of communicating with customers through the use of one-way agent video or face-to-face video conferencing, screen sharing, or CoBrowsing.
This form of engagement empowers customers to seek out real-time solutions to problems or inquiries that require immediate assistance. Visual engagement is especially helpful for customers who need help with troubleshooting software problems, questions about transactions, or any other complex problems that need an experienced professional.
With faster agent responses, visual engagement improves customer service, and leads to an improved chance of converting potential buyers into loyal customers. While live chat, audio chat, and bots are all great ways to communicate with customers, utilizing this platforms can improve the quality of interactions between the customer and agent.
Visual engagement can also add more personalization to customer service interactions. Since adding a video component allows you to pick up on nonverbal cues, like tone and body language. It also allows an agent to be more empathic toward the customer.
Visual Engagement and Customer Loyalty
The ability to provide positive customer experiences through quality customer service is one way to drive customer loyalty to a business. By adding visual engagement platforms to your customer service efforts, you can gain an edge over your competitors.
According to a paper published by Forrester Research, Visual Engagement Drives Relationships and Revenue For Customer Service, the benefits of visual engagement include:
- Better understanding between customers and agents during interactions
- Ability to connect more emotionally between customer and agent
- Improving first call resolutions
- Reducing potentially frustrating and stressful situations
- Overall improvement in customer engagement metrics
Because visual engagement can provide more immediate assistance, it can also reduce support calls. According to Flavio Martins of Digicert, Inc., 34% of callers who hang up never bother calling back again. This can be an early (or immediate) sign of customer churn. Customers usually hang up because the agent takes too long to respond (due to a large volume of calls) or out of frustration brought on by not reaching a solution to their problem in a reasonable amount of time.
Visual engagement is also a great way to build trust and credibility. Allowing customers to see more of the company through visual communications can give them the reassurance to build trust.
Is Visual Engagement is the Key to Customer Loyalty?
Now that you’re aware of the many benefits of visual engagement when it comes to customer loyalty, it is time to step up your game. Why stick to just telling customers what they should do when you can tell them and show them at the same time?
Learn more about CoBrowsing and request a demo to understand how it might work in your organization.
