3 Ways to Future-Proof Your Video Solution

3 Ways to Future-Proof Your Video Solution

The pandemic accelerated the need for video solutions, and many organizations rushed to use whatever was readily available — regardless of whether it was the best fit for their unique needs. 

A common misunderstanding is that video is simply a replacement for in-person interactions. While that may have been the case when the pandemic made virtual solutions a necessity, the next wave of innovation will deploy video solutions far more strategically: if you embrace the unique features and experiences it offers, video can enhance the interactions you have with customers. 

To do so effectively, you need a custom solution — so we’ve laid out how companies are building personalized applications to make the most of video, and how it helps them stand out from competitors.

Build for scale

According to our recent survey, 77 percent of consumers report an increase or significant increase in their video usage since the pandemic started. When building your video application, you need an infrastructure that can scale quickly to those heightened levels of demand. 

The team at Notarize had a bold vision: to become the first platform integrating technology and live human interaction for online notarization with 24/7 availability. By integrating a custom video solution into their platform, they’ve been able to achieve 99.9 percent uptime and a 600 percent increase in customer growth since March 2020. 

That dependable infrastructure has propelled them to completely reshape the notarizing experience, turning what was once a 21 day process into a 3-minute virtual exchange.

Streamline the user experience

Consumers have made it clear they like using video applications because of convenience. That signals where businesses’ focus should be: streamlining the user experience to better meet their consumers’ needs, thus ensuring video remains the most convenient choice. 

Achieving this requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach; deep, intelligent customization is crucial to ongoing success. When the pandemic struck, SchoolCloud knew that their award-winning scheduling software would need to integrate video to best serve users. Their mission is to improve operational efficiency for schools, and one critical need they identified was streamlining the booking and managing process for parent/teacher conferences. 

In particular, teachers needed an easy way to keep meetings from running over, so SchoolCloud’s developers added a fixed-time feature that would create a countdown visible to users. “It forces the conversations to become more intentional because they've only got five minutes,” said Marcus Fields, co-founder of SchoolCloud. 

This customized feature, along with the existing convenience of video, meant that attendance at parent/teacher conferences increased—and many don’t see themselves going back to less efficient, in-person meetings post-pandemic. With a quick deploy video app, SchoolCloud’s team was able to launch this solution in just a week — and now they’ve seen more than 200 million minutes of participation. 

Create active engagement

Sitting in front of a screen all day is exhausting, but video can—and should—be more than something to passively stare at. 

Organizations are just beginning to explore ways to make video more interactive, from incorporating live chat and animations to games, on-screen annotations, and more. These creative experiments can keep consumers engaged, and thereby offer an experience they’re more likely to return to.

One company finding new ways to bring interactivity to video is Yembo, an end-to-end SaaS platform for the relocation industry. Their newest offering, Smart Consult, integrates their proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) technology with video to improve the moving consultation process through interactive virtual experiences.

After scheduling an appointment with a mover, customers receive a link that can take them directly to a video call in their web browser with just one click, no third-party apps or downloads required. On the call itself, the mover and customer can collaborate to get the most accurate data while the AI does all of the heavy lifting of identifying objects and determining what packing materials are needed. 

The call includes interactive elements where both parties can view the information collected by the AI and update it as-needed to ensure every detail is perfect, cutting down on even more time. By incorporating this creative interactivity, Yembo has cut down the average consultation duration by four times, and are averaging a CSAT score of 4.5/5.

Looking ahead

While thinking through how your business can apply these best practices for video applications, keep in mind the following questions:

1. Growth: How many people will be using your platform? How are you managing for scale?
2. Audience: How are users experiencing your platform? What is the user experience you are looking to create? How will you differentiate it from in-person and other video experiences?
3. Experience: How are you keeping people engaged with your application? How can you move the experience from passive to active?
4. Integration: How are you fitting your video application into the wider user experience? How will you connect the customer journey across channels?