The Future is Now: Why Your Customers are More Ready than You Think for Live Engagement

In business and our personal lives, relationships are everything. Our relationships start with a conversation, are maintained with conversations, and grow with conversations. And many of these are face-to-face.  This has always been true, from the beginning, time humanity began to communicate to the start of commerce, and today online. 

As of 2017, Facebook Messenger has generated 17 billion video calls [1], 67% of people across eight markets say their messaging has increased over the past two years. Customers also love interacting with brands online. Watches of Switzerland’s AOV went by 54%[2] when their online customers were able to interact with their brand. Sytner increased its test drive conversion rates by 35%[3] with video calls and KBC’s customers now sign 85% of their home loan contracts digitally after engaging with a representative over video.[4]

Today’s world has become far more connected, with countless messaging apps, phone calls, and video chat. We text our friends, email our co-workers, FaceTime our grandparents, and call our parents. Instant communication is a staple of modern life, and it is quickly becoming a larger part of businesses.

Your customers’ expectations for communicating with each other have fundamentally changed, and this change applies to how they want to communicate with your business. The global business landscape is changing with your customers’ lives, and businesses need to be able to connect with customers when they want.

How does a business meet these demands? Customers are on your website at all hours of the day, you cannot answer every single call that comes in, and your customers don’t want to look at an FAQ page when they can reach your brand directly. ChatBOTs and live-text-chat have become more common and accepted, but not all companies are using them. With your customers already used to live-engagement in their day to day lives, adding text-chat and a ChatBOT to your online strategy only gives your customers, members, and patients a way to reach you that is convenient and familiar to them. Starting with a ChatBOT and moving on to text-chat allows your organization to take a “crawl-walk-run” approach to live-engagement.

Organizations that are already using ChatBOTs and text-chat may not have plans to immediately expand into video chat and co-browsing. While those organizations and their stakeholders may not be ready for that change, live-engagement is quickly headed in that direction. Without a plan to transition into video-chat and co-browsing, members, customers, and patients will leave your organization behind for one that can provide an experience that suits their needs.

Whether you are just developing your live-engagement strategy, or are starting from scratch, your customers, members, and patients are already used to live-engagement. Reach them where they are with a ChatBOT, live-chat, or video-chat, and create an experience that resonates with them.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/13/16772704/facebook-messenger-17-billion-video-chats-2017

[2] https://www.vee24.com/2019/11/15/watches-of-switzerland-case-study/

[3] https://www.vee24.com/2019/02/02/sytner-provides-excellence-in-customer-service-with-vee24-video-chat/

[4] https://www.vee24.com/2019/08/26/live-engagement-success-kbc-bank/