It is now common to talk about the importance of excellent customer service and positive customer experiences provided to clients in order to motivate them stay with the brand and come back to make new purchases. In other words, modern business world is focused on customer service as a key to building customer loyalty and customer retention. Nonetheless, it would have been strange if such conditions hadn’t created new approaches to what should customer service look like.
In fact, when we start thinking about customer service, we do think about customer service reps as those who provide service and assistance to customers - as customer service agents are representatives of the brand - but this is wrong. Modern customer service is more and more moving to the triumph of customer self-service. But why?
Well, the latest studies show that people are more likely to try resolving their issues on their own rather than contacting customer support departments. This doesn’t mean that all customers hate customer service agents, but it points out that most people just love problem-solving - no matter whether it is their individual preference or they just prefer being independent.
Consequently, we have two conclusions to keep in mind - first of all, customer self-service is a must for any business that is going to provide consistent customer experience and seamless customer service. Secondly, we all have to learn how to provide customer self-service effectively and in accordance with the highest self-service support standards.
So, that’s why this guide is here - to help you learn what is customer self-service, how it works and what are the most useful tips for you to build your own customer self-service strategy.
What is customer self-service?
Customer self-service is a type of customer service where no human interaction from the service provider’s side is engaged. In other words, it is a way of providing customer service where customers service themselves. This does not mean that company does not do anything to help customers achieve their goals or resolve their problems - no, company just provides customers with all required tools, services and information to resolve the issue or complete the service on their own, without allocating a certain specialist to this process.
Customer self-service is also a broader term than most people think of it - first of all, customer self-service doesn’t relate to issue-resolution only. For instance, when it comes to e-commerce, where customers can complete the purchasing process on their own - from the awareness stage of the customer journey to successful purchase - we can also consider it a customer self-service.
In the call center industry, the greatest example of customer self-service options for customers is IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system - a voice robot that greets and services customers when they contact your call center. As the IVR system doesn’t need any human intervention from the side of call center agents, it is considered a self-service system - it provides answers to customer queries, allows to complete certain tasks and actions with customer’s account - check balance, change subscription plan, etc. - and also provides an option to contact customer support agents.
What makes customer self-service so important?
Customer self-service benefits: 24/7 accessibility
Instead of classic human-organized customer service, customer self-service isn’t bound to business hours - it simply works 24/7. This is especially useful for businesses that have customers from different time zones - as it is extremely effortful and expensive to create and maintain customer service teams who would have been working during different business hours. Another great advantage is that customer self-service customer support helps users resolve their issues or get needed answers and data whenever they need it - imagine a customer having an issue at midnight - how likely it is for him to become frustrated before your customer support team becomes available? Rhetorical question.
Customer self-service benefits: Higher customer satisfaction
40% of customers are preferring customer self-service experience over human interactions with customer support reps, while over 60% of clients prefer customer self-service to resolve common questions and tasks. On the other hand, 80% of businesses reported that customer self-service systems helped them to reduce average response times significantly compared to human-based service. In other words, customer sellf-servicing improves customer satisfaction, which means it also helps to provide positive customer experiences to all clients without investing too much in it.
Customer self-service benefits: Reduced operational costs
Customer self-service helps to reduce customer service costs - it is clear, but what is the real impact on operating costs? Some experts state that self-help customer service can cut costs up to 75% - and even though such rates can look unbelievably good, it is true that some business now rely on customer self-service in more than 50% of all customer interactions - and such an approach seems to be extremely effective. All stats that have been used as self-service marketing now turn into truth - and customer self-service is a win-win strategy for businesses of all sizes.
Customer self-service benefits: Better agent performance and satisfaction
One of the best benefits customer support self-service can offer to you is the fact your agents can now spend their time on servicing customer inquiries that truly deserve human touch - while common issues and elementary questions will be handled by self-serve business systems. Also, agents will be more satisfied with their work, as less common issues mean less routine and repetitive tasks, which means also less dissatisfaction and frustration generated by the job. With more motivated agents you will see a significant increase in customer satisfaction and customer retention rates, which will also convert into better sales and customer lifetime value (CLV) scores.
Customer self-service examples: all self-service channels
IVR/IVA system
In the case of contact centers, the IVR system is the most common, yet not the least interesting customer self-service system offered on the market. IVR software is an old solution that was developed many decades ago, but still, it holds its positions effectively as the best self-service example of an assisting system - first of all, the IVR system is a conversational system, and secondly, many IVRs have adopted voice recognition algorithms which allowed them to provide conversational service to clients. Nonetheless, the IVR system is often a problem - not all customers adore this system, and for some of them (a high percentage of 30%+) IVR system is nothing but a needless barrier between the customer service team and the customers themselves. Nonetheless, modern technologies are going to give a reborn to legacy IVRs - AI-driven IVAs (Intelligent Voice Assistants) aren’t still widely used and can be found only as systems provided by industry leaders, but they can already provide conversational service of highest quality that is similar to service provided by human agents.
Chatbots
Chatbots are another example of client self-service systems that have deserved extremely high popularity all around the world. What is the secret of success? First of all, chatbots offer unbelievable speed of response - no other customer relationship self-service systems can offer similar average response times as chatbots do. Secondly, chatbots are available on multiple platforms - social media, websites, messengers, etc. All these make chatbots the most adorable customer self-service troubleshooting platform. Another great advantage of chatbots is that customers can quickly shift to a conversation with a human agent if needed - all chatbots offer this feature. Nonetheless, chatbots also have some disadvantages - the amount of information they can provide is limited, as well as questions they can answer. Anyhow, this does not relate to AI-based chatbots - they are free from such problem, but they haven’t become generally used customer self-service tools.
Knowledge bases
Knowledge bases can be both external and internal but when it comes to the example of good self-service for customers, we are talking about external knowledge bases. The knowledge base is a knowledge resource where all information regarding the product or service is located and can be quickly found, analyzed, and used to resolve issues or complete required actions. The knowledge base is often created as a separate web resource with free access, and an effective search engine is also included to help users surf through the knowledge base and find answers to their questions. Knowledge bases are important as they are the most complete source of information for customers, as they are not limited to the interface, design, or anything else - unlike IVR systems or chatbots. Nonetheless, knowledge bases are also more time-consuming as they require user to surf for information, read articles and analyze received information. Nonetheless, 91% of customers state they will use a knowledge base if it contains the information they are looking for - so a knowledge base is a win-win solution, a kind of customer self-service blog.
FAQ page
FAQ page is a kind of smaller knowledge base - but instead of a knowledge base that contains mostly technical information that is well-structured and complete in order to use it for resolving complicated issues, FAQ pages are used to find solutions for more common questions and issues. In fact, FAQ is an acronym for Frequently Asked Questions, which refers to the nature of this customer self-service tool - FAQ pages contain only those questions that require answers frequently, so it is highly unlikely for you to find any professional or deeply specialized information out there. Nonetheless, FAQ pages is often used as only self-service options - for instance, such a giant as Meta relies on FAQ pages for Facebook, and there were periods when FAQ pages where only service tool for Facebook users. Even though this strategy wasn’t considered successful, FAQ pages are a great addition to your current customer self-service tools - they offer information in text format for users who prefer reading about the issue instead of getting conversational service, and it also allows users to search information on their own - without any, even digital, assistance.
Customer community
Online communities aren’t “one size fits all” solutions for all businesses, but they are great solutions for those businesses that have enough customers who have used their products for a long time and have enough experience to share it. Online communities require you to manage customer engagement on a high level so customers will be willing to share their experiences and create such communities - in many cases, such communities are created by customers themselves, not by business - for instance, it relates to car enthusiasts who create forums about certain brands or models. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean you can’t create such a community on your own - on the platform of any social network that fits the goal, or as a separate web resource - forum or whatsoever. Remember that creating such communities means that you will have to build constructive relationships with their members and consider your communication strategy carefully - but if you do everything right, it will turn into positive outcomes in any case.
Customer self-service: best tips to follow
Analyze your customer persona
Before starting the implementation of customer self-service channels, you should better learn your target audience. First of all, you have to understand what customer self-service channels you need. Secondly, you need to find out what are the most common questions to answer through customer self-service channels. You can use customer surveys as a direct source of information or collect data indirectly, but the matter remains the same - implement only those solutions that will be beneficial for your customers.
Segment target audience
As with communication channels used for human-based service, self-service channels are also aimed at different audiences - some people love chatbots, while others love knowledge bases. You have to understand who of your customers will use this exact self-service channel, and who will use another one. Also, this will allow you to segment content, as different segments of your audiences 8use different products and face different issues.
Leave access to human service
It is extremely important to provide customers with an option to switch between self-service channels and traditional support options when it is necessary, as there will be situations where customers will not be able to deal with the issue using customer self-service only. Access to customer support agents has to be fast and easy, so customers will be able to call agents in one click.
Be mobile-friendly
This does not relate to IVR systems or most chatbots that are created to be used from mobile devices only, but it does relate to knowledge bases, FAQ pages and communities. All these customer self-service tools have to be mobile-friendly, which means they have to use mobile versions of the interface and provide an easy login or identification process for users. Remember that the more effort it takes to get the service, the less likely it is for customers to use such service.
Provide regular updates
Self-servicing is about relevant content, isn’t it? That’s why all your content in all your knowledge bases, FAQ pages, IVR systems and so on has to be relevant and up-to-date - even though this tip sounds too banal, most companies often forget about updating information - or try to save some money on it. If one customer finds irrelevant information in your self-service guide, this will cause more negative consequences than you can imagine, so don’t make such situations happen.
Collect customer feedback
The most important part about customer self-service - it has to serve customer needs and solve their problems, not yours. At least this relates to priorities: self-service is focused on customers, not on your preferences or wishes - so you have to know whether it works as it should or not. Collecting customer feedback isn’t only important because it shows customer care, but because it will help you find