The Video Chat Checklist

Matt Dyer shares his video chat checklist to help you achieve success with this up and coming channel.

1. Establish a clear escalation process for video chat sessions

Video agents need to be brand or product domain experts. On a voice call, it’s relatively easy for agents to summon additional support when needed – with video, it’s difficult to hide when the questions are getting tough.

Before kicking off a video chat programme, organisations need to establish a clear escalation process for video chat sessions that require additional expertise.

2. Agents need to be able to handle video performance issues

We’ve all experienced contact centres where the systems are ‘running slow today’. These are relatively easy to mask on a voice call, but much less so with video.

Agents will need professional mechanisms for dealing with video performance issues.

3. Video chat shift lengths need to be shorter than for voice calls

Projected video channel volumes can place an increased burden on the agent to perform visually and always appear positive throughout every chat session.

You should plan for video chat shift lengths to be shorter than for voice calls.

4. Establish a brand dress code

Video chat sessions need to function as a brand extension, so you’ll need a defined dress code.

Agents will also need to be provided with the appropriate attire that matches your brand aspirations.

5. Account for the impact video will have on productivity

Professional video chats effectively prevent agents from blending activity with other channels and tasks.

This means there’s likely to be an impact on AHT, with agents retaining customer focus throughout the call and having to leave wrap activities until afterwards.

6. Video chat backgrounds should be branded and professional

It’s important that video chat backgrounds are also professional, communicating a brand-specific and clean workspace that isn’t visibly crammed with other agents.

You’ll need to provide your video agents with some space.

7. Test your agents for video chat aptitude

Video agents will typically be existing agents trained to work on the video channel.

However, you’ll need to have some form of video compatibility assessment to ensure that agents who would like to handle video chats actually have the aptitude for this challenging role.

8. Get HR involved to protect agent privacy

Video chat is, by its nature, a less private medium. Customers can see agents, learn their names, see where they work, and potentially find out where the contact centre is located.

HR needs to understand the wider impact of running a video chat channel, and will need to have policies for agent security and privacy.

9. Video chat agents should have a single view of the customer

It’s essential that video agents understand where exactly people are on their customer journey – where they’ve got to on a specific web page, or whether the customer has already spoken about this issue using a different channel.

Having access to a single view of all a customer’s multichannel engagements will help video agents to deal with customers in the most appropriate manner.

10. Web teams need to keep the contact centre well informed

Video agents also need to be aware of exactly what’s going on with the website, particularly if there’s any multivariate testing taking place that might be impacting the customer journey.

This requires a mechanism to ensure that web teams keep the contact centre informed of all current activity.

11. Establish specific video chat KPIs for monitoring quality

Customer service operations also need to establish specific video chat quality KPIs.

These will most probably be a blend of current webchat and voice call quality metrics.

12. Video chat needs extra processing power and greater bandwidth

Not surprisingly, organisations will need a robust technology platform to support video chat activities.

• PCs will require extra processing power, memory and either internal or external web cams.
• Bandwidth needs will be greater, particularly impacting video chat homeworkers.
• Organisations will also need to ensure they have the right PCI compliance in place for handling payment card details – this may impact where video chat can be deployed.

With thanks to Matt Dyer at Sabio