WebRTC’s Impact on Your Business
Imagine being at a Rotary Club meeting and the year is 1995. A speaker gets up and talks to the group about the value of the World Wide Web: the ability for you to represent your business as a 24 hour store front. At the end of the speech, the speaker asks: “How many of you have a webpage? Raise your hand if you have one.” As you look around the room, a local competitor’s employees are raising their hands. When you get home, you check out the competitor’s website and you ask yourself many questions. Am I losing business because I am not on the World Wide Web? How do I get on the World Wide Web? Do I have time to maintain a website? I know I can do it, but the quality will be bad; will that tarnish my brand?
The questions remain the same in 2015. Are my competitors offering their customers a real-time way of connecting to me using voice, video, co-browsing, and data share? Is the competitor able to walk a joint prospect through complex or mundane issues using a web browser that is on every smartphone, tablet, and laptop?
Make no mistake: Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) is going to once again change the way that consumers and businesses interact. Those that successfully embed the technology into their brand’s web presence are going to drive customer loyalty. WebRTC’s power is the ability, in the same static webpage, to deliver a real-time experience. What is a real-time experience? It is the difference between looking at hundreds of home listings on a webpage and not having the correct relative context about the value of a home? Is the home in the right school district? Is the neighborhood one that is prized? These are questions that you want answered by a professional realtor, and when spending such a large amount of money, it is human nature to want to look the realtor in the eyes.
WebRTC allows a potential client to begin their exploration with a static website. As the client develops a list of questions to ask the realtor, they have three choices. They can write them down and try to schedule a time to visit a realtor’s office. Another option is to call the office, connect with a realtor and, using Multiple Listing Service (MLS) numbers, attempt to have their questions answered. Best of all, if the realtor’s website is WebRTC-enabled, the client can press the “connect” icon to start a video call with the realtor on the same page as the MLS listing. The realtor starts a co-browsing session, where the client gets to view the same screen that the realtor is browsing on. Co-browsing enables the realtor to delve into the details of the MLS listing and show a map of similar homes for sale to the client, all in real-time. The client at an airport, hotel, or even at home receives the same experience as they would have if they were in the realtor’s office. Questions about neighborhood, schools, town expansion plans and such are answered by the realtor. The client sees the value of the realtor and the brand equity of the realty office grows.
Real estate is only one example. This is the start of a blog series that will provide examples of how WebRTC can be used by enterprises. How does an enterprise go about adding WebRTC to their website? Contact Sonus or one of Sonus’ partners. We can quickly enable WebRTC functionality to your website to deliver a richer experience, all in the web browsers that your customers are using today.
