9 Videos for Customer Service That Improve Support & Retention

These days, we all want fast resolutions to any problem we have. People quit brands all the time because of poor, slow customer service.

If you want to keep your customers, your support must be excellent, and video-based customer service can help you achieve that.

In this blog post, you'll discover:

• The benefits of using customer support videos
• All the ways you can integrate video customer support into your customer journey and support framework

Let's show you how to wow and retain customers with video support.

What is video customer service?

Video customer service is content companies create to inform, support, or instruct customers at a particular stage of their journey. So, support video is not just about creating technical support videos. It can involve any live or recorded video that answers a question or helps solve a customer's issue.

Before AI, video wasn't the first choice for improving the customer service experience simply because it required a lot of resources to create. But thanks to generative AI, that's not the case anymore. This technology can easily scale personalized support video production while ensuring professional quality.

Video customer support can take a few different forms:

1. Live video support: Customers interact in real-time with service representatives through live video calls.
2. Video callbacks: Instead of waiting on hold, customers opt for the support staff to contact them via video call at a scheduled time.
3. Pre-recorded support videos: Companies give access to pre-recorded video tutorials, FAQs, and how-to guides to help customers solve common problems independently.
4. Video chatbots: Some companies integrate AI-powered video chatbots that can give automated responses to common inquiries and escalate complex issues to human agents.

Below, we'll discuss and exemplify the uses of pre-recorded support videos, which are the most versatile option and should be at the core of your support strategy.

Why use video for customer support & retention?

Videos facilitate the best customer service. They can help build personal connections with a bit of personalization and improve customer retention in the long run. Equally important, with the right tools, your support team can create videos super fast and easily.

83% of consumers prefer watching videos to reading text or listening to audio. So, videos are more likely to be perceived as a frustration-free experience for customers interacting with your company. Since they also reduce time-to-resolution, videos take the pressure off your agents and save you support costs.

The platforms where you host or distribute videos give you data on what customers are most interested in and where you need to improve your content. Applying these insights to tailor your customer support videos and strategies can enhance the personalized attention you provide to your audience.

This kind of attentive care can drive retention and increase loyalty. According to Zendesk, 90% of customers would spend more with companies that offer personalized customer services.

1. Use video to onboard & train customer support hires

86% of customer service leaders want to improve customer experience in 2024. Having more professional and knowledgeable employees in customer-facing roles is the key to outstanding customer experience. And when it comes to training these people, 97% of L&D pros recommend video because they find it more engaging.

Training videos help employees practice customer support responses in depth before they start responding to real customer issues. Check out how this training video walks you through a few actionable tips for responding to support tickets:

(The video above is a cloneable template that you can use to make your own customer support videos)

As you offer your support teams adequate training, they'll be content to work for you and provide your customers with better service. Ultimately, the right training video can increase customer retention.

To improve customer support skills quickly and enable your teams to offer exceptional service, you need two things:

1. Know what you must teach: Platforms like Gong and Chorus can analyze your agents' support calls and provide you with actionable improvement insights.
2. Have an easy-to-use video maker: Tools like Synthesia and Loom easily create training videos from plain text. Synthesia even has a Dialogues feature to create engaging videos for customer support training.

2. Create a video knowledge base

Use video to build a well-organized knowledge base that puts answers at your customers' fingertips. Anticipating and answering customer queries in advance provides a unique customer experience. Clients help themselves instead of waiting for a support agent to log in and solve all the support tickets in the queue. The result? Higher customer satisfaction and fewer support calls.

Not sure how to create a video customer support base? Start by identifying the most common customer issues. What are the questions your customer support team gets most often? Use those to produce FAQ videos on different topics.

You can create general how-to content or in-depth customer service training videos. Think about troubleshooting videos, policy and procedure explanations, tips and tricks, and safety information videos.

A text-to-video tool like Synthesia, which supports screen recordings, can greatly help improve your customer support experience with FAQs videos. And because AI videos are super easy to edit, you can use them to optimize your video knowledge base continually.

