Why Your Business Needs Online Video Chat

More than 30% of Americans use online video chat to communicate with brands and service providers. These numbers are expected to increase as the number of people who work from home increases. Consequently, if your business has not implemented online video chatting, you might be losing out on the opportunity to interact with your customers and, thus, revenue.

If you want to be a brand known for customer service and responsiveness, you’ll need a live answering service that most closely mimics a physical encounter. A video chat is the closest thing we have to physical, eyeball-to-eyeball interaction. 

A reliable video chat service can help your business tip the customer service scale — and set you apart as a brand that cares, listens, and acts.

Here are more reasons why your business needs an online video chat.

 

What is an Online Video Chat Service?

An online video chat is an online, face-to-face communication service that enables your business to engage in real-time with various business stakeholders using dedicated software and a webcam.

Video chat is also known as video calling or video conferencing.

The workforce dynamic has been changing, with more people working from home full-time while others have a hybrid structure, partially working from home when not at the office.

However they’re working, remote and hybrid employees need to connect face-to-face to collaborate on projects efficiently – or hold video meetings. Video chat allows employees to collaborate with a near-physical feeling.

While customers are the primary stakeholders in any business, an online video chat service can facilitate face-to-face communication with your suppliers, business partners, etc. 

For reliable video chat communication, you need a stable and dependable communications platform that offers video chat functionality with enterprise phone features. You don’t want a service that’s unstable or even unavailable when you need it.

Tools that make video chat services possible include cameras and microphones. Today, these tools come built into devices like computers and smartphones and do not require any separate installation.

 

How Online Video Chat Can Benefit Your Business

Video calling has come full circle as businesses have gradually accepted and appreciated the many benefits of online video chats. 

According to McKinsey, video and live chats have become the most preferred channels of engaging B2B customers.

So, what are these many business benefits that have inspired and are inspiring the sharp uptake of online video chat services in the market?

 

Online Video Chats Enhance a Positive Customer Experience 

Video chats enhance customer engagement with your service agents. Unlike other channels, they humanize the online customer experience and provide the needed personal touch for your online customers.

While face-to-face communication in business is irreplaceable, we can simulate that using video chat. This can help build trust and rapport for your business.

Customers can connect with the agents in real-time and get answers to their queries quickly.

According to Microsoft, 21% of customers said the inability to reach a live customer support agent is the most frustrating part of a poor customer service experience.

Indeed, businesses that prioritize the customer experience see an 80% increase in revenue. 

Online video chat makes conversations with your customers personalized and interactive for an optimal customer experience. Consequently, you’ll improve customer satisfaction, improve brand credibility, and increase customer loyalty.

 

Online Video Chats are Resource Efficient

While the cost depends on features and functionalities, you don’t have to break the bank to install an online video chat service.

For starters, a multi-channel package is inexpensive and straightforward to install.

But here’s the beauty.

You can seamlessly connect your online video chat system to your other contact channels. This can reduce duplication and redundancy, making the service efficient.

Here’s what Peter Drucker, the famed management guru, said about efficiency:

“The most efficient way to produce anything is to bring together under one management as many as possible of the activities needed to turn out the product.”

That’s precisely how you can seamlessly integrate and manage your communication platforms while incorporating an online video chat service.

Related:  How a Live Receptionist Service Pays for Itself

 

Online Video Chats Reduce or Eliminate Other Business Costs

According to one study, companies spend an average of $111.7 billion annually on business travel and $1,286 on every work trip. And in places like New York, the travel costs are even higher.

Business travel spending is expected to reach around $1.48 trillion by 2024.

Online video chats can eliminate or significantly reduce business expenses, particularly travel costs.

But it’s not just about travel for business meetings in far-flung places.

Even your selling expenses might have a lower, better posting.

For instance, without a video chat service, your sales rep may have to drive 50 or 60 miles to do a product demonstration or exhibition to a client. But with a video chat, they just need to sit in front of their PC, provide a live video demonstration, and get all the client’s questions satisfactorily answered.

Then there’s the savings on time, the most critical business resource.

Thanks to online video chat services, you save the time spent on setting up meeting venues, waiting for staff members to slowly trickle in, and clearing the meeting venue afterward. 

 

Online Video Chats Can Help Improve Your Online Sales

Closing a sale can be difficult, exhausting, and frustrating. You could be so near to a deal—yet so far away.

When selling online, you probably have no physical interaction with your customers. As such, prospective clients or those new to your brand may not be easily converted into actual buyers.  

Here’s the bright spot, though.

An online video chat service can significantly better your sales experience, whether it’s B2B or B2C.

Here’s how.

The service will connect a confident, knowledgeable product specialist with an unsure client who has all the questions in the world and a thousand lingering doubts to surmount. The good news is that this discussion is real-time and face-to-face.

