Wendy Hamilton, CEO of TechSmith, discusses the transformative power of visual tools for customer service teams.
Incorporating visuals into your customer communications can be a game-changer. Research has shown that 67% of people perform better when communicated visually than those following text directions alone.
If a customer is struggling with a software error or bug reporting, and they can’t find the information they need on your website, providing them with a visual guide – an annotated screenshot or a short video tutorial, for example – is much more effective and efficient than giving written or verbal instructions. Messages can be relayed 7% faster, and retained better. This results in a better experience for your customers and reduces the strain on your customer service staff.
With the help of technology, businesses have the opportunity to create a really stellar customer service experience, using visual communication tools to provide super clear instructions and steal a march on competitors.
Here’s a bit more detail on why it’s a good idea to make your customer service journey more visual, and some tips for how to do it.
- Effective trouble-shooting
If you’re dealing with a frustrated customer who is having trouble with your product, you need to be able to solve their problem quickly and comprehensively. While you may be tempted to direct them towards a troubleshooting article, written explanations and instructions can be difficult to follow, and you may not have an article that covers their exact query. A video call can be a good way of walking someone through a solution, but that’s not always a practical option. Instead, grabbing a screenshot and annotating it with instructions can be a great way of quickly solving the problem of explaining the issue. This has been evidenced by brands using visuals wisely on social media, giving tools such as Facebook and Twitter an instant customer service expectation.
- Happier customers
Customers who have received clear, visual instructions that are tailored to their problem or query are more likely to be satisfied with the customer service they’ve received. And in today’s competitive market, ensuring your customers are happy is more critical than ever. Consumers have a huge number of providers to choose from in every industry, and can quickly and easily look elsewhere if they don’t get excellent – and instant – service. Customers who have a good experience become repeat customers, generating brand loyalty and ultimately business growth.
- Reusable content
Once you’ve created a neat visual explanation of how to do something, you have an asset that you can reuse in the future if the same problem or query comes up from another customer. You can create a library of informal learning content of these visual assets so that any member of the customer service team can draw on them.
- More efficient staff
Using these visual materials to answer queries can reduce the time your customer service staff need to spend giving lengthy explanations over the phone or writing up instructional documents. Workload is reduced and time is freed up to deal with more customers.
- Instant training content
The bank of visual materials that you create for customer service queries can also double as an informal content library for staff. Annotated screenshots and video explainers aren’t just handy for showing a customer how to do something – they can also show a new member of staff how to navigate your website or complete a particular task.
Customer service superpowers
The importance of using images and video in marketing materials and internal communications is well-understood, but we need to apply the same approach to customer service, too. If your customer service staff have a suite of visual tools at their fingertips, they can answer queries and address problems more creatively and much more effectively. This means happier customers and a more efficient workforce. Visual tools could be your customer service superpower, giving you an edge over other businesses.
About the Author
Wendy Hamilton, CEO at TechSmith, is a values-first leader and is committed to the practice of putting customers first. Wendy is focused on leveraging more than 25 years of experience in product innovation, growth strategy, and global leadership to expand TechSmith’s leading position in the visual communication space.
