Global Companies Trending Toward Video Chat for Enhanced Customer Engagement

Customer EngagementMore than 100 of the 500 largest global businesses will introduce video-based chat by 2018 for customer-facing interactions as they seek to enhance their levels of customer engagement, according to a new study from Gartner.

Given the massive growth of mobile devices and marketers seeking to deliver memorable customer experiences as a key differentiating point, video chat for customer interactions is rapidly rising toward an innovation peak, the study notes.

Gartner estimates that at the start of 2015, more than 50 of the 500 largest global businesses will introduce video-based chat by 2018 for customer-facing interactions. Gartner predicts that the number will double in three years. 

“Video chat provides customers with a richer sense of presence, personalized experience by helped coordination of communication and the support of emotional expression, and the real-time sharing of content,” said Brian Manusama, research director at Gartner, in the report. “Video, enabled by increased bandwidth, has been out there in the marketplace for some years. The past year, an increased number of vendors have embarked on this trend with either point solutions or are integrated in current solution suites. This is a trend that will continue in 2015.” 

According to the survey, weak mobile customer service is harming customer engagement.

“Marketing may fill the sales funnel, and the sales department can close a deal, yet it is the overall impression of the enterprise generated by the quality of customer service that differentiates one enterprise from another,” said Michael Maoz, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “Translating this general and departmental customer engagement concept into operational components across the enterprise is transforming the definition of customer service from an isolated function into an enterprise objective delivered across all points where the customer ‘touches’ the business.”

Consider some of Gartner’s other predictions from the survey:

By 2017, one third of all customer service interactions will still require the support of a human intermediary

Automation and intelligence agents are reducing the percentage of customer support interactions that require a human to solve. However, the pace of introduction channel choice (such as sensors, virtual customer assistants, advanced search, kiosks and in-line video chat) and the focus on personalized customer experiences will require companies in most industries to retain a highly trained core of customer service professionals. Looking across industries and the world, nearly 60 percent of customer service interactions required the intervention of a human support agent in 2014. Gartner predicts that this will be cut nearly in half over the next 24 months through more radical self-service, communities, alerts and mobile devices. 

“Businesses need to focus on what key customer experiences would benefit from customer engagement with a human,” Maoz said. “It is important to poll customers and internal stakeholders such as those in marketing, sales, customer support and inventory/shipping/billing, where the availability of a human customer support representative can mean the difference between a sale or no sale, the acceptance of an offer or its rejection, and/or a quality customer experience.”

By 2018, 5% of customer service cases will be initiated by internet-connected devices, up from 0.02% in 2014

The installed base of “things”—excluding PCs, tablets and smartphones—will grow to 26 billion units in 2020. By this time, a home could have more than 500 smart objects collaborating in a personal Internet of Things (IoT). As things, places, people and systems become increasingly connected, the ability to monitor operations, statuses, service levels and many other metrics become possible. The added connectivity, communications and intelligence of things make many of them agents for services that are currently requested and delivered through people. 

“The explosive growth of the IoT and associated use cases will bring a transformational change in the customer service space,” said Olive Huang, research director at Gartner. “A number of industries will be the front runners in this trend, such as manufacturing, health care providers, insurance, banking and securities, retail and wholesale, computing services, government, transportation, utilities, real estate and business services, agriculture and communications.”

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