The call center is too often the place where commerce collapses into a mess of frustration, miscommunication and outright hostility. We’ve all been there--most of us at the consumer end. You know the drill: an interminable wait, during which you are subjected to tinny music you’d pay NOT to hear; a torturous conversation with a representative who doesn’t seem all that invested in helping you or even all that knowledgeable about the company he or she works for; a transfer to someone who might know more than the aforementioned representative; yet another interminable wait accompanied by still more atrocious music; and then another long exchange that might, if you are lucky, finally end with your questions answered.
Not every experience with a call center abides this infernal pattern, but it happens often enough that most would agree the system is broken, or at the very least in need of some improvement. While there may never be a way around grating hold music (sorry!), there is a way to improve the interpersonal aspects of the call center experience: using video chat and videoconferencing solutions that offer opportunities for face-to-face communication.
Of course, seeing a call center representative won’t make them any more knowledgeable, but much of what is perceived as a lack of insight is in fact more often a result of the vague and easily dismissible nature of a telephone conversation. In other words: it is a lot harder for a customer to accurately explain his or her issue with words alone, and it is a lot easier for a call center employee to treat the customer as an abstract nuisance if they are only hearing a voice.
Just imagine if every cable company had a video chat option. Customers could SHOW them the back of their cable box instead of attempting to explain what they’re seeing with their untrained eyes. Or imagine a credit card company that offered the option of video chats with their collections department. Customers might actually feel like they are being treated with respect by a living, breathing human instead of being hunted down by a menacing voice hiding in some dark, dirty bunker in the middle of the desert.
There will always be people who would rather make voice-only connections with strangers, which is perfectly understandable. There is an aspect of intimacy in a video chat, and not everyone wants to be on such friendly terms with some dude from their internet provider. But with videoconferencing and video chat technology making their way into more and more of our daily interactions, the desire for such interventions will only increase. And with good reason: intimacy can be profoundly transformative, even at the level of a call center interaction. Eye contact and body language can shift the adversarial nature of a complaint call or the vaguely threatening vibe of a collections call into a conversation between two humans who might actually end up not only understanding each other but wanting to continue doing business together.
Take a look at the Polycom RealPresence Platform for your call center.
