WebRTC + CRM = Better Customer Support
Fluss agrees, noting that by offering customers the opportunity to speak to live agents without leaving their websites, companies can keep the focus on the task at hand, thus making the customer much more likely to do business with the company at a time of need. For instance, in retail, if a customer is browsing a pair of shoes on a website and decides that she wants to go beyond a text-based chat to gather additional information, she is more likely to pursue a conversation if the screen offers an audio or video pop-up option.
And a customer who learns more about the product from the agent this way will be more likely to buy, agrees Karen Hardy, vice president of product marketing and solutions at Avaya. She says that businesses using WebRTC commonly report $3 earned for every $1 spent. This is largely because the customer doesn’t have to find a number, dial it, and repeat his information; instead, he can simply contact an agent conveniently in the moment. Using Avaya’s WebRTC technology, for instance, “the business can have the context that can allow for the customer to fill out a form to describe what they’re looking for, and the agent can immediately answer their questions.” In turn, this can lead to increased sales revenue, customer loyalty, and lifetime value, Hardy says.
Minkara says that voice and video call capability should be strongly considered by organizations that need “high-touch customer interactions.” Wealth management service providers, for instance, might have high-value jet-setting clients who are largely inaccessible to their bankers. “One way to provide high-touch service is through WebRTC, where clients can speak with their representatives over video,” Minkara says. “You still get that face time [and] voice interaction, share files, and look at the same screen without having to travel all over the world.”
In another instance, video could be used by a furniture retailer to assist a confused customer trying to assemble a bookcase. If the company has an instructional video available that can explain the process, for instance, that file could be transmitted via WebRTC. In the long run, this would be cheaper than sending out field technicians, and it’s also far more convenient for the customer.
“This means that the customer is a lot more likely to be satisfied, and it is beneficial for the business because now you’re able to improve your employee utilization rate,” Minkara says.
With that technology, therefore, a hypothetical furniture company has decreased costs and customer churn, as customers are less likely to abandon the business.
Hospitality companies can also benefit from real-time, high-touch communications as they try to build trust with customers while selling high-end vacation packages, Minkara points out. WebRTC could be used, for example, to show videos of properties and the amenities available there.
Other verticals that stand to gain from WebRTC include high-tech or manufacturing, where video chat can be used to diagnose problems with equipment or consumer devices, says Stephen Fioretti, vice president of product management at Oracle Service Cloud.
According to Flynn, WebRTC could be more effective than traditional 1-800 call center methods for healthcare companies. Usually, he says, when the customer calls, the agent only sees the caller’s direct inward dialing (DID) number. Because of this, the agent and caller have to go through several verification steps, including the account number, name, Social Security number, date of birth, etc. But with WebRTC, the technology lives natively in the environment, and so the ID information is transferred to the agent. The agent can also see which page the customer was viewing when he clicked to call, which might give additional insight into how to handle the particular scenario.
Such a platform can also identify an IP address and immediately correlate that with the customer’s location information. By seeing that a call came from another country, the system can automatically route the call to an agent that speaks the language.