Why co-browsing is a win-win scenario for customers and support agents alike
No matter what your company does, an effortless customer experience is essential if you want to encourage repeat business. The strength of your relationship with your customers, and how you perform at “critical moments”, are two of the major contributors to customer loyalty. Co-browsing is the logical evolution of customer support in a digital world, bringing customers (or prospects) and support agents closer through a shared experience.
Let’s dive deeper into what collaborative browsing is, how it boosts customer satisfaction across various industries, and what you need to consider when choosing a co-browsing software that suits your needs.
What is co-browsing and how is it different from screen-sharing?
Co-browsing (an abbreviation of collaborative browsing) is an innovative technology that provides real-time, human guidance across a range of digital platforms. In simple terms, co-browsing is a technology that enables a support agent to view and interact with a customer’s web browser or mobile application.
Collaborative browsing is a customer support marvel that goes beyond mere screen sharing. It’s a dynamic, interactive experience that empowers both customers and support agents, leading to increased customer satisfaction, more efficient contact center operations and even greater revenue generation opportunities.
Powerful co-browsing solutions offer a broad range of features, such as data masking to hide sensitive information and shield your client’s privacy. Additionally, annotation capabilities let agents highlight key points or guide the client seamlessly through complex processes.
If that doesn’t do the job, agents can ask permission to remotely control the client’s browser or app to offer hands-on assistance, making problem-solving a breeze. These features not only amplify security but also streamline troubleshooting with a personal touch.
How does co-browsing work?
To start a co-browsing session, customers need to authorize agent access to their screens. To protect the client’s privacy and safety, co-browsing solutions only let agents see the windows or apps the customer chooses, not everything on their device. Co-browsing is an app- or browser-based solution, so there’s no need for the client to download or install third-party software. It runs directly in the browser/app, as long as there’s an internet connection. Once a co-browsing session is initiated the support agent can immediately see what the customer sees, provide visual guidance and even take over the browsing if the customer allows it.
If you’d like to see first-hand what a co-browsing session might look like, check out our free online demo.
How co-browsing can improve customer experience
A good customer experience (CX) is the cornerstone of successful businesses. Co-browsing aligns perfectly with CX enhancement by offering immediate assistance when customers need it most. This technology caters to the customer’s convenience, reducing average call handling times, and significantly improving satisfaction rates.
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Increased efficiency in problem resolution
By directly interacting with customers’ web pages, your support agents can quickly identify and resolve issues. This results in faster resolutions, fewer touchpoints, reduced friction, and enhanced agent performance.
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Building trust and customer loyalty
Co-browsing provides a more personalized and interactive support experience. Customers appreciate the guidance, leading to increased trust in your brand and fostering long-term loyalty.
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Boosting first-call resolution rates
With the ability to visually guide customers through complex processes, Co-browsing significantly improves first-call resolution rates, reducing the need for multiple interactions to solve a single issue.
How co-browsing can improve revenue generation
The move to online purchasing has undeniably improved convenience for customers. However, digital buyers are frequently short on time and patience. If there is even a little friction in the process, they will abandon the purchase. In 2023, shopping cart abandonment rates sat at over 70% worldwide (Baymard Institute).
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Reducing shopping cart abandonment
Co-browsing provides real human guidance in an e-commerce environment. The ability to provide real-time advice on what can be the complex nuance of an online purchase significantly reduces the chances of abandonment. Support staff can guide customers through how to add items to their basket, how to add billing and delivery details and more.
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Improving average order values
Online purchasers don’t typically upsell themselves. Having researched a product, they will go online and buy the one thing they were looking for (at the lowest price they can find) and leave. In a collaborative browsing session, the sales support agent has an opportunity to encourage upsell or add-on purchases – increasing the average order value.
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Increasing repeat revenues
A great customer experience fosters loyalty. Loyal customers are more likely to carry out repeat purchases, increasing long-term revenues and reducing the cost of acquisition. Loyal customers are also more likely to act as advocates, recommending friends and family to purchase.
