Over the past few weeks, I have been espousing thoughts on Video in the Contact Center.  I have stated that I see three compelling opportunities for the use of video on the Customer Service/Contact Center segment.

1. Interactive Voice/Video Response Systems
2. The Video-Enabled Agent
3. The Video-Enabled Customer

There is reason why the Video-Enabled Customer is third on the list.  That is because I don't see as quantifiable cases for this technology, they are still very important.

See what I see

This is the case that Eric Krapf of NoJitter.com makes a great case for in his blog a few weeks back.  That is ability for callers to show live videos to agents can improve agent effectiveness in certain support situations, including providing emergency assistance and solving a customer's problem with installation-related tasks.  The ability for the customer to show and point creates a much more collaborative situation for problem solving than just describing alone.

Recording and uploading video

With the ability for callers can record to upload videos to show agents what they are seeing, the customer/agent interaction can still take place, but it can happen asynchronously, rather than in real time.  This also is a great form of record keeping.  The caller can provide the video, but the agent and then tag and file it based on their criteria rather than by the criteria provided by the customer. 

For example, in situations in which callers are making damage claims for insurance purposes, they can upload a picture of the damages to the Customer Service Representative (CSR). This can alleviate the need for multiple adjustor visits, and can thus create a significant cost savings for the company.

I am very interested in hear your opinions on this topic or if you have other ideas about how video can best be applied to the Customer Service/Contact Center segment.

In my last blog entry, I discussed how Interactive Voice/Video Response can be used as part of a self-server solution.   This raised some questions on using Video in an Agent Assisted Customer Service solution. 

Much of these I have presented about the video enabled contact center are (or will soon be) implementable using the DiaStar (TM) Server.   Release 2.1 is scheduled for release during the month of May (www.projectdiastar.org) and will include many of the technologies presented in my last three blogs.  In addition, it will also feature multi-party video conferencing support, which we hope will open up a bunch of new opportunities in this space for Customer/Agent/Subject Matter Expert collaboration.