How Amazon Raised the
Bar for Customer Experience
and You Can Too
Brands spend billions of dollars acquiring customers
and driving traffic to their websites, yet they find themselves
frequently leaving customer needs unmet, resulting in high customer
churn, and online conversion rates of just 2-3 percent. Consumers expect rapid response to their
questions and problems, along with ease of interaction. However, one contact center industry study
shows only 26 percent of consumers believe customer service centers provide this kind of support.1
For support centers First Call Resolution (FCR) is the metric proven to correlate most directly to
customer satisfaction.2 SQM, a leading research firm that tracks call center performance, found that
“customer call-backs account for a large amount of a call center’s annual budget. In fact, two-plus
calls account for 15 percent of the average annual budget. It is important to note that the call center
industry average to resolve a customer’s inquiry or problem is 1.4 calls. This represents, in most cases,
one of the biggest areas for call centers to increase customer satisfaction and reduce their operating
costs.”3
With the help of new technology, successful brands and customer support providers have conquered
many of the early challenges of taking their businesses online. They have mastered the trials involved
with providing great selection, true convenience, and seamless fulfillment, but competition is only a
click away and customer loyalty has gotten harder to come by. Earlier in the decade, text chat helped
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HOW AMAZON RAISED THE BAR FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND YOU CAN TOO
to mitigate these challenges. Now, as the Amazon Mayday case study below will demonstrate, new live help
technologies, including live video assistance, now go even further to help online merchants and call centers recapture
customer loyalty, reduce churn, and boost the bottom line.
Live video assistance is increasingly the solution businesses rely on to provide the levels of service excellence expected
by the hyper-connected customer. In this paper, you’ll discover:
• The origins and evolution of the customer satisfaction challenge
• The role of first generation technology in addressing customer service needs
• How the Amazon Kindle Mayday button raised the bar for customer experience
• The next generation of customer service – Live Video Assistance
• Real-world examples and results from best in class merchants using live video help.
Shifting Loyalties
The digital economy has spawned dozens if not hundreds of
methodologies for measuring the individual consumer’s online activity,
as well as gauging the connectedness for specific demographic groups,
countries, and industries.
Accordingly, many research studies document that today the primary
way customers evaluate your company is heavily dependent on their
personal interactions - even ahead of their actual use of your products.
The limited window when the customer is in direct contact with your
brand is your best opportunity to make a positive and personal impact.
46 percent of U.S. consumers
said they’re more likely to
switch vendors than they
were 10 years ago.
- Accenture
Some supporting facts and figures:
• According to Forrester, the majority of customers will abandon an online purchase if they
cannot get a quick answer to their question.4
• Retail Systems Research found 61 percent of retailers cite customer retention as their greatest
obstacle; this is up from 51 percent in the preceding year.5
• 46 percent of U.S. consumers said they’re more likely to switch vendors than they were 10 years
ago (Accenture).6
• ClickFox, a cross-channel analytics platform provider, found that 62 percent of consumers don’t
believe that the brands they’re loyal to do enough to reward them.7
Fortunately, live help technology is evolving to address these issues.
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HOW AMAZON RAISED THE BAR FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND YOU CAN TOO
Online text chat gets personal service started
When it was first introduced twenty years ago, ecommerce quickly established itself as a powerful sales channel. In
the areas of convenience, selection, merchandising, marketing, pricing, and even fulfillment, ecommerce has thrived
and has been consistently outpacing traditional channels in growth. The one area that has continued to challenge
ecommerce and online generally is customer experience. While there are tremendous virtues to virtualization for
both businesses and consumers, it has been challenging to replicate the experience that can be delivered live, faceto-face, in a store or showroom. Early on, text chat was introduced for both ecommerce and online customer service
to personalize, improve, and expedite the precious time they had to interact directly with the customer. The impact
was swift and positive: according to a 2012 ATG Global Consumer Trend study, 90 percent of customers considered
live chat helpful.8
Since the early days of text chat, newer technologies have been introduced to improve the customer experience
further and capture customer loyalty. Among these new tools is live video assistance, which is proven more effective
than text alone, especially with the widespread adoption of smart devices where text chat alone is more difficult.
