Your Source for Providing a Better Customer Service and Customer Support Experience

There’s little doubt that video technology helps engage customers and is one of the most powerful communication tools today. Particularly with the growing popularity of YouTube, more and more users gravitate to online videos for customer support. Naturally some companies are more sophisticated than others at implementing videos into their customer support operation.

David Schroeder from iWin offers a few tips, starting with the customer service portal. iWin is an award-winning developer, publisher and distributor of casual games for the mass market, (including the popular series Jewel Quest®) with more than 5.6M unique visitors every month.

iWin customers first and foremost want to minimize time away from gaming, says David, so support has to be fast and efficient. Second, as a casual game company it’s important for the portal to mirror the brand, and look fun and exciting, not sterile, with frequent changes and updates to the look. One of the first things done to encourage portal use is to put up a video right when gamers land on the Web that familiarizes them with iWin.

In addition to their relatively low cost, videos reduce incoming tickets, allowing gamers to find the answers themselves. For iWin, online support videos bring a number of benefits:

• Videos engage people. They’re a very powerful tool for education and capture nearly 100% of the viewer’s concentration. Simply put, when you’re watching a video, you’re more committed. Videos can show step by step how tasks are performed, and are an effective way to show anything with some degree of complexity.
• Videos are standardized, so you’re presenting each viewer with a consistent relay of information.
• The pace can be as unique as the gamer, with gamers able to rewind, and slow or speed the pace as they wish.

In terms of the mechanics of producing video, Dave offers a few tips.

• Keep videos short and limited to a single subject, ideally around two minutes in length. Don’t overload messages. If you need to, do another separate video on a complementary topic.
• As with any content, periodically review, revise and do routine scrubbing to ensure the information answers most user questions. Also be sure that new products, features and messaging are reflected in current video content.
• Remedial topics are often appreciated. And continually look at your ticket queue and knowledgebase articles for opportunities to turn popular content into video.