Despite the recent clamour for more AI in our contact centres, most of the heavy lifting is still done by agents on the phone. In fact, telephony accounts for 81% of all inbound interactions at some UK organisations according to uk-ccf. A number that is far too high!
Meanwhile, the cost of employing an agent continues to rise and now exceeds £26,000 a year - with salaries projected to keep increasing year-on-year into the immediate future.
Put those two pressures together and the challenge for contact centre leaders becomes apparent:
Work out how to deflect high volumes of telephony demand or incur the skyrocketing costs of employing ever more agents.
Alternatively, don't increase headcount and risk sacrificing the great experience that customers increasingly expect by stretching hold times.
While most organisations have turned to AI in an attempt to optimise self-service, at Premier CX, we’ve found that video FAQs, especially when delivered through WhatsApp, have the biggest operational impact and deliver the most outsized bang for your buck.
Together, they give you an affordable, scalable way to lower call volumes, improve customer experience and reduce costs simultaneously.
We think they're currently the best self-service solution out there, and better yet, they absolutely sit within your long-term AI strategy.
Please let us explain.
FAQs that actually work
Most organisations already have FAQs, but too often FAQs sit as long, text-heavy pages that are hard to scan and easy to abandon. Customers give them a quick glance, don’t find what they need immediately and end up calling agents.
Video completely transforms how customers engage with FAQs. Around 83% of people say they’d rather learn through video, and this is the key difference.
Video removes unwanted friction from the experience; it lets people pause, rewind and follow along at their own pace. It shows rather than tells, which makes it easier to understand, and it can be taken to the scene of a problem for watchers to follow along.
Video can also do something very important for customer experience that text often struggles with, which is convey empathy or clarity when someone is unsure what to do next.
For these reasons, when FAQs are provided with video, customers actually engage with them rather than bypassing them completely.
Accessibility
Catering for accessibility is another big factor in what makes video so effective.
For example, the average reading age in the UK is around nine, which means written FAQs, especially those full of technical language, can unwittingly exclude or deter a large part of your audience.
Video removes that barrier. It’s visual, easier to follow and simpler to adapt into different languages if required.
AI
AI makes video a future‑proof asset within a self‑service strategy. One example, when a customer engages with an AI agent in web chat, video enhances that interaction in the same way it would between two people, adding clarity and context. The AI can surface video directly in the chat or send it separately, giving customers clear, easy‑to-digest answers.
Video can also be optimised for AEO, making it discoverable through AI-driven search prompts and helping position your brand at the top of recommended solutions.
Watch now to understand more about our Video Managed Service
Why WhatsApp works so well
If video improves how you deliver information, WhatsApp improves how your customers access it.
Around 66% of adults would rather message a business than call, while 74% say they feel more connected to organisations they can reach this way. For most customers, messaging is simply more convenient than calling.
That preference matters because when you meet customers on a channel they already use daily, interactions feel more intuitive from the outset. This is what makes engagement rates from WhatsApp soar.
Improved CX with Rich Media
WhatsApp also supports a richer experience than traditional channels. You can send video, PDFs and other content in a way that feels seamless. It can be automated, connected to your CCaaS platform or CRM and enhanced with AI-driven responses to handle common queries.
From a user perspective, it fits around customers' lives.
Conversations don’t have to happen in one sitting. people can message between meetings, on the move or whenever suits them.
Everything is logged, so they can revisit the conversation later without needing to start again or remember details. In our experience, this one of the biggest frustrations your customers currently have with your business.
For contact centres, WhatsApp's flexibility reduces pressure on voice channels and allows teams to handle more interactions more efficiently. It also creates a more modern, responsive impression of your brand, which customers increasingly expect.
There are countless ways to use WhatsApp to deflect demand and improve experience, far more than can reasonably fit into one post.
The key point is simple. It aligns with how customers already behave, and that makes adoption far easier.
Watch now to understand more about our Video Managed Service
Where WhatsApp and video come together
Individually, video and WhatsApp are powerful. Combined, they create an experience that feels both seamless, immediate and genuinely helpful.
For example, imagine a customer messaging in with a common query. Instead of a long-written response, they receive a short, clear video that walks them through the answer.
And, if the issue is more complex than video allows, the conversation can move seamlessly to an agent without disruption.
Sending outbound messages
This approach works just as well for outbound communication.
Service updates, payment reminders, onboarding steps or even proactive guidance can be delivered through WhatsApp, supported by video where it adds clarity.
That means you’re not just reacting to problems, but helping customers resolve them before they escalate.
WhatsApp Accessibility
It also opens the door to better accessibility at scale. WhatsApp can automatically detect language and respond in the language a customer uses, while video content can be adapted across more than 150 languages.
That removes barriers that would otherwise slow customers down or push them towards more expensive channels.
The end result is a service experience that feels effortless. Customers get clear answers quickly, in a format that makes sense to them, on a channel they already trust.
A simple shift that delivers unrivalled impact
At Premier CX, we’ve seen first-hand how combining video and WhatsApp transforms service operations. WhatsApp messages achieve read rates that dwarf traditional channels , while video dramatically improves how well customers access and absorb information.
Our proposition is straightforward but unrivalled. Replace static, text-heavy self-service with something more engaging, and deliver it through a channel your customers already use. Then let that combination do the heavy lifting while your agents are free to focus on more sensitive or complex cases
Talk to us.
If you want to see the impact for yourself, we’re offering a free video FAQ for a limited time. It’s a simple way to test what better self-service looks like in practice. Click here.
Alternatively, if you’re exploring how WhatsApp could fit into your service strategy, we’re happy to walk through the possibilities based on your specific use cases. Click here to send a contact form.