What Is Cobrowsing? Benefits for Your Business!
Visual communication is becoming increasingly important today, including in the area of consumer experience. Just think about it: if you can see what someone's talking about, you can go straight to solving the problem. Cobrowsing is a resolution that can help you with this. In this article, we'll look more closely at what is cobrowsing and everything you need to know about it — from how it works to how it can be useful for your business— and we'll answer all the questions you may have about it.
What Is Cobrowsing?
Co-browsing, also known as "collaborative browsing," enables more than one person to simultaneously browse and interact with websites and web applications. This technology allows customer service agents to see and interact with what customers see in their web browsers. This means that agents can ensure that they have experience and provide more personalized assistance, providing more effective and efficient support for their customers.
Types of Cobrowsing
Several types of collaborative browsing are suitable for different use cases. However, the mission is the same (sales-oriented or customer-support-oriented) in all types. Not all companies use the same type of Co-browsing. Learn more about what types of Co-browsing are suitable for your business.
Embedded Cobrowsing
Embedded cobrowsing is the most common type of cobrowsing. Embedded cobrowsing uses JavaScript to enable agents to collaborate with customers on online platforms and applications. With this type of co-browsing, support agents can guide customers through online processes and resolve specific problems immediately without downloading or installing.
Universal Cobrowsing
Universal Cobrowsing can be implemented using JavaScript snippets. This type of cobrowsing provides additional flexibility to integrate windows, such as browsers shared between agents and customers, into your site, enabling you to collaborate on the entire web.
Document Cobrowsing
This type of Cobrowsing enables agents to view and edit documents with their customers. When creating complex forms or documents, agents can highlight and guide you through the items and terms that you want to describe. The ability to edit documents allows you to digitally complete an application or contract without creating a security risk and adds high-touch support.
How Does Cobrowsing Work?
Cobrowsing sends messages about what each user has done on the web page back to other users who are viewing the page. These messages are also called user activity messages. When a user interacts with elements on a web page, applications that track these interactions send messages to all other users who are currently viewing the page. Tracked views and interactions include clicking, selecting, typing, drag-and-drop, zooming, and scrolling.
For example, suppose Allen is cobrowsing with Bailey. When Allen selects some text fields on the web page and types them, the cobrowsing application tells Baily's browser that she has selected and typed some text fields. When Baily selects the text field and enters it, his action will be updated in other groups.
Two Ways to Achieve Cobrowsing
Cobrowsing, a tool that enhances user collaboration and customer support, can be implemented in a variety of ways. One is how to add specific code to your website, and the other is how to do co-browsing without changing the existing code on your website.
With Adding Code to the Website
Add specific code to your website to incorporate co-browsing capabilities. This integration is often preferred in scenarios where you want to enable a seamless, customized collaborative browsing experience, maintain brand consistency, and control the user interface.
You can add a cobrowsing.js script to your website, and the button triggers the start of a cobrowsing session. The details of the actual cobrowsing implementation depend on the cobrowsing solution you use.
Without Adding Code to the Website
Alternatively, you can cobrowse without making any changes to the website code. This method, also called "Zero Integration" or "Universal Cobrowsing", uses a stand-alone cobrowsing tool. Users can browse together without the need for website-specific integration.
Users will start cobrowsing by visiting the cobrowsing website or platform and entering the URL they want to share. The cobrowsing tool generates the only session link that can be shared with other users.
This method is simple and does not require technical knowledge from the owner of the website. This is especially useful for instant collaboration or when you can't modify the code on your website.
Main Uses and Application Areas of Cobrowsing
After understanding what is cobrowsing, we learned that cobrowsing is an advanced way for customers to solve complex problems in real time. It's a great tool in itself, but combined with video chat and live chat tools, it can provide interactive engagement and a virtual face-to-face experience.
Main Uses
Customer Support and Service
The agent actively uses cobrowsing and assists the user in the field of customer support. They actively guide users through the website, solve problems, and provide support in real-time to proactively improve customer satisfaction and accelerate problem-solving.
Sales and Lead Generation
The customer's journey combines multiple points of contact across different channels. When used for sales, cobrowsing helps to exploit the benefits of the company's website by converting it from a static to an interactive selling tool.
Technical Support
To troubleshoot technical failures, cobrowsing actively allows support teams to view the user's screen. They are actively directing users to software interfaces, settings, or error messages, which leads to quicker resolution of problems and reduces the need for feedback.
Customer Onboarding
With the help of a cobrowsing solution, the customer support team can make the onboarding process smoother and faster. You can guide your customers through various stages, from understanding product demos to completing account setup.
Online Application Forms
Often, when filling out complex forms, you are not sure what to fill out in a particular field. By enabling the feature of cobrowsing, the agent can view the form while the customer completes it.
Therefore, if the customer skips a required field, the agent can highlight and recall that part to indicate what answer is required. In this way, the customer can complete and successfully submit the form.
Application Areas
Finance and Banking
Cobrowsing is actively used in the financial sector to help secure online banking. Co-browsing enables agents to guide users through their transactions and explain financial instruments, enhancing user confidence in the digital banking platform.
Healthcare
In healthcare, cobrowsing actively supports telemedicine. Medical professionals actively use patients to navigate through medical information, booking schedules, and electronic medical records and actively contribute to the more interactive and personalized patient experience.
Insurance
Insurance companies actively use cobrowsing to guide customers. Actively navigates customers through online contract documents, insurance claims processing, and insurance policy management and actively assists customers in understanding their insurance-related processes.
