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Visual Customer Support: Revolution in Customer Service: №1
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Visual Customer Support: Revolution in Customer Service

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The greatest power of customer support is the ability to change a frustrated customer's opinion of your brand, remedy a situation, and build a stronger bond with your company. To make this real, you must remember that 45% of customers expect to solve their problems during the first conversation with the support team. Visual customer support can raise the understanding of the issue to a new level and increase the chance of first-contact resolution. 

Today, we want to introduce you to the future of support services and show how visual assistance can make a difference and greatly improve the team's efficiency. You will find its benefits, see the main use cases, and discover how to start.

How visual customer support improves efficiency

Our experts have been applying the best customer support practices for many years while working as a BPO provider. Seeing an issue is much faster than deciphering the customer's attempts to describe the problem. Frustration, stress, lack of time, and knowledge make it difficult for common users to express where exactly something goes wrong. Visual means can be a great help during explanation and a solution that will speed up the process. It's better to see it once.

Images and videos can enhance agents in the following ways:

  • Seeing a problem, a customer support agent can diagnose it in seconds, saving time and energy for both clients and the team.
  • Agents can provide clear, step-by-step guidance by exchanging video files or online broadcasts, significantly simplifying troubleshooting.
  • When agents see a picture or a video with an issue, there is no need for additional explanation. It reduces the chance of escalation and callbacks.

Key benefits of visual customer support

Visual support can provide many benefits, and here are some of them based on our observations:

  • Video support can ensure up to 50% reduction in resolution times.
  • Video guidance leads to fewer misunderstandings, escalations, and site visits.
  • Customers get higher satisfaction with minimal effort.
  • Agents can potentially experience less pressure and lower workloads.

Real-time vs. asynchronous visual support: What works best?

Visual Customer Support: Revolution in Customer Service: №1

Visual support is available in two forms: real-time and asynchronous. Let's examine each type and see where it will perform best. 

Real-time video support

Live visual assistance is very similar to usual video conversations through messengers. Customers have a call with a support agent and get assistance with interactive visual troubleshooting during a real-time video session. Both sides can demonstrate video, making the issue-solving process easier and faster. This form of collaboration enables quick problem diagnostics and resolution, making real-time support a perfect option for urgent cases.

Benefits of real-time video calls:

  • Customers get instant feedback
  • Face-to-face interactions enable higher engagement
  • Agents can guide you through complex troubleshooting
  • Special attention for high-value customers

Visual customer support via asynchronous video

Asynchronous video assistance means customers exchange recorded video clips with support agents without live interaction. Recordings can be added to emails or shared via chats, messages, customer support forms, or links. Customers capture a video showing a problem and send it at any convenient time. Support agents check the footage and respond with information on further steps.

The asynchronous approach reduces time and agent workloads, as customers will not have to wait for an instant reply; they can just leave their message and wait for support to get back to them as soon as possible. In AI call centers, artificial intelligence can analyze such attachments, transcribe them automatically, summarize them, and detect issues. For example, AI-powered chatbots for customer support can accept files and offer assistance or transfer requests to agents once they become available.

This approach works best with non-urgent cases and situations requiring evidence, such as hardware malfunctioning or damaged products.

Benefits of asynchronous visual support:

  • Independence on the service center schedule
  • Convenience
  • Lower number of queries and queue pressure
  • Reduced workloads for agents

How AI enhances video support

By harnessing artificial intelligence, customer support teams can bring visual assistance to a new quality level and resonate deeply with user expectations. Image recognition, computer vision, and solutions for augmented reality allow for creating precise, information-filled troubleshooting guides that will help users feel more confident during self-service.

AI-powered chatbots can: 

  • Automatically analyze received files 
  • Suggest ways to solve the problem 
  • Apply smart routing, sending the request to the relevant department 

In addition, AI solutions can analyze customer sentiment and make cases with frustrated customers a team's priority. Automatic detection of issues and defects can identify the problem and inform agents about a situation before they get started.

With an integrated knowledge base, AI can guide users to relevant articles, helping them find solutions without the agent's direct assistance.

Ready to bring the era of visual customer support to your company? Book a consultation and get seamless integration from an experienced service provider. 

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Visual Customer Support: Revolution in Customer Service: №2

The role of outsourcing in implementing visual customer support

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is an accessible way to elevate customer experience with visual support. Collaboration with a BPO partner means a company hires a third-party company to provide a full scope of customer support services, including video support. So, what makes this approach so good for visual assistance?