The Amazon Kindle Mayday button was among the first use cases that documented the powerful, positive impact
of live help.
The quantum leap: Mayday creates new customer expectations
Amazon’s Mayday button was introduced in the fall of 2013. Rather than
relying on text chat alone, Amazon created their own live video help service
for their Kindle users. With one click, Kindle owners can engage person-toperson via video and voice with an Amazon technical support representative
to ask questions and resolve issues with their devices. Response time has been
slashed to under ten seconds, much to the delight of customers.
Amazon stated that now 75 percent of all Kindle customer contact comes
via the Mayday button. Consumers almost unanimously endorse Mayday and
industry analysts predict it will differentiate Amazon, allowing them to steal
greater market share from competitors.
The extensive media coverage and the success of Mayday have had another
effect on the connected customer experience: Mayday has upped the ante.
Customers and shoppers expect fast, efficient, individualized interaction.
According to Forrester, “After using Mayday, many customers are likely to
view traditional text chat, interactive voice response, and doc-based support
After using Mayday,
many customers are
likely to view traditional
text chat, interactive
voice response, and
doc-based support
solutions as outdated
and cumbersome.
- Forrester Research
solutions as outdated and cumbersome.”9
At the end of 2014 Amazon had 270 million active customers worldwide. It’s an essential element of the Amazon
culture to innovate and do what it takes to keep that enormous number of consumers happy. Mayday is a critical
piece of that puzzle. It sets a new standard. It also underscores the positive benefit of face-to-face communication
and how eager consumers are to use it.
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HOW AMAZON RAISED THE BAR FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND YOU CAN TOO
Since its inception, Amazon has helped set expectations for customer experience in a series of areas. From fulfillment,
with free, express, same day, and drone shipping, to customer reviews, rewards, fast checkout, and now live video
assistance, Amazon has made big investments in customer experience and in each case has raised the bar on what
it takes to compete and win in ecommerce.
The value of face-to-face communication
Live video assistance, sometimes called “video chat,” is a service that allows contact center agents to deliver an
online interaction that emulates an in-person, face-to-face experience. Live video assistance helps brands connect
with customers through simultaneous voice, video, text, co-browsing, and co-form-filling on any Web or mobile
browser, mobile application, or in-store kiosk. This solution is typically offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and
can be enabled with minimal set-up and quick time to market.
In a recent research study, the Harvard Business Review found that 87 percent of professionals think face-to-face
communication is critical to closing a business transaction and 95 percent said face-to-face is key to building customer
loyalty.10 As described below, these statistics have proven themselves to apply to live video engagements as well.
Similarly, in an April 2014 analysis from Forrester Research called See Me, Serve Me: Video Chat For Customer Service
Starts to Take Hold, they advise that the first step in adoption of live help is to identify areas within your business
“where you engage customers in their immediate context and moment of need — whether you are responding to a
request, enabling a transaction, or capturing content.”
Schuh sees results with live video assistance
Another company that has realized the benefits of live video assistance is Schuh, a leading European footwear retailer
that has chosen the live video assistance solution from Vee24.
Since implementing live video help, Schuh’s key e-commerce metrics
have reached record levels. In fact, live assistance is now Schuh’s
largest customer contact channel, surpassing phone, e-mail, and social
networks. The company recently announced it has seen customers four
times more likely to buy in an assisted session compared to site averages,
and have also realized an average NPS rating of 78. According to
Schuh, live video assistance is enabling the company to achieve online
conversion rates equal to those of their brick-and-mortar locations.
“Customers love the
Schuh uses a variety of methods to invite customers to speak with the
Live Help Team. Website customers are ‘nudged’ during their browsing
session and offered live assistance, and they also employ social media
as another route to offer live help. For example, the Schuh team will
reply to customers’ tweets advising them to click into live help to
resolve their questions. Schuh also offers video chat to customers by
adding a direct link to live help in its email communications.
