Video Killed the Call Center

Posted by lramella on Monday, 26 January 2009

A quick short post: At a recent conference on Social Media and Technology, I engaged in an interesting discussion on the power and promise of video – not just the YouTube kind where thousands of people are downloading the latest gag video (and I don’t intend that sentence as a slight on YouTube’s business premise – I understand it’s magnitude and promise).  We talked about how video can become an important element of customer service, a key element of any successful business and an area that is often neglected, and how video is now a cost effective tool that few companies have only just begun to use.

As everyone knows, many U.S. companies opened customer service call centers abroad, particularly in India, in order to cut costs as well as to actively respond to an increased volume of customer service calls that required larger call centers.  However, a backlash soon ensued from U.S. consumers, and whether service actually declined due to foreign call centers or whether it was simply an “ideological” protest from consumers who did not like their matters handled by foreign customer service reps is unclear.  What was and is clear is that U.S. companies still have not resolved call center problems.  I’m sure many of you reading this post will agree – interactions with call centers, no matter the location, are painful and very rarely resolve a problem.  The issue I find is never identifying the problem – it’s communicating how to resolve the problem, particularly in issues around technology customer service issues (computer/DVR/mobile devices etc.).  What is a possible solution to this call center wasteland?  It’s obviously not to move call centers back to the U.S. – for many companies the costs are prohibitive and most customer service issues remain no matter the location of the call center.

One company, Hewlett Packard, is devising a novel approach to the call center/customer service inquiry question.  A while back, HP started HP Uncut (http://h30400.www3.hp.com/), a website where HP employees recorded videos of their favorite “tricks” with HP technology.  It has become an unofficial “How to” guide for many HP customers, and HP has now begun tracking which videos are most popular.  HP Uncut offers videos on everything from “Connecting a PC to your TV” to “How to Print a DVD label in your HP Printer” (admit it, how many of you have just scribbled on your DVDs with a Sharpie because it’s too complicated to figure out how to print one of those round labels?).  The videos are also hilarious, and offer a refreshing way to handle customer service.  As HP tracks which videos are most popular with customers, it is now building a video library that call center operators will use to respond to customer service inquiries, in effect shortening potential call times and eliminating customer frustration.  The move by HP is brilliant, cost effective, and represents what I love best about companies that are actively responding to their customers with new technology.  The applications for other companies are obvious, and I look forward to hearing about more companies that use this novel video customer service approach. – Leah

Posted in: Product as a Service | Tagged: cost savings, customer service, trends, video | 2 Comments