Customer Engagement Elevated: How Co-Browsing Reshapes Customer Experience

Sometimes interacting with your customers over the phone is not enough. Sometimes, you have to do a little hand holding in order to achieve optimum customer satisfaction. By hand holding, we mean practically and interactively guiding the customer with their issues.

A very hands-on approach to helping customers with their issues is co-browsing a.k.a collaborative browsing.

Collaborative browsing is the process of accessing a customer’s computer in order to see things from their point of view and guide them to a faster resolution. With Co-browsing Software, you can also navigate and interact with your customer’s screen, given the access has been granted.

Keep in mind, however, that Co-browsing is not like screen sharing or other applications that provide remote access to personal computers. Screen sharing has its limits where you can only present or have the other person present their screen without any option of interacting with what’s being presented.

Co-browsing takes screen sharing ahead by bringing the option to interact with what’s being presented on the screen.

Moreover, Co-browsing is also different from applications that give you access to the entirety of the computer and allow complete interaction from a remote site.

With Co-browsing, agents can only see and interact with the screen that the customer chooses to show. This is why Co-browsing is also touted as a safer option of sharing information.

Co-browsing software essentially gives you access to your customer’s screen but limits it to a single window. You can click buttons, scroll through the window, annotate screens, highlight things, and even fill forms. But, you can’t open a new tab or interact with any other tab or window present on the screen.

As you might have already noticed, co-browsing software offers a much more personalized and grounded approach to customer service compared to any other means of customer interaction.

No wonder, the demand for co-browsing software is ever increasing as more and more companies find the value in providing a more immediate and distinct customer service.

Let’s get a closer look at how co-browsing works to ascertain how you can make the most out of your contact center with the help of the right co-browsing software.

How Does Co-browsing Software Work?

To better understand co-browsing software, we will first have to understand customer behavior. It’s no secret that customers give customer representatives a hard time. Multiple forums against customer’s irrational behavior and subreddits like r/talesfromretail highlight the complications of managing customers. The point is there are two sides to every story and that is true with customer service as well.

Agents don’t always have a good time handling customer queries. In fact, sometimes interacting with a customer and delivering swift resolution becomes next to impossible, most often than not due to a lack of the customer’s understanding of the product or services.

Not to mention, sometimes voice calls are not clear enough. What the customer is seeing on their screens and what the agent is trying to convey might be different, leading to a disconnected interaction and, in turn, frustration.

Now imagine a software that allows you to not only see what your customer is seeing but also be able to interact with what’s on the screen. Co-browsing works more or less like screen sharing, except it’s much more capable and efficient. Co-browsing uses the internet to access, navigate, and interact with your customer’s screen right from your desk.

Co-browsing can only be enabled when the customer on the other side has granted access to the agent. As mentioned above, co-browsing doesn’t give you access to the entirety of a customer’s computer. You only get access to the screen the customer is on or the ones that they have granted access to.

Earlier, using co-browsing software required software installation on both the participant’s systems. Newer versions, however, are much more advanced and no longer require downloads, installation or plugins. Instead modern co-browsing software uses peer to peer connection and Document Object Model manipulation.

Although we call it a co-browsing software, it is now a browser-based technology which only requires a stable internet connection to connect with the customer’s screen.

Alright. Now that we have understood how co-browsing software works, let’s get into the need for such a solution. More specifically, how Co-browsing can help you deliver quality customer service.

The Need for Co-browsing

The need for co-browsing comes down to what we discussed earlier: a disconnect and lack of understanding on both the agent and customer sides. Co-browsing can be an extremely helpful and practical way of solving a customer’s issues, sometimes even better than voice calls and omnichannel communication.

Co-browsing can help you create more meaningful and cohesive experiences for your customers, regardless of where they are in their customer journey. In places where calls are not working effectively, co-browsing can be at your rescue as a more detailed and personal approach.

Benefits of using Co-browsing

Co-browsing can prove to be extremely beneficial depending on how you use it to address customer issues. Let’s take a look at some of the key benefits of a co-browsing solution:

Shortening Sales Cycle

One of the major advantages of Co-browsing is associated with sales. Imagine a customer who is interested in your products or services but is having a hard time making the purchase. You hop on a call with the customer and realize they are unable to apply discount coupons and hence are not moving forward with the purchase. You ask the customer to allow permission for co-browsing to help them with the discount coupon. You help the customer navigate through the website and apply the discount coupon on their cart. And the customer makes the purchase.

This whole scenario can turn out to be a pain in the neck without co-browsing. When you are on a call with the customer, you have no idea what they are looking at. Therefore, no matter how much you try, you might not be able to guide them as well as when you can see and interact with what they are seeing and interacting with.

Improving Customer Experience

Following up on the previous pointer, Co-browsing can dramatically improve customer experience. It goes without saying that when you collaborate with your customers to solve their issues, they feel more satisfied and happier with the service.

Here’s an uncommon stat to help elucidate this point: many customers prefer thorough, high quality service instead of speedy resolution. So, it’s not so much about how fast you can solve a customer issue, at least to the customer. It is more about how helpful and reliable you are while solving the issue.

And co-browsing is probably the most potent way of connecting and interacting with your customer when it comes to CSAT improvement.

Reducing AHT

Although it might not always be about speed, Average Handling Time is one of the major KPIs that contact centers are judged on. Therefore, a faster and simpler approach to resolution is always a win-win.

Co-browsing allows you to jump directly to your customer’s screen and see and interact with what they need help with. So, instead of guiding your customers to help resolve their issue you can literally work through their issues on your own and get going.

Needless to say, an experienced customer representative will be much faster in taking care of the issue the customer is facing compared to the customer themselves. And thus, you can reduce AHT while maintaining great customer relationships.

Uptick in Upselling

Co-browsing can help you create a true interactive customer experience right from your computer screen. In fact with a co-browsing session you can give your customers product demos, walkthroughs, and help them choose the best products or service as per their unique requirements.

Take your customers to a virtual tour of your website, help them navigate through the products, teach them about the benefits and features, and help them choose the right product. Rest assured that your customers will be more likely to buy from you when they have had a clear understanding of the products and services, that too with a personalized touch.

Conclusion

It is clear the advantages a co-browsing software serves compared to other means of communication. Co-browsing can help you elevate customer experience and provide a more personalized approach to interactions.

If you are looking for a co-browsing solution for your contact center, look no further than CXInfinity, a multichannel communication platform with in-built co-browsing features.

CXInfinity is a one-stop platform to engage with customers across all social and digital channels. It offers a unified view of all the customer interactions and offers you the option to engage with your customers directly from the CXInfinity screen. Besides offering omni-channel communication support, CXInfinity can also perform co-browsing.

Reach out to us at marketing@novelvox.com to learn more about how co-browsing can transform your customer service.