What is Cobrowsing and how does it work?

What is Cobrowsing?

Cobrowsing lets multiple people collaboratively browse a website together in real time.

Cobrowsing is often used by customer support teams to help resolve queries faster and increase satisfaction scores. Agents are able to join customer sessions to guide them through complex user interfaces while remaining on your website.

Is cobrowsing the same as screen sharing?

Cobrowsing is not the same as screen sharing.

Screen sharing is similar to a video recording where you allow someone else to see your screen remotely. Cobrowsing on the other hand allows 2 or more people to interact with the same web page together.

Imagine you and a friend were sitting next to each other and you both had your own mouse and keyboard connected to the same computer. In theory, you could now browse a web page together. This is what cobrowsing allows except that you can do it remotely across the internet.

How does cobrowsing work?

Cobrowsing works by connecting an agent to a customer session in their browser through a peer to peer connection (WebRTC).

The customer's DOM (document object model) containing all the HTML in the web page they're on is sent to the agent where it is rebuilt to create a pixel perfect duplication. The agent is then able to interact with the web page on their end at which point those interactions are sent back to the customer.

This results in the ability for a customer and agent to collaboratively interact with a website together in real time.

Is cobrowsing safe, secure and private?

Yes, cobrowsing is safe and secure. In fact, cobrowsing is more private than regular screen sharing.

Regular screen sharing allows viewers to see your entire screen (or sometimes a specific application or browser tab). Cobrowsing on the other hand offers far more control in terms of security and privacy such as:

• Cobrowsing is only available on your website and specifically on the pages which you have it installed.
• Cobrowsing allows you to hide or mask specific input fields or areas of your website.
• Cobrowsing typically uses encrypted peer to peer connections over WebRTC.

What are the benefits of cobrowsing?

Resolve customer queries quickly

With traditional email and live chat support, there's a lot of back and forth while agents try to get all the information they need to resolve a customer issue. This process often involves typing out long issue descriptions and sending screenshots. Agents are then left asking questions like "Is it working now?" or "What do you see now?".

Cobrowsing saves time by allowing agents to instantly join a customer session in their browser. Agents will see exactly what the customer sees and are able to scroll, click and guide them in real time which eliminates confusion and results in faster query resolution times.

Create a personalized, collaborative experience with your customers

The world is continually moving towards a digital first, online experience. For online businesses, creating a personalized experience for customers where they feel connected to you and your brand is extremely difficult. For businesses that are able to achieve this, the resulting customer loyalty, satisfaction and referrals all sky rocket.

Feederloop enables cobrowsing and video chat on your website which gives you the opportunity to create a near in person experience with your customers. This leaves you head and shoulders above the competition in terms of providing incredible, efficient customer support.

Quick and easy to use

Cobrowsing works on your website which means there is no need for 3rd party applications, downloads or meeting links. Everything happens while your customers are on your website.

At the click of a button, agents are able to join customer sessions to begin cobrowsing while they continue to browse your website.

Increase customer satisfaction scores

When customers or prospects have queries, they don't want to wait for an answer or get frustrated by the agent not understanding their issue. Customers want their query resolved quickly and efficiently without the need for screenshots or long back and forth issue descriptions.

With cobrowsing, an agent sees exactly what the customer sees and is be able to click, scroll and guide them through your website. This results in faster query resolution times, personalized support and ultimately better customer satisfaction (CSAT) and net promoter (NPS) scores.

Privacy focused

Cobrowsing keeps personal information private and is secure by design. Here are a few privacy focused features of cobrowsing:

• Cobrowsing limits what agents can see to the current browser tab which the customer is on.
• Cobrowsing tools such as Feederloop mask all input fields in the customer browser by default which means there is no risk of leaked personal information. Alternatively you can specify which fields to mask or hide. You also have the ability to hide entire sections of specific pages.
• Cobrowsing typically uses peer to peer encrypted connections (via WebRTC) which means there is no risk of session data being leaked.
• Cobrowsing is only available on the exact pages of your website which the cobrowsing tool (eg: Feederloop) has been installed. This means you can exclude certain parts of your website if you wish.

Improve conversion rates

Sales queries and product demos benefit greatly from cobrowsing with the ability to show prospects exactly what your product has to offer in real time while they're on your website or in your web app.

When cobrowsing is used, product demos are no longer boring one way sales calls. Instead, they become collaborative, interactive experiences for prospects to experience your product first hand.

Improved onboarding

Onboarding new customers successfully and ensuring they experience value from your product quickly is critical to the growth of your business. Cobrowsing with new customers ensures they understand how everything works and reduces confusion.

Not only does cobrowsing improve onboarding new customers, it can also be used to onboard new staff members to internal tooling to ensure they get up and running fast.

Who uses cobrowsing?

Cobrowsing is used by online businesses looking to improve their customer support, sales or onboarding. Most commonly, cobrowsing is used in the following areas:

• Customer support and success teams
• Call centres
• Ecommerce businesses
• SaaS (software as a service) businesses

What are the most common use cases for cobrowsing?

Cobrowsing brings value whenever a more personal, interactive experience between a company and their customers is required such as:

• Customer support and success
• Demos and sales calls
• Onboarding (customers and staff)
• Remote teaching
• Advisory services

How do I get started with cobrowsing?

To start cobrowsing you can create a free Feederloop account and add the widget to your website. Once the Feederloop widget is installed, you will be able to cobrowse with anyone on your website or web app.