Intenseye used Synthesia to turn help articles from its knowledge base into AI videos. The company produced 13 digestible videos from 30 articles and automatically translated them into 4 language versions for key markets. See below one of those videos:

Other AI tools you can use to create an outstanding customer experience with video customer support are:

• Kaltura, for video hosting, publishing, and distribution
• Panopto, for managing searchable video content libraries
• Vidyard, for video hosting with enhanced video analytics

3. Provide asynchronous video support

An asynchronous support video gives users a step-by-step solution they can access on their schedule. This approach optimizes customer service and makes the entire support process less dependent on customer reps.

People feel they have a fast answer, which increases their satisfaction. Simultaneously, you're freeing up your support staff for more complex support tickets and queries, and you can reuse these videos with multiple customers with similar issues.

What should these customer support videos look like? Here's an example from Apple on the topic of how to use the Assistive Touch function:

4. Onboard customers with a welcome video

Your marketing team can use video in different ways when onboarding customers. Here are a few suggestions on how to enhance customer experience and personal connection with video:

• Create welcome customer service videos.
• Walk customers through the setup with a visual demonstration or a series of how-to videos.
• Introduce users to available support resources or key features of your products/services.
• Provide exclusive customer service training videos that help them excel using the product they just bought.

This welcome B2B video example is meant to optimize support by informing a customer what to expect from working with their company:

5. Upsell customers with engaging videos

Upselling existing customers can boost your company's revenue by up to 30%. These tactics increase the average order value and customer satisfaction, mainly by using discounts and personalized recommendations.

The purchase page is great for placing an upsell video and grabbing attention at a crucial decision-making point. Alternatively, send emails with complementary products, bundles, or offers related to your subscribers' initial purchases.

A simple video where someone describes the upsell should do it. But you can stand out with shoppable videos where viewers click on products, get purchase details, and order on the spot. Tolstoi is a video commerce platform specializing in such videos, and you can check out some of their cool examples here.

6. Send Thank-You videos

Thank-you videos acknowledge customer loyalty or celebrate company achievements. They typically express gratitude, affirm the customer's decisions, and can strengthen emotional connection with your brand. In short, they're essential to ongoing great customer service.

To see the power of thank-you videos in action, watch this emotional Thank You Letter by LifeStraw:

7. Offer exclusive, bonus video content

Customer support can also be proactive and increase brand loyalty. Bonus advanced tutorials, expert interviews, or special events add value to the customer's experience. They encourage continued engagement with your brand, and you can make them accessible exclusively to certain customer groups - premium members, frequent buyers, or newsletter subscribers. 

Use platforms like Vimeo on Demand or Kajabi, which offer hosting and gating video content solutions. Try out Patreon, too, which, despite not being a classic example, has a pretty clever way of gating content and has been a big part of supporting the creator economy.

8. Build your community with raw, unedited videos

These videos can be anything without that highly polished look and feel. Whether you host webinars on Zoom or live stream Q&A sessions on YouTube, let customers interact with your brand and each other. Every now and then, go the extra mile to share behind-the-scenes about your operations, team, or products.

Unfiltered videos humanize your brand and strengthen the emotional connection with customers. Watch this behind-the-scenes video of how real people get cloned into a digital AI avatar at Synthesia and pay attention to how it makes you feel:

9. Boost event engagement with targeted videos

Events draw crowds. Why not grab more eyeballs and new customers with video content designed for your audience's interests and roles? Use videos at live or virtual events to make the experience outstanding and increase engagement. The key is to display them at strategic points, during registration, breaks, or dedicated sessions.

IPC Mobile booked 35% more meetings at a trade show and got 40% more views on its explainer videos. The company created 4 videos and let the sales team decide what to play depending on what customer types and roles visited their booth. Here's how it looked:

The videos you see on those huge displays were created in only 48 hours, compared to the 30 days it would have taken them to produce videos the traditional way.

Turn text resources into engaging support videos

With people remembering 95% of a video message compared to only 10% of a text, it's clear that video gets the attention.

Now, with the power of AI, you can create customer service videos faster than ever and have your customer service team personalize them to even call your clients by their name.

All you need is an AI video maker like Synthesia, and turning text into video customer support will take you minutes. Check out how to create videos as easily as a slide deck (free demo inside!)