In the modern contact center, agents communicate with customers over many more channels as they did in the past. No longer is it necessary to handle customer service concerns only by phone as many contact centers today embrace the omnichannel experience to connect via SMS, chat, social media, email, and video as well. For this reason, it’s more important than ever to ensure smooth communication on both sides of a customer service exchange.
WebRTC is a communications standard that enables such real-time communications (RTC) to be offered directly on the web without the need for plug-ins, downloads, installations, or third-party software as the web browser is the application itself. The standard comes fully equipped with all that is necessary to engage in real-time, multimedia communications—whether it be via phone, video call, email, chat, SMS, or social media. Without additional plug-ins, contact centers can reach customers on all channels in a more efficient manner, and the customer likewise benefits from a better engagement experience. For example, if a customer is on a company website looking for the solution to a technology issue, a customer service agent may send a chat request as a means of helping out the customer. With no need for additional plug-ins and the fact that WebRTC is browser-neutral, the customer can rest assured that the chat process will go smoothly no matter which browser he or she is using while the agent can confidently proceed with the customer contact knowing that there won’t be any technical issues on either end.
WebRTC brings a wealth of advantages to contact centers including increased ease-of-use, rapid connectivity, and cost efficiency. As agents are able to connect quickly and efficiently with customers in real-time across multiple channels, they may resolve problems faster and with greater confidence while customers are also able to connect faster than ever. If contact centers do not already utilize the omnichannel strategy, WebRTC makes it possible to do so without sacrificing the quality of agent-customer interactions. The rapid connectivity further allows for customers to build greater trust in the companies they give business to as their problems are solved more efficiently, increasing customer satisfaction and improving customer retention rates. Lastly, WebRTC’s highly scalable model and function from a single platform helps businesses reduce costs by reducing contact time between agents and customers while eliminating the costs of fragmented or siloed technologies normally required to run a contact center. With WebRTC, contact centers and customers alike are set for a seamless experience across all channels as companies become more competitive by offering a high-quality customer service experience.
