How Inbound Video Calling Helps Banks and Credit Unions Meet Today’s Biggest Challenges
- Bud Albers
- Jun 19
- 5 min read
With today’s volatile economy, growing digital customer expectations, intensifying competition and fundamental technological shifts, the current environment acquiring and maintaining customers for banks and credit unions is more challenging than ever, which has made the Customer/Member experience an absolute top priority in most organizations. In this paper, we’ll explore using emerging on demand, inbound customer video calling in terms of both “How” and “Where” it fits in your CX strategy.
Leveraging Inbound Video to Create a Unique Customer Experience
Since the pandemic, video channels have become more important than ever. Digital Natives are extremely comfortable jumping into a video meeting. Those same expectations accompany them into their everyday lives. The problem is most video meetings revolve around a scheduled meeting paradigm, which works at the office, but isn’t all that well suited for supporting a busy consumer’s personal life.
Enter inbound video calling. Now with just the click of a button, you can instantly place an inbound video call to be answered by the Bank or CU’s agent right from their own computer. With the efficiencies gained by using intelligent routing for the call, getting to the right person is easier than ever and no longer confined to some elongated IVR process.
Using Inbound Video for Customer Acquisition
Video advertising is still one of the most effective mediums available for new customer acquisition. It’s ability to engage an audience, allows you to tell your story more effectively than any other medium. Coupling that with the ubiquity of today’s smartphones creates a whole new way to eliminate barriers to a marketers call to action and do it in a fully measurable way that enables you to track the effectiveness of video campaigns more granularly than ever.
Placing a QR code in your television spot or online ad enables a quick scan that can automatically start an inbound video call that can be dynamically routed to the right person or group in the organization is a potential game changer. Not only does it eliminate extra steps that can dull the effectiveness of a campaign, it provides a 100% quantifiable delivery mechanism that enables a new level of accountability for your ad spend and it adds a whole new level of convenience for your next potential customer.
Video Provides Better Customer Service and Retention
Video chat is highly effective for customer service, especially for complex issues, by allowing agents to see problems, build rapport, and provide immediate, high-touch support. For complex issues or in customer service, video chat humanizes interactions and creates a stronger emotional connection, which is crucial for a positive experience. The benefits are clear and powerful for both sides, making it truly a win / win situation when it comes to getting issues resolved quickly and efficiently. Here is what we see in terms of a breakout……
Customer Benefits
Builds Trust & Connection:
Video creates a more personal, trustworthy connection by showing a face to the company, which can improve customer loyalty.
Faster, Clearer Resolutions:
Visual demonstrations and real-time information exchange reduce misunderstandings and allow agents to diagnose complex issues more quickly and accurately.
Enhanced Problem Solving:
Agents can use visual cues to understand a customer's problem better and provide tailored, more effective support.
Personalized Experience:
Visuals and facial expressions allow agents to adapt their communication style, making customers feel more valued and understood.
Business & Agent Benefits
Increased Customer Satisfaction:
Clearer communication and quicker resolutions lead to higher customer satisfaction rates.
Reduced Costs:
Shorter handling times and fewer repeated contacts lower operational expenses.
Improved Agent Efficiency:
Visual aids and context-sharing reduce the time needed per interaction, allowing agents to handle more inquiries.
Valuable Data Insights:
Video interactions generate data from facial expressions and tone of voice, which can be used to enhance future customer experiences.
Greater Engagement:
The interactive nature of video chat makes support more engaging, increasing customer involvement and understanding of products and services.
Video Helps with Expansion and Branch Consolidation
Effectively using inbound video can have a significant impact on branch locations. The cost of geographic expansion has traditionally always involved a significant upfront investment in building and staffing new branch locations. The rightful caution that needs to be exercised around major capital investment decisions like this understandably can slow growth. Introducing advanced inbound video calling solutions help to mitigate this risk, allowing you to build up a strong base in online and mobile banking without sacrificing the personal relationships and human touch that impact the selection of a customer’s financial partner of choice.
While the trend toward bank and credit union branch closures that has been accelerated by the shift to digital banking and the COVID-19 pandemic, has lead to cost savings and operational efficiencies for financial institutions, it also presents a number of issues. Effectively deploying an inbound video solution can help to mitigate key concerns such as the loss of the personal connections customers feel with the institution. It also provides a critical linkage for helping customers work through the more complex transactions that had also previously necessitated a physical visit.
Inbound Video is a Compliment to AI
AI is already generating significant value in financial services. It’s a powerful emerging technology that is clearly on a long-term upward trajectory. By measure, roughly 1 in 3 inbound inquiries to contact centers currently represent the simple, repetitive responses that AI excels at today.
Moving forward AI will continue to evolve and provide an even broader level of service and capabilities, but living in the now while it is greatly additive, it can also frustrate customers. The running jokes around consumers frantically typing or yelling into the phone things like “operator” or “human being” need to be avoided wherever possible.
This is where inbound video chat is a tremendous compliment to AI. If your customer’s issue or even their preference has moved beyond AI in the online experience, quick and easy escalation to an inbound video chat is a seamless way to quickly reintroduce the personal connection to the situation.
The topic can be extracted from the text of the conversation to effectively route the newly escalated video call to the correct agent for resolution. Using accompanying cobrowsing or screensharing technology, the agent will not only be able to see the customer, but also immediately see the problem, thereby hopefully facilitating fast and effective problem resolution.
How Recursive Labs Helps
At Recursive labs, our Customer Inbound Video product is our latest and most innovative video offering combining inbound video calling with intelligent routing that takes information directly from your customer’s browser and current online session to enable calls to be delivered quickly and efficiently to the best available person to meet your customer needs.
Like all our products, Customer Inbound Video is 100% no download, no installation required.
With available cobrowsing and screensharing capabilities at hand, your agents can, not only add a human touch to the call, they can also see exactly what your customer is seeing to help facilitate resolution.