Regardless of what the writers of this world will tell you, a picture will always remain worth a thousand words. You already know how to entertain, educate and motivate yourself on YouTube and other online video platforms. How do you serve the precise needs of your customer community through online video? How do you deliver customer support in three dimensions? There are ways to do precisely that and many are already doing it successfully. Let us find out how.

If you ever create a list of things your customers look for when they visit your website, you will notice that all the elements on your list have common undertone information. Customers seek information first and foremost about your company and its products before they make purchasing decisions. Once they make a purchase, they seek information on how to use the product they have purchased. If they experience difficulties with the manner in which the product performs, they seek information that will help them to trouble-shoot it. To sum up, customers are happy when they are confronted with a mighty wall of information on your website. Interestingly enough, Google knows this too which is perhaps why it created the Panda. Google’s ultimate objective is to present its searchers with a “superior user experience” which is why websites with scanty and poor quality content, known as thin sites, are being gradually weeded out of Google’s search indexes around the world.

Having illustrated the proverbial adage that Knowledge is Power, we can safely turn now to a brief investigation of why online video is the preferred mode of communication within the global online community in the broader context of top flight customer relationship management best practices.

Websites including those that engages successfully in Internet commerce leverage online video in two ways:

• They post videos on YouTube and embed the links on their websites.
• They post videos directly on their websites assuming they can afford a video streaming server.

Additionally, some companies post their videos on hundreds of video file sharing websites mostly as marketing and not as a CRM initiative.

Your first step toward successful video-based CRM engagement is to identify the areas in which you can and should produce short videos. Possible focus areas could include:

• The entire purchasing cycle on your website right from clicking the Buy Now button to delivering the merchandise on the customer's doorstep.
• Customizing and/or personalizing the products being purchased assuming you offer the service.
• Performing specific functions once the product has been purchased such as installing a software application on a PC or configuring the application to function on a local area network (LAN).
• Assembling products that might require assembly such as modular furniture, toys and craft products.
• Trouble-shooting technical products or services purchased on your website.

As you can tell, the list can be quite long. YouTube is the second most popular website among searchers after Google leaving Yahoo far behind in the search volume tournament. From a practical standpoint, online videos can significantly enhance the user experience much like what Google is currently attempting to achieve and give your customers one more reason to return to your website to ask for more.