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personalized shopping
experience and for Schuh
it has become both a
fundamental part of our
differentiated cross-channel
service offer and a genuinely
exciting new sales channel.”
- Sean McKee, Head of Ecommerce and
Customer Services, Schuh
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HOW AMAZON RAISED THE BAR FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND YOU CAN TOO
And many Schuh customers are choosing the live video help. The merchant averages close to 1,000 live engagements
each day at peak shopping times. The live sessions are so effective at converting customers that Schuh now sees their
customer service center as a profit center.
Proven results with Vee24 Live Video Assistance
Vee24, the world leader in live video assistance, helps you connect with your customers through voice, video, text
and co-browsing on any browser, including those on smartphones and tablets. Vee24 has tracked and documented
the business improvements experienced by our clients across more than 1 million interactions. We have seen the
following measurable benefits for businesses using our live video assistance solution:
• Improvements in conversion to sale from 10 to 30 percent in assisted sessions; though some
clients have achieved as much as 10x increases in online conversion;
• 25-35 percent increases in average order value;
• Net Promoter Scores of 78 and above;
• Call resolution rates higher than traditional support channels.
The data shows that the bar for customer experience has been getting steadily higher with no end in sight. Text chat
was a great start to tackling the challenges presented by the growing passion of today’s online customers. Staying
ahead of the customer satisfaction curve and continuing to boost metrics like FCR, AOV, and conversion to sale,
requires employing the best new technologies available. Live video assistance is easy to deploy and is proving its
effectiveness to call centers and top brands every day.
The Vee24 solution provides text chat and much more. We help you co-browse, share, guide and present any type of
content to the customer whether it’s video, slides, pdf or web pages. And in reverse, consumers can use their own
camera to show your agents what they need. For example, to troubleshoot a faulty cable installation or to show their
living room to get advice on purchasing new furniture from agent stylists. You can also offer consumers a helping
hand through checkout and enrollment processes with co-form filling.
To learn more, click here for a comprehensive checklist of what to look for in a live video assistance solution. If you
are ready to experience the results Vee24 clients achieve, contact us today.
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HOW AMAZON RAISED THE BAR FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND YOU CAN TOO
REFERENCES
1. 5 Important Customer Service Statistics for Call Centers,
Fonolo Blog, 2012
2/3.First Call Resolution (FCR) – The Metric that Matters Most,
SQM Group
4. See Me, Serve Me: Video Chat For Customer Service Starts to
Take Hold, Forrester Research, April 2014
5. Customer Loyalty Programs: Stats, Facts and Tips for 2014,
Loyalty Blog, Customer Insight Group Inc., February 2014
7. Brand Loyalty Survey 2012, ClickFox, April 2012
8. Powering the Cross-Channel Customer Experience with
Oracle’s Complete Commerce, Oracle, 2012
9. Quick Take: Amazon’s Mayday Turns Customer Support Into
Customer Experience, Forrester Research, November 2013
10. Managing Across Distance in Today’s Economic Climate: The
Value of Face-to-Face Communication, Harvard Business
Review, 2009
6. Lessons from the Recession: Where Customer Service
and Support Investments Yield Superior Returns for
Communications and High-Tech Companies, Research Report,
Accenture, May 2010
ABOUT VEE24
Vee24 is the live video assistance solution trusted by the world’s leading consumer-facing brands. Featuring voice,
video, text and co-browsing for web-, app-, and kiosk-based customer engagements, Vee24 is the most broadly and
successfully deployed solution proven to advance the customer experience and dramatically increase ecommerce
sales. Customers include Audi, DFS, Isabella Oliver, Jaguar Land Rover, Mattress Firm, Samsung, Schuh and Vodafone.
The company is headquartered in Boston, Mass., with European operations in Manchester, England. For more
information, please visit http://www.vee24.com.
©2015 Vee24, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Vee24, its logo, and VeeStudio are trademarks of Vee24. Other trademarks
contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
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