Travel and Hospitality
In the travel industry, cobrowsing actively assists users. To actively guide a user in navigating a reservation platform, searching for a destination, and making the final decision of travel arrangement, improve a reservation experience, and actively solve the anxiety element of a traveler.
Why Cobrowsing Is Important for Modern Corporate Business?
Cobrowsing is important for today's business in a variety of industries. Cobrowsing has emerged as a powerful tool with several key advantages for digital era organizations where online interaction plays a key role in customer engagement and service delivery:
Benefit of Cobrowsing for the Customer
Real-Time Support
Cobrowsing enables customers to interact with support agents and personnel while navigating websites in real time. This real-time collaboration helps you resolve problems quickly, reduce latency, and improve your overall customer support experience.
Visual Direction
Cobrowsing allows support agents to see exactly what customers are seeing on the screen. This visual context is beneficial when troubleshooting technical problems or when guiding users through complex processes and helps improve communication and understanding.
Improved Communication Clarity
Cobrowsing actively facilitates improved communication between customers and support agents. Fewer misunderstandings and the two on the same page provide faster problem resolution and better customer support.
Convenience for Online Transactions
Cobrowsing increases convenience for e-commerce and online sales customers. Agents can help the customer select products, answer questions, and accompany the customer through the cashier process to simulate personal service in the stores.
Benefits of Cobrowsing for the Businesses
Increased Efficiency
With co-browsing technology, you can deliver more efficient service to your customers. Using this technology, agents can help customers quickly and easily resolve their issues. This can help decrease the time it takes to resolve customer issues, which can lead to improved customer satisfaction.
Increased Security
Co-browsing technology can also help you improve security for your business. By using a secure co-browsing solution, you can ensure that all data and information that is exchanged between your agents and customers is secure and private. This can help protect your customer and business data from potential threats.
Increased Customer Satisfaction
Cobrowsing allows agents to interact with the user's screen and step-by-step verbal and visual guidance to resolve the problem. The agent can scroll, click, write, and, if necessary, take full control of the user's screen. This saves time and avoids frustration on both sides.
Visibility
Cobrowsing can also help you increase your company's visibility. By using this technology, you can provide your agents with real-time access to customer data and information. This will help you better understand your customer's needs and priorities, which can help you improve your customer service experience and improve customer satisfaction.
Is Cobrowsing Safe?
Protecting the privacy of customers is the key for companies to build stronger customer relationships. Therefore, it is important that you have a visual engagement platform that does not compromise your customers.
Cobrowsing is safe to use because it has security standards and policies. Banks and other financial institutions use it to provide their customers with a better digital banking experience.
Co-browsing offers many advantages, but it also presents the companies with challenges.
Security and Compliance
While Cobrowsing provides powerful collaboration capabilities, it also poses risks in sharing customer information and sensitive information. The best cobrowsing solutions provide robust security measures — such as end-to-end encryption — to prevent unauthorized access or data loss.
Missing Omnichannel Support
Don't be fooled by clunky features — for good omnichannel support, your tools need to work together and communicate seamlessly. Without this synergy, data can be lost, and customer service suffers.
High Initial Investment
The cost of cobrowsing solutions can be daunting and often requires a high initial investment. To get the most out of cobrowsing, you should look for a complete solution that works well with your current technology stack, allowing you to implement new features and scale customer service operations quickly.
What Is the Difference between Screenshare and Cobrowsing?
Screenshare and cobrowsing are two technologies that seem similar at first glance, but there is an important difference worth understanding.
One of the main differences between cobrowsing and screenshare is the level that each technology can control. Cobrowsing allows multiple users to interact with shared web pages by clicking links and buttons, filling out forms, and using their own mouse or keyboard. In other words, cobrowsing is an effective way to collaborate on tasks that multiple people need to work together on a single web page.
In contrast, screenshare generally only allows people who share a screen to interact with the screen. Other users can see the shared screen, but they cannot click links or buttons, fill out forms, or interact with content.
In addition, cobrowsing activities are generally limited to specific browser web pages. Screenshare, on the other hand, gives agents full access to their own devices, including other pages, but only if a third-party application is installed on all devices involved.
Extra: Remote Support Software That Helps You Collaborate Better
Suppose you want to do more than just remotely assist with problems on a specific web page. In that case, you can try AirDroid Remote Support, which is also a type of screen-sharing software. Still, it has more features that allow you to access any page on another person's mobile device to provide technical support and better help you interact with them.
AirDroid Remote Support can instantly and remotely assist business employees and customers, remotely control and manage unattended devices, and even assist friends and family with ease. Let's see what it has to offer:
- Screen Sharing: See your customers' shared screen and give instructions via real-time voice call, and tutorial gestures.
- Remote Control: Besides voice communication, you can enhance service efficiency by directly controlling your customer's device during the help session.
- Unattended Android Access: Under the Unattended Mode, you can connect and remote control a device without consent from the device end for maintenance purposes.
- AR Camera & 3D Marker: Allows you to see through the customers' device camera and guide your customers by placing 3D markers onto real-world objects.
- Tutorial Gesture: Swipe or tap on the shared screen, the tutorial gesture will appear on your customer's device. (Only for Android)
Verdict
The key to the success of the business is to adopt new technologies to improve the customer experience. It is important to understand what is cobrowsing. Co-browsing enables you to do more than one mile by performing tasks rather than asking your customers for something. It gives your customers a unique user experience and gives them a long-term impression.
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