Co-browsing use cases
Co-browsing tools are often favored by businesses dealing with complex products or services, like finance companies, where lengthy forms might overwhelm customers. However, any company aiming to boost its customer service can benefit from using co-browsing.
Here are some examples of how co-browsing is being used across different industries:
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Financial Sector
In the financial sector, co-browsing plays a crucial role in online banking and financial consultations. It ensures a secure and compliant environment while enabling seamless collaboration between customers and advisors. For instance, data masking during co-browsing sessions allows advisors to guide clients through financial documents while ensuring sensitive information remains hidden. This not only boosts trust and confidence but also ensures data privacy and security.
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Retail Industry
For retail, co-browsing enhances ecommerce customer support by allowing agents to provide personalized assistance to customers navigating through the website or app. In addition to issue resolution, this co-browsing can facilitate upselling and cross-selling by guiding customers to complementary products or services. By visually showcasing relevant products, co-browsing leads to increased sales and customer loyalty.
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Healthcare Sector
In healthcare, co-browsing facilitates remote consultations and telemedicine. This technology ensures patient confidentiality while enabling agents to collaborate with patients in navigating medical information and services online. The ability to maintain privacy while discussing sensitive medical information remotely ensures quality care and enhances patient satisfaction.
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Technology Industry
Within the technology industry, co-browsing serves as an invaluable tool for training and demonstrations. Companies can utilize co-browsing during customer onboarding sessions or technical support calls to visually guide users through software interfaces or troubleshoot issues. This aids in providing hands-on, real-time assistance, improving user adoption and satisfaction with the technology.
What to consider when choosing a co-browsing solution
Different industries have different requirements. So, implementing a co-browsing solution that is tailored to your specific business needs and customer expectations is crucial for success. If you’ve decided co-browsing is the right way to go, what should you consider when choosing a vendor?
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Ironclad Security
Security and privacy are paramount when implementing co-browsing. To overcome this challenge, robust security measures and encryption protocols must be in place to ensure customer data remains safe.
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Multi-channel and platform support
Customers are increasingly platform and device-agnostic, moving from desktop to mobile, browser to app. Your co-browsing solution needs to be as agile as your users, providing support across all your channels. Make sure that the platform you choose supports a wide variety of mobile, web, and desktop platforms including Android, iOS, Windows and MacOS.
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Comprehensive functionality
The more value you can add to the co-browsing experience, the more value co-browsing can add to your business. Your co-browsing solution should, at a minimum, provide multiple methods of session initiation, localization support and proxy-based co-browsing to allow cross-domain and third-party content with redaction, remote control and annotation.
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CRM integration
Seamless integration of co-browsing into existing CRM or support systems streamlines operations and enhances the overall customer service experience. That’s why a solution that offers native integrations into the leading helpdesks and CRMs is a huge plus.
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Performance metrics
Tracking metrics such as customer satisfaction scores, resolution times, and customer feedback help assess and optimize the impact of collaborative browsing on service quality. Insight into which URLs were visited and which features were utilized can help improve our understanding of the user experience. For further audit, analysis and compliance, co-browsing solutions that feature full video recordings and audit logs are a must.
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Branding and Customization
Consistency is essential when it comes to building a strong brand. Therefore, it’s worth looking for options that allow you to customize the co-browsing interface to fit your brand.
For a more detailed exploration of what to look for, download our Guide To Choosing A Co-Browsing Vendor.
Co-browsing: A quantum leap in customer experience
Cobrowsing stands as a beacon of enhanced customer experience, benefiting businesses by streamlining support, fostering trust, and ensuring customer satisfaction. Its potential to revolutionize customer service across various sectors makes it a valuable tool for companies looking to elevate their customer support strategies.
Embracing co-browsing is not just a step forward; it’s a leap toward delivering exceptional customer experiences in an age where experiences make all the difference. Experience for free what Cobrowse can do for your company or talk to our experts to learn more about our solution.
