Video killed the radio in 1979… Is it about to do the same to face-to-face customer contact?
Will video calls become the next channel of choice for your customers?
How quickly we have become accustomed to video meetings… As we have all adapted, both in a work setting and within our personal lives, where many were once awkward about “being seen” during phone calls, the next normal has struck again and this is now a part of daily life. So, how long will it be before the customer expects to be able to replace physical appointments, or ordinary calls, with a video call to your business? We put that question to our CTO Richard Billington.
Can video calls enhance CX?
It is relatively easy to imagine a number of B2B and B2C situations where this might become a regular reality. How about a face to face chat with the solicitor who is handling your house purchase, without the need for either of you to stop working and sit down in a meeting room, they can access details at their fingertips to answer your questions and handle the call quickly. The same applies to almost every consultative business relationship – including Accountants, recruitment consultants and even your GP.
Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have already made this a reality, offering video consultations with ‘Attend Anywhere’. And it’s a really positive step towards improving patient access and reducing costs.
Video calls offer greater communication and understanding than a phone call but less time taken than a physical meeting.
How about fault diagnosis on every electrical appliance in your home, from your boiler to your TV? The ability for the person on the end of the phone to see what you can see, might save valuable engineer visits, by ensuring the right person with the right parts is sent to fix the problem. The contact centre may even be able to help the customer resolve the issue in some cases saving engineer time altogether. The same applies to building inspections and costly repeat visits can greatly add to the expense and completion time of each project.
Incorporating this channel can be useful in delivering great customer experience and a competitive advantage over rivals. But it can also offer significant time (and therefore cost) savings to the running of the business.
Introducing the video call widget
So, it was a natural decision for us to make video calls an easy-to-implement widget to use directly within your Liberty Create apps.
Face-to-face video calls can now be added to any Create app using the Video Widget. It provides everything you need to easily facilitate meetings with customers, citizens, patients, colleagues, brokers, partners or any other remote constituency.
This means that you can implement video calls directly from a button on the screen or they can be scheduled using the existing Calendar or Bookings widgets. And, waiting rooms can be created to manage people queuing if you’d like to operate a video appointment system.
The Video Widget provides a familiar, easy-to-use interface that automatically resizes to accommodate up to 16 participants who can share video desktops and up to 8 participants on mobile (or up to 250 participants in an online meeting when not using video).
How does it work?
The Create platform handles security, ensuring that once a user has logged on, meetings are securely managed within the existing app interface. You no longer have to email external video meeting links.
The Video Widget uses Amazon Chime video technology. Call pricing is based on a per-minute charge billed through your existing Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Netcall account.
So, how long will it be before the customer expects to be able to replace physical appointments, or ordinary calls, with a video call to your business? We think that time has come. It is already happening. We’re excited to see the uses you put the Video Widget to in your Create apps.
The Video Widget for Liberty Create is available for download now. To use it you need to be running Liberty Create v2020.1. Download from the Netcall Community AppShare. Further details on how to download, install and use the Video Widget in your Create apps are available in the Release Notes.
Learn more here.
.
Richard Billington
Chief Technology Officer
Richard is our resident sports nut. Having played football and volleyball at a semi-professional level, he now coaches his son’s football team (the mighty Bromham Under 11s), and will happily watch any sport that’s going on TV – except motorsports.
In the rare moments Richard isn’t doing/watching/coaching sport, he loves to settle down with a romcom and a nice glass of red, and regularly hits the music festival circuit. Whether it’s Adele, Stormzy or The Cure, if it’s live, he’s up for it!
