A study conducted by Corporate Executive Board (CEB Inc) of more than 7,500 customers revealed that a company exceeding expectations during service interactions has negligible impact on customer loyalty; instead, reducing the struggle of a distressed customer produces loyalty. As the report said, contact centers will get more by “Helping them solve their problems quickly and easily - not by delighting them in service interactions.” And if there is one technology that can make that possible today without any added complications, it is WebRTC.
The way people communication has forever changed, and nowhere is it more noticeable as when they are trying to contact a company. Some of the data points that prove this fact are: Synthetix, said 90 percent of consumers will always check a website before emailing or calling a company; Ovum reported 25 percent of consumers use one to two channels when seeking customer care, and 52 percent used three or four channels; Forrester (News - Alert) said 63 percent of online consumers will likely return to a website that offers live chat; and last but definitely not least, Harris Interactive said 79 percent of customers that had a bad experience when dealing with a company told others about it.
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) addresses the simplicity of customer interaction because it is a lightweight voice and video service that can be implemented into HTML 5 browsers so a conversation initiated on the Internet can be normalized on both ends. That means no plugins, propriety software or hardware, just a web enabled device.
In an article written by Tsahi Levent-Levi on networkworld.com, he points out four ways WebRTC will be used by contact centers in 2016. As he predicts: callers will use WebRTC from a website; agent will use WebRTC to receive a call; call surfers will be targeted via analytics; and calls will be made via self-service applications with a WebRTC dial option.
The ease in which WebRTC can be integrated with virtually every application has led companies across all sectors to deploy the technology to improve their customer interaction capability with low cost and high returns.
According to Slava Zhakov, CTO, Genesys (News - Alert) Labs, “WebRTC is one of the most disruptive internet technologies for the contact center we’ve seen in years”
The consensus from many different research is, consumers want to get in touch with customer support with the simplest technology and get their issues solved as quickly as possible. And if a company is not doing that, almost eight out of ten of them or 79 percent will tell the world about it if the experience is negative.
With WebRTC, website visitors can initiate a multi-channel communication in real-time with voice, video or text.
Edited by Kyle Piscioniere