Introduction
CRM or Customer Relationship Management is the art of providing high quality customer services to your clients and offer a unique experience throughout their entire journey. With video interactions you can accelerate the CRM experience by perfectly simulating the real-life customer service experience and this post mentions the major benefits of video interactions for CRM.
Main Article
CRM or customer relationship management is a critical element for any business that wants to enjoy sustainable growth in the market. One of the major concerns of businesses is how to deliver the real-life interaction experience to the customers when communicating with them on different devices.
Video interactions seem to be the perfect candidates to solve this challenge. In this post, we will discuss the different advantages of using video interactions in your CRM strategy
With the ever-evolving network connections, video calling has also registered huge growth. It recreates the experience of face-to-face conversation and equips brands and executives with more capabilities to convey their message to the clients, like body language, facial expressions, gestures, and above all the live product demonstrations in real-time. In that capability, it acts as a reliable trust-building component for fortifying customer communications.
As an interactive model, video interactions can help you redefine your customer relationship management in more ways than you think. Here are a few major benefits of video interactions for businesses of different sizes:
Extending in-shop experience to digital mediums
Many times it happens with us that when we are about to leave a shop, after buying what we needed, some item catches our attention and makes us exclaim “Oh, that’s the exact silicone scrubber I needed for the kitchen” or “This is the horizontal phone holder I wanted to watch Netflix movies- hands-free!” ….but we are short of time and money to take a closer look or shop the product.
Wouldn’t it be great … for you and the vendor, if you can later be able to closely inspect the item online, weigh the price and value, try bargaining and finally take an informed purchase decision? This way a customer won’t miss buying something important and shops won’t lose a good lead.
With video calling it has now become possible to interact through live webchat with customer executives and have a closer, view of your desired item in real-time. It offers you a similar experience that you can expect during in-shop purchases- you can see in real-time how convenient it is to use the scrubber or whether it is suitable for washing utensils with tricky angles. While not too many shops of all sizes have adopted it, the prospects look bright.
It enables the executives to provide a detailed, real-time overview of any product, show it “in-action” and also provide personalized advice or suggest better recommendations.
Video calling makes customers feel empowered as they can conveniently extend their shopping experience beyond the shop floor and transfer it to their preferred time, device and place. It enhances brand interactions and in the end, the customer feels more satisfied.
Taking Multichannel experience beyond the conventional model
Multichannel communication allows brands and customers to conveniently switch the communication through different devices like email, phone, social media, apps, etc. It helps them to transcend the limitation of the device or medium. However, it can also get tricky to continue the same thread of conversation on two entirely different channels without losing/repeating the (same) track. For instance, resuming the last email communication on a Facebook messenger and later carrying it on to a mobile messaging app. This challenge is solved by Omnichannel which has all the goodness of multichannel plus an additional capability to seamlessly integrate different communication channels to give you a unified overview of your customer interactions.
To naturally add the video calling into the customer interactions you need to proactively take the first step. Instead of just a text description of your product, it is best to add video product demos on your site as well. Likewise, you can also post video instructions on how to use your products or show their functional capabilities in real-life instances. It conveys a message to your potential and existing customers that you are open to video interactions. The personalized real-time video interactions build a good familiarity with the shoppers/clients. This familiarity makes it easier to create a distinct brand identity among the targeted audiences. Research also whose that video interactions multiply the chances of turning walk-in customers into regular clientele.>>
Unifying the communication across different channels
Things are fast evolving and brands now prefer unifying the communication by adopting a model where the same communication session can be continued across different platforms and devices. Communication that started on a laptop through web chat can be continued on a mobile app if the client needs to commute somewhere in the middle of that interaction. Or it can be archived and resumed through email later.
By adopting video calling, the same omnichannel experience can further be accelerated by adding a real-life interaction familiarity. While the general queries can be answered through chat, the more specific queries can be transferred to voice interaction while the queries involving the looks and visual features or usage directions can be transferred to video calling. So, you have the choice to switch to the most relevant interaction format for responding to the customers’ queries in the most efficient manner.
It distinguishes your brand from other enterprises while also increasing the personalized views of your brand and the purpose-specific brand visibility which adds to its recall value.
Multiplying the capabilities of customer executives
With video calling the communication can easily be personalized. Especially for the retail sector and physical products, it can bring a breakthrough change in their customer service interactions. The customer executives can take better benefit of this opportunity by first mapping the customers’ journey, intent, and interaction behavior before communicating with them on the video call. With the personalized interaction session delivered through real-life technology (video calling), the support executives would be in a better position to leave a positive impression on the customers.
One thing to keep in mind is that adding video calling into your customer relationship strategy is not just about integrating technology. You also need to invest in staff training. You need to impart adequate training including body language, eye contact, presentation skills, and picking the visual cues from observing customers’ expressions. You may even go a step further and show your commitment inclusively by providing them sign language training as well- for people with relevant vocal/hearing challenges.
From conventional CRM to Proactive CRM with video
CRM is an integral part of any business. However, the current trend is to outperform the “conventional” which means that Proactive CRM can multiply the advantages of conventional CRM technologies. Proactive CRM focuses on resolving not only the existing challenges but also the potential future challenges of your clients. With video interactions, you can take the proactive CRM approach to the next level. For instance, you can post “product demo videos” and real-life executives/ CEO talking about their product’s features in the video. You can use such videos on both digital stores and brick-and-mortar shops to gently push your message and make the customers conscious about the ultimate value potential of your products. You can also create videos to show customers the right way to use their products to enjoy their maximum potential. All these things convey a message that how committed you are- not only to your existing customers but the entire community of the audiences that are likely to shop your products.
