When it comes to customer support, we’re all so used to the idea of phones, emails, and chat support services being the primary communication channels. But with ecommerce customer service, businesses have to be a bit more creative.
Creative thinking led them to the idea of using videos to provide better customer service. Surveys show that up to 96% have started to rely more on videos when checking out products or services. That’s why it has become a staple tool in a marketer’s toolbox.
But the ecommerce customer service industry started to take advantage of this as well. Ecommerce business owners have found many ways to use videos in customer service strategies and improve satisfaction ratings by a significant amount.
Different Uses of Videos in Ecommerce Customer Service
In ecommerce, you’ll see tons of brands use videos for their websites, social media channels, and content marketing campaigns. So far, only a handful of call center support services providers have started utilizing it specifically for customer service. But the rest of the industry is surely catching up.
The use of videos in improving customer experience is just becoming more prominent. The short list below is not exhaustive; it lists some examples of how businesses integrated video into their ecommerce customer service strategies.
Video Knowledge Base
Although most phone and chat support services are available 24/7, 68% of people still prefer watching video instructions rather than contacting customer support. Compared to a written knowledge base, people find videos easier to digest and more engaging than a written knowledge base.
Take advantage of this by creating a video knowledge base that answers common customer questions and shows troubleshooting steps and resolutions to common issues.
Product Video
90% of potential customers find videos helpful when deciding to make purchases. Creating product videos provides people with bite-sized, informative videos that can help them be familiar with your product or service. Thus, helping convert them into customers easier.
Interactive Service Video
With the help of the latest technology, viewers can now interact with video content just like web content – they can click, drag, scroll, hover, and perform other digital actions. Interactivity encourages people to engage with the content more and gamifies the process of learning about the product/service or instructions in the video.
Interactive videos allow a more convenient customer experience by letting them take the lead in navigating the available information. It encourages self-service and empowers your customers as they are more involved in troubleshooting or researching their purchases.
Video Customer Support
Video calls are much easier to use nowadays and have a less detached feel than phone or chat support service since you can see the person you’re talking to. The ability to see and understand the customer’s facial expressions and body language allows customer service professionals to empathize and build rapport with them.
Aside from live video chats, you can also create premade videos for different use cases, like email or chat templates and call scripts.
Customer Onboarding Video
Great customer onboarding videos help retain customers. Onboarding customers means educating them about the use cases and features of your product/service. This enables them to maximize their purchase and enjoy it more, thus giving them a good customer experience. It can lead to them becoming ambassadors for your brand.
Webinars or Virtual Workshops
Some companies have taken a proactive approach to serving their customers. Webinars that demonstrate the full capacity of your products or take a deep dive at how your services work can improve the customer’s experience with your brand.
You can even use an online workshop to answer common misconceptions or inquiries about your products or services. It shows that you are in tune with your customer base and always ready to assist them.
Beyond customer-facing videos, you can also improve your own customer service team’s expertise through instructional videos. There are endless applications of video in customer service aside from the ones mentioned above.
You can use the items on the list as a starting point to figure out which ones work best for your brand, and you’re already halfway to improving your customer satisfaction.
Why is Video Important in Ecommerce Customer Service?
As seen above, video has so many uses in providing good customer service. Call center support services providers are also starting to include video customer support in their service offers. The benefits it brings are undoubtedly worth it.
- Videos provide quicker and more straightforward explanations of product or service features. This can help deflect support tickets as it gives your customers the tools to troubleshoot independently. It also gives them a more thorough understanding of how the product works.
- Though phone calls can also allow customer service representatives to explain thoroughly, video calls will enable them to connect with customers better personally. They can provide more attentive care and make the whole support process more straightforward and a better experience.
- Customers find videos to be more engaging and delightful than texts and images. Many of them are actually more encouraged to purchase after viewing a video about products or services. So when you incorporate it into customer-facing materials, it can improve the overall customer experience, leading to higher conversion and retention rates.
- Videos are easily shareable across the internet. Once your brand’s product videos or video FAQ are shared with a customer, they can easily share them with a peer as well. This makes your videos more accessible to a broader audience and increases awareness of your product or service.
- Using video calls to handle customer inquiries and issues is more manageable and simpler. This means shorter calls, fewer tickets coming in, and shorter customer wait-time if they do contact customer service.
As the industry explores the use of video for customer support, more uses will come up, and many new benefits will be discovered. And as of now, videos are on track to become a powerful customer service tool to help gain higher satisfaction ratings.
So How Does It Actually Improve Customer Satisfaction?
Ecommerce customer service is all about ensuring high customer satisfaction. The goal is the same, whether through phone calls, emails, or chat support services — to provide a highly satisfying customer experience.
People spend a third of their time online just watching videos. That just indicates how much people enjoy videos in general. So by using video customer support, FAQs, or even interactive product videos, they will have an enjoyable experience as they learn about your brand and what you do.
Conclusion
Improving customer satisfaction by more than 50% isn’t an easy thing to do. But incorporating video customer support into your strategy can undoubtedly increase customer satisfaction. More than that, it also positively impacts your customer service team as it can have a side effect of less workload on them.
It may seem complicated to alter your customer service strategy and add video content into the mix, but if you’ve already taken your business digital, you’re already halfway there. Surely, you have videos on your website or social media that adds value to your content. That’s a start!
Providing customer service that will impact your customers positively doesn’t just boil down to using videos for everything. But it sure does make it easier to provide excellent customer support.