Video in Call Centers

Call Centers Need to Invest in Technology That
Makes Them Future Proof

By Ari Sonesh - Recently I wrote about disruptive technologies, and mentioned IP and the Internet as being disruptive technology that enables new applications and new ways to do business. I also mentioned video as one of the new applications of the technology. The question is: will video be the next big thing in Call Centers? In my opinion, the answer is a clear YES. In this article I will explain why I'm convinced that video in the call center will happen, beginning now. 

I came across this brochure in a taxi while in Japan. It shows that videophones are here now and how much a smile adds to an interaction

Naysayers would assert that there is no value in video -- it's not practical, call centers will have to hire for appearance, design special lighting, and so on. I don't agree. The value of video is that it personalizes contact with a customer. It's all about the smile. We relate much better to a person whose body language, and especially whose smile, we can see. We teach customer service reps to put a smile in their voice. With video, customers will get the real thing, see the real smile. The reps don't need to be beautiful or handsome. They need to be nice, and nice people smile. A smile is reassuring and trust-creating. To buy, we have to trust -- both the organization and the person. Is the extra expense in equipment and lighting worthwhile? It is a very small price to pay for the benefits of the competitive advantage, customer loyalty and increased sales it will bring.

Call Centers help to create a company or product brand. In their recent book Brand Sense : Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, Philip Kotler and Martin Lindstrom claim that brands are like courtship. Just as people do in personal relationships, the best companies use all five sensual dimensions to woo the customer. Up to now, Call Centers used only one of the five senses - sound; now they can add sight. 

Video has always been a part of CosmoCom's call center vision and is an integral part of both patents

I envisioned and Cosmocom prototyped Video Call Centers in 1996. We used my home Sony video camera and a capture card. It was a great demo for prospective investors. Video Telephony is one of the media included in our two groundbreaking patents.

If that is so, why haven't Video Call Centers become popular yet? Several things had to happen first. Just as facsimile didn't take off until there were enough terminals, video call centers require enough video-enabled telephones. This is happening right now. The new generation of mobile phones is video enabled. Most people renew their mobile phones at least every year or two. So, in the very near future, there will be tens and hundreds of millions of video mobile phones. Moreover, the video revolution is not confined to mobile phones. I just came back from a business trip to Japan. The pocket in the back seat of my taxi contained a brochure for an NTT home or business video phone (picture above). And it's not only Japan. For example, France Telecom and Orange are now actively promoting video phones.

Another key-enabler that needed to happen is the availability of the bandwidth required by video. Now our homes and businesses have broadband connections. There are now about 150 million broadband subscribers in the world, and IMS research expects 400 million by 2009. Furthermore, the 3G mobile networks being rolled out by most carriers are designed around IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) architecture and the 3G-324M protocol for real-time conversational video telephony.

Actually, this technology change brings up another driver behind video - the marketing push. Carriers need applications to fill up the all this available bandwidth, and conversational video telephony is being marketed for that reason.

There are already several CosmoCom customers utilizing video for specialized applications. Shoplive uses it to demonstrate products. CSD uses it to serve the hearing-impaired community, allowing them to use the sign language to communicate with interpreters, who relay the communication via voice to hearing people using standard phones.

CosmoCom is well positioned to take advantage of the video trend. Video is native to the CosmoCall Universe architecture. We support video out-of-the-box. It took us only 10 minutes to connect to one carrier's 3G network to demonstrate video telephony in call center. Does everybody need to supports video in his center now? No, but call centers need to invest in technology that is future-proof. CosmoCom technology is designed with the flexibility to address future needs like video.

Get ready for a video-everywhere future, long foreseen, but finally coming, very soon.