Want to know how important video customer support is?
Ever been in the process of using a product and gotten stuck halfway? Maybe it’s an air fryer with many buttons you don’t understand, or your iPhone doesn't screenshot anymore, or the new CRM tool your company’s trying out.
In these cases, your first instinct was likely to Google a solution, maybe you’ll find a tutorial to help. And in most cases you did! You found a support video from the company or an expert that helped you diagnose your problems and get a solution or plan to fix them, immediately.
You didn’t have to wait on long call lines to speak with a customer service rep. With the help of video support or a tutorial, you were able to solve your issues and continue with your day.
At Loom, over one-third of our customer conversations include a Loom video link. Why? Because showing is a far richer experience than telling.
Replying to a support inquiry with a video shows the user exactly what you mean in a clear, personal, and — most importantly — scalable way. In the same way, when a customer sends a video to demonstrate an issue, we resolve the issue faster, which creates a better customer experience.
That’s how beneficial video customer support is. They help your customers solve their problems in real-time quickly so they can continue using your product. They’re a great tool you need to be using, especially today when customers demand and expect quick and hassle-free support. And in this blog post, you’ll learn all about them.
Let’s begin!
Why Your Customer Support Needs Video
Videos for customer support aren’t just one-way things. The way you're expected to have a knowledge base of these support video content is the same way you can encourage customers to send video reports of their issues.
Here are the 4 major reasons to include video in your customer supportworkflow and improve overall customer and agent happiness:
1. Video speeds up response time
When a customer includes a video to accompany their support ticket, we can quickly identify the root issue and provide a faster solution.
A recording of the issue removes the need for endless back-and-forth and avoids the antiquated support experience of combing through a string of screenshots and a wall of text documenting the bug.
We know it’s not always easy to describe a technical issue in writing; it’s a time suck for the customer at a moment where they’re frustrated with the product. Asking them to send us a video showing us the issue means we can offer troubleshooting steps right away, leading to faster response time.
At Loom, customers who submit support requests with a video detailing the issue wait 30% less time for resolution — and the issues are more often solved on the first reply. With video documentation of the issue, a support agent can see exactly what is going wrong and can provide assistance faster.
Our ”Contact Support” form includes a field to add a video link so our customers can show us the issue they see.
2. Video reduces miscommunication
Being able to see what the customer is seeing makes a huge difference. The power of asking, “Can you record a quick Loom video to show us this behavior?” can immediately turn around a frustrating customer experience (and subsequent bad CSAT).
The nature of a screen recording allows us to quickly understand what’s going on, what platform they’re using, and how they got to this place. This same customer video also proves helpful when escalating the ticket to our Engineering team so they can see the bug in action.
3. Video enables more personalized support
The ability to read your customer is key in providing best-in-class support.
Although we can always get useful customer information (such as past conversations or which browser or app version they’re using) from Zendesk or Intercom, a video gives us a whole new level of customer insight. When you can see what the customer sees, you’re empowered to understand the intricacies of their setup or issue — and in turn, provide a more personalized response.
Video — much more than text — provides a unique window into the customer’s current state, level of frustration, technical literacy, and personality. That level of understanding mitigates the real risk here: Misreading your customer can mean losing them due to miscommunication.
As one of our Customer Support Representatives, Jaclyn Thompson, always says: “You gotta match and mirror.” If you’re helping a software engineer, of course, your troubleshooting steps and language will differ from if you’re helping a teacher who has recently transitioned to online learning.
4. Video increases your Customer Support team’s ability to do their jobs well
Anyone who works in Support knows it can be a grind, and as much as you care, you can burn out. Knowing the product you support is mission-critical for anyone working in customer support. That’s why we focus on empowering our support agents with the correct tools — including Loom, of course.
Baking video into your contact flow lets your team members be better at their jobs. Video communication arms them with more context into the customers’ issues to help them resolve the issues faster and forge real connections with the customers.
Plus, sending and receiving looms is delightful and leads to a better customer and employee experience overall — video has a “wow” factor that’s palpable in the responses we receive when we send looms in our support conversations.
How to use Videos for Customer Support
There are several use cases for where you can use video to replace chat support thereby improving customer satisfaction and reducing the workload on your customer service team.
