What Is a Video Conferencing API, and How Can It Improve Customer Communications?
In this multichannel, multitasking digital world, there are many ways to communicate with your customers — from SMS and email (great for quick questions and updates) to phone calls and live chat (ideal for in-depth conversations). Yet, when it comes to making personal connections, you can't replace face-to-face interactions.
Thanks to video conferencing apps, face-to-face interactions aren't restricted to happening in person only. And thanks to video conferencing API solutions, it's easier than ever to add video to your website, mobile apps, and third-party messaging channels.
What is a video conferencing API?
A video API is a type of communications API that enables your business to embed video conferencing capabilities into your existing digital properties. Communications APIs provide a standardized framework that allows different software to communicate with one another and share data, giving you a plug-and-play component for video conferencing.
Rather than needing to hire a team of developers to build a video player, secure it, integrate it with your core business applications, and incorporate it into your digital channels, you simply embed the video API code. This enables you to quickly and effectively scale communications and deliver customized video experiences for your customers across all the channels you use to connect with them.
How a video API improves customer communications
Let's explore the main benefits of leveraging a video conferencing API.
1. Streamline the video conferencing experience
Consumer interest in video chatting with businesses is on the rise. In fact, the Vonage Global Customer Engagement Report 2024 indicates that:
- 13% of consumers worldwide communicate with businesses through video on a near-daily basis.
- 26% planned to do more video conferencing in the near future.
More so, a whopping 74% of consumers use video chat/call platforms with businesses/service providers.
A video API simplifies that customer experience (CX). Whether customers are using your app, visiting your corporate website or e-commerce platform, or interacting with you via social media, they can initiate a video chat with your business from right where they are. They don't have to navigate their way to your contact page or sign into a third-party video conferencing app. Instead, they have a seamless customer experience, which is important, considering 80% of consumers say a satisfactory CX is just as important as high-quality products and services, according to the 2023 Salesforce State of the Connected Customer report.
2. Enhance customer engagement through face-to-face interactions
Video conferencing allows your customer-facing teams to get up close and personal with users. Even from a great distance, agents can see what customers see, view them smile, and smile back — all of which can help build personal connections and deliver personalized service.
Using a video conferencing API, your team can provide personalized tutorials, step-by-step remote support, and real-time guidance. For example, if a customer is struggling to learn how to use your product, your agent can see what the user is doing wrong and demonstrate how to do it correctly. The agent can walk them through how to install or set up your product, how to customize your software, or how to optimize your solution to get the best possible results.
3. Reduce customer service costs and sales expenses
Video conferencing can reduce costs in numerous ways. By enabling real-time, personalized support, you can improve customer satisfaction and engagement, thus reducing your customer attrition rate and the costs associated with finding new customers to replace them.
By improving your first-time resolution rate, video conferencing can also save time and, as a result, money. You can even record video calls and turn them into tutorials for your self-service portal, empowering customers to solve their problems without human intervention. Finally, you can reduce travel costs for salespeople and field technicians, who can resolve problems or close deals face-to-face without being in person.
While video conferencing can reduce the cost of customer support, a video API can reduce the cost of video conferencing. Building a customized, multichannel video conferencing experience from scratch is time-consuming and expensive. A video API is a plug-and-play solution that works out of the box, getting you up and running quickly — no developers or programmers needed.
4. Chat across channels
A video conferencing API enables your business to embed video anywhere and everywhere you interact with your customers, so they can start a conversation with your business via the channel of their choosing.
When Vonage asked consumers where they prefer to video chat with businesses and service providers, most chose external channels, such as WhatsApp (41%), Zoom (23%), Facebook/Messenger (19%), Google Meet/Duo/Hangouts (17%), Instagram (16%), and Microsoft Skype/Teams (16%). And 15% reported video chatting with brands via corporate websites and mobile apps. (Source: Vonage Global Customer Engagement Report 2024.)
A video conferencing API enables you to chat across channels and ensures a seamless CX. Your API isn't just integrated into each channel; it's also integrated with your CRM, e-commerce platform, and other databases that store customer data. This means that regardless of which channel your team is using to interact with a customer, they have all the relevant information — including customer profile data, buying history, and customer service call notes — right in front of them, so they can personalize the conversation wherever it happens.
5. Safeguard customer data
Communications APIs facilitate continuous, secure transactions between business applications, enabling your agents to handle sensitive information and protected customer data without worrying about compromising security or failing to comply with privacy standards.
Your communications vendor can provide a secure network and rich security features built into the API from the ground up. For example, Vonage Verify API enables you to implement two-factor authentication into your communication touchpoints to protect your data against fraud. Customers can verify their identity using SMS, voice, email, and/or WhatsApp, preventing bad actors from gaining unauthorized access.
Get started with Vonage Video API
Are you ready to scale your video conferencing capabilities? Whether you want to build a completely customized video experience for your customers or quickly add video with the low-code/no-code Vonage Video Express, the Vonage Video API has a solution to meet your needs.
Ready to build stronger relationships with your customers? Get started with Vonage Video API.