Scalability

Outsourcing allows the scaling of visual support capabilities without the high cost of hiring or training in-house staff. With on-demand capacity, businesses can apply a flexible staffing model, scaling the teams only when required and adapting to changing call volumes. Many BPOs work globally, and extra team members can be found according to specific requirements like language, location, time zones, set of skills, etc.

Expertise

Visual intelligence in customer support requires certain preparation and tools, which BPO providers can offer at reasonable costs. For instance, agents with specialized training can apply co-browsing and remote diagnostics. Dedicated teams trained in visual communication and troubleshooting can address issues faster, more accurately, and more efficiently. Visual communication also raises personalization and empathy during the customer support process. 

Technology integration

One of the biggest difficulties in implementing visual intelligence in customer support is the complexity of technology. So, instead of overloading in-house teams, businesses can rely on BPOs to deploy, manage, update, and ensure the security of the technology. Experience in the area allows outsourcing providers to tailor visual support workflows to match a company's existing processes.

Industry use cases: Where visual support makes the biggest impact

Visual Customer Support: Revolution in Customer Service: №3

Visual intelligence in customer support can become a game-changer for many industries, so let's see how exactly it can help and what kind of assistance it can offer.

E-commerce

Visual assistance can greatly help during product assembly guidance, especially for complex procedures. Customer support agents can verify damaged and defective goods through video calls, enabling faster return or refund processing.

Tech & SaaS

Live troubleshooting is a lifesaver when a customer lacks knowledge and struggles to fix issues. It simplifies the process and enables onboarding assistance. Video support also makes bug reporting more efficient.

Telecom & Utilities

In these two industries, visual support can help to check connectivity issues. If customers struggle with hardware or software setup, visual instructions can also help to make the process faster and less painful.

Insurance

The insurance industry heavily relies on evidence, and video is the simplest way to provide everything required to validate the claim. Customers can access the service right after an accident, saving time and resources.

Home repairs

Customers often face situations where they don't have time to wait until a service representative comes. Video tutorials can help people fix issues themselves. AI-powered visual tools can also diagnose faults faster and guide to a solution.

Automotive

Remote diagnostics and inspections via video conversations can serve as effective preparation before service appointments. Service agents will be able to analyze the problem and evaluate the work that needs to be done. 

Getting started with visual customer support

Visual Customer Support: Revolution in Customer Service: №4

If you have decided that visual support is exactly what your customer service needs, the next step is to integrate it into your existing workflows. To make your start easier, we have prepared a short guide on taking the first steps to implementing visual assistance.

Step 1. Identify key areas

First, you must create a course: what you want to achieve with this new implementation, which areas it will impact most, and where it will be useful. Checking the common reasons for calls, feedback about confusing instructions, and cases with high-resolution time can help identify problematic points. 

Visual support, including images and video files, can assist with product identification, step-by-step guidance for troubleshooting, remote diagnostics, recommendations for assembly, etc.

Step 2. Choose between real-time and asynchronous approach

As mentioned above, both visual support options can empower support services, and the choice generally depends on what exactly customers of a specific business require.

Real-time assistance works best with urgent and complex cases when a support agent needs to guide a customer through the procedure. The asynchronous type, meanwhile, is more suitable for cases when flexibility is above urgency.

To make a decision, we recommend considering the following factors:

  1. What is your usual support team's availability? 
  2. Can issues wait for a reply, or do they require instant help?

Step 3. Explore AI feature providers

We recommend looking for service providers familiar with artificial intelligence who can leverage all advantages for high-quality customer service. In particular, Simply Contact offers consultations on augmenting services with visual intelligence, including AI-powered support.

Step 4. Work with an outsourcing partner on visual support integration

If an in-house team does not have expertise in video support or the capacity to realize it, BPO providers with relevant specialization can be the best choice. We recommend paying attention to potential partners with experience in your industry and a reliable reputation. 

An outsourcing partner can help to arrange seamless integration, provide technology setup, and adjust video support tools and customer portals. A dedicated team of pre-trained agents will be able to use all visual solutions with higher efficiency and productivity. 

Conclusions

Visual intelligence in customer support is a magic wand when customers struggle to explain their issues. It strengthens the support team's and users' understanding, making instructions simpler, more obvious, and helpful. Video support empowers step-by-step guides and troubleshooting, reducing the chance of mistakes, and makes customers feel special with personalized attention from your service team. Enhanced with AI-powered solutions, visual customer support can greatly reduce waiting time, improve first contact resolution rates, and increase customer satisfaction.

Ready to transform your customer experience?

At Simply Contact, we specialize in creating personalized customer support solutions that drive business growth and customer satisfaction. Let us help you elevate your customer experience and stand out from the competition.

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