These are some of them:
Use Case #1: Product Education
According to research, 72% of customers prefer to learn about a product through video. This means rather than having back-and-forth chats with service agents, your users would prefer a self-service method where they learn by themselves.
Training videos/tutorials should be included in your knowledge base as a way to show customers how to use your product and its features. As well as provide them with answers to their FAQs. These could also be repurposed to be used as topics to cover in your webinars.
Examples of this are step-by-step and how-to explainer videos that guide people on how to complete a task with your product. Like this one on how to trim a Loom video
Use Case #2: Customer Onboarding
Onboarding is a very sensitive part of the customer journey. You want this to go as smoothly and quickly as possible so new customers can adapt to your product easily.
Enters video support. Rather than assigning agents to follow users through their journey or leaving them to discover things on their own, you can create short microlearning videos to onboard new customers and help them get acquainted with your product and its functionalities..
Loom’s Getting Started Video Tutorials are a good example of onboarding videos.
Use Case #3: Live Video Chats for Customer Support
This is mostly useful if your product is complex, technical, or in a new market. Giving your customers access to live video support where they can interact with a support staff in real-time helps speed up problem-resolution time while also helping you build a personal connection with them.
At Loom, we also implement this by including an option for users to send in video recordings of their specific problems. A customer service rep can also respond with a video on how to fix the issue.
Use Case #4: Webinars
These are a good way to connect with a larger number of your target audience. You can use this type of video customer service to answer customers' FAQs and also show expertise in your field.
Additionally, you can record and save your webinars so they're always available for future use.
Use Case #5: Video Testimonials
Testimonials help customers learn more about a company and make the right purchase decisions. Using videos to show your work process and the results achieved with previous clients, helps prospects understand your offerings so they don't necessarily have to reach out to an agent to make their decisions.
This not only improves the customer’s experience but also increases your chances of converting more leads.
Benefits of Customer Support Videos
Customer support videos are important not just to your customers but also to you as a company. In this section, we'll look at some benefits each party stands to gain from them.
Benefits to the Customer
Benefit #1: Helps them quickly resolve their issues.
Friction points are a common part of most product experiences. That's why using videos for customer support make it easier for your customers to access help on-demand. Reducing any frustrations and wait times they may have otherwise experienced.
Benefit #2: Reduces their chances of encountering such problems again.
Research has shown that customers are better able to retain 95% of the information they get from video content, compared to other formats.
By including video in your customer support, you increase the chances of your customers retaining knowledge about your product so they don’t keep running into the same issues or calling support for help every time. Video helps them learn how to fix things on their own.
Benefit #3: Improves the customer’s experience
Customer support videos are a more engaging and quicker way for customers to get answers. By using them as a part of your support process, you increase customers’ experience with your company/product.
Whether these videos are reactive to an issue or proactive like onboarding videos, they meet the customers at the point of their needs, educate, and help them. Making their journey easier. A common factor of good customer service experience.
Benefits to the Company
Benefit #1: Reduced customer service costs
Using videos for customer support means that you won't have to spend a lot of resources and effort hiring customer service agents to help your customers. Because customers can easily access help through your videos, you reduce the cost of hiring more hands to help.
Benefit #2: Reduced workload on your customer support team
When customers can use videos to solve their issues, you significantly reduce the number of phone calls and complaints your customer service team has to deal with. Especially when these issues are mundane and repetitive. This way you free up your team to focus on only the most important things, so even they can have a good working experience and are also more productive.
Benefit #3: Increased conversion rates
The quicker customers can find the answers or solutions they need, the quicker they can make a decision and continue exploring your product. What this means is that support videos can help reduce friction points and long wait times which in turn, increase your conversion rates.
Make "show us your issue via video” your customer support mantra
At Loom, our customers are not only video-literate but video lovers — and we truly believe this can and should be the case for Customer Support teams everywhere.
Encouraging your customers to use video to show you what issues they encounter, instead of typing up issues with endless screenshots, will have a powerful impact on your Support operation. This is why we believe in the value of baking in a “show us your issue via video” mantra into your Customer Support workflow.
Try adding video to your customer-facing support ticket process, and let us know how it goes!