Steering the customer service of the future with smart video interactions

Why human adaptability offers huge potential for tomorrow’s technologies

If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s that mankind is adaptable. People who have never worked from home before and others who rarely use their smartphones for anything except calls, texts, and streaming YouTube videos are adopting digital with vigor. Webinars. Video calls. Virtual quizzing. Online meetings. New WhatsApp groups – you name it. Behaviors are changing fast and digital-infused collaboration is driving the change.

What will happen when things get back to normal? What will the new normal look like? While consumers currently have little choice but to embrace digital and online communications, research suggests that human contact remains a critical component of many interactions. Consumers still want a humanized service experience, with 55% of customers in one survey saying they disliked calling companies because of not being able to talk to a real person straight away.

New opportunities ahead with smart video interactions

But what if you could combine that real human contact with digital? Step forward smart video interactions, enabled by 5G. While the deployment of 5G networks might have stalled during the current crisis, it will undoubtedly pick up its pace once we’ve come through it all. And that’s great news for today’s customers.

5G and even existing WiFi bring new opportunities to improve customer service. How? By enabling enhanced interaction with the introduction of collaborative smart video into digital customer engagement and services. With consumers already showing that they are willing and able to use digital tools, organizations that are quick to adopt 5G-WiFi enabled video can differentiate their customer service. At the same time, organizations need to quickly equip their employees and customer service agents to effectively and efficiently use such digital tools during customer interactions.

Steering the customer service of the future

5G will be ten times faster than 4G, so there will be no data constraints. Customers can engage with agents via video desks in real time. Video-based sales or support collateral can be integrated into the video conversation – perhaps a hotel that walks you round the room choices available while you’re talking to a salesperson; or a bank that displays automatic calculation of debited amounts on a customer’s last statement during the call; or even a doctor/patient interaction with real-time conversation and video-enabled examination using the 3D visualization of your body to ease the interaction.

While enabled by 5G, it is important to remember that smart video interactions are still all about human-to-human interaction – real people and not just limited to AI-enabled bots, whose conversations can be enriched by the capacity to share and manipulate information, for example by touching the screen, and signing documents/offers on the screen. This combination of human and digital interaction brings a level of confidence in the service being provided.

Proving the concept

The use cases for 5G-enabled video collaboration will be phenomenal. While we await the deployment of 5G, it’s possible to get glimpse of its exciting potential with a Wi-Fi-powered use cases. Then once 5G arrives, expect to see a wholly new mobile-first customer experience, including new video collaboration use cases.

Click here to find out more about Capgemini’s viewpoint on how 5G will enable collaboration like never before.

Author

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Julien Leblois

Sales & Service Offer Leader, Capgemini Global DCX Practice.