In this virtual interaction, the customer comes face-to-face with the actual product and gets the opportunity to assess whether it meets their specifications. They can inquire about the product’s particulars and features and perhaps even watch a demo.

As this interaction unfolds, the sales rep will have the privilege of watching the physical reaction of the prospective customer, including body language and facial expressions, allowing them to know in real-time the points to emphasize in order to clear the client’s doubts and win their trust.

A sale can effortlessly follow when the video chat session is well done. 

This may be hard to achieve with wordy descriptions in the text—or hazy, inexact pictures on a company website.

 

Online Video Chats Enhance Productivity and Promote Collaboration

Communication with colleagues, superiors, and those under you in the organization is just as important as communication with customers. In fact, communication in the workplace has significant benefits, including:

• Reducing employee turnover
• Improving employee engagement and productivity
• Aligning the employees’ goals with the goals of the company
• Optimizing organizational change management
• Improving cross-company collaboration and knowledge sharing
• Building enduring personal relationships

 

Coming together in collaboration can be challenging if you have hybrid workers or even fully-remote employees. An online video chat service is a great tool to improve this communication in the workplace.

When collaboration is necessary on a project or for business issues, a real-time, face-to-face conversation can be the difference between a poor product launch and one that surpasses your goals.

An in-house video chat allows workers to work together regardless of their location. It also makes it easy for employees to interact, share resources and information like the screen sharing feature, and improve group performance.

Related: 6 Benefits of a Multi-Line Business Phone System

 

Online Video Chats are Millennial and Mobile Friendly

Studies show that young people prefer video to other communication mediums like text or phone calls.

According to HubSpot’s 2021 State of Marketing Report, video remains the most preferred form of media as far as content strategy is concerned.

According to the report, the following are the top 5 most preferred content forms in 2021.

No/Rank	Content form	% Preference
1	Videos	65%
2	Blogs	53%
3	Infographics	43%
4	Case studies	38%
5	Interviews	35%

 

Before we even control or tease out the effect of age, videos emerge as the most preferred content form. People watched 200 million hours of video in 2021. That’s content that one person can watch for about 23,000 years!

For young people, particularly Gen Z, about 62% use YouTube every day. Granted, that’s about preferred content form.

But let’s be honest. If someone prefers content in video form to one in text, they’ll probably love product descriptions in a video form rather than written text. You can onboard such customers using product demos and educate them on the functionalities hassle-free.

The same holds for your customer service.

Millennials and Gen Z make up almost half of the total American population. An online video chat can help reach and onboard this group more successfully than other customer service platforms.

Additionally, mobile popularity is continuously growing, and the young generation prefers mobile phones to other devices. Video is mobile-friendly, and they are already using them regularly to make video calls.

As workers increasingly conduct their work using smartphones, their availability is much higher regardless of their location. 

 

Your Business Will Have a Competitive Edge

With all the advantages that video chats offer, it’s easy to see why reliable video conferencing solutions give online businesses, those with hybrid or fully remote teams and even those whose audience is global, a competitive advantage.

 To stay ahead of the competition, you need to offer your customers quality products and top-notch service.

 “If You Are Not Taking Care Of Your Customer, Your Competitor Will.” – Bob Hooey

Why watch as your customers move to your competitor while you can offer personalized customer service, resolve their queries fast and in real-time, engage them, and earn their trust with video chat?

You’ll see improved teamwork among your employees, increased sales, a high conversion rate, and remarkable customer loyalty once you introduce online video chat support.

 

Essentials of a Video Chat Support System

Having seen the benefits of an online video chat service, what should your business look for when procuring such a system?

• Compatibility and Integration: The software should run on various devices, browsers, and operating systems. Integration with a CRM is particularly vital.
• Co-Browsing and Screen Sharing: You should get a system that can support co-browsing and screen sharing. These features can significantly aid product demos and troubleshooting.
• Ease of Use: Users should be able to activate a video chat easily, preferably with only a single click. Customers also should not have to install many apps before they can be able to use the video chat service. Again, it should be easy to transfer a video chat to a different agent or department.

 

Let Us Help You Get an Online Video Chat Feature 

Communication is the currency of business. Whether you’re looking to improve remote collaboration for your remote employees or improve customer experience by offering personalized, face-to-face service, an online video chat will help you meet your goals.

You’ll not only make communication efficient but also increase loyalty and brand credibility.

At Phone.com, we provide a stable and reliable communications platform with video chat functionality and enterprise phone features.

Ours is an integrated system with essential functions such as:

• Call Recording
• Screen sharing
• Phone, chat, and email support
• Call Analytics
• CRM Integration
• Video Conferencing (with up to 100 participants); and 
• Voicemail Transcription.

 

While many communication solutions are limited and incompatible with many devices, our solution empowers communication from any device, anywhere. If you want excellent internal and external communication to set your business apart, sign up today and join a contented customer profile of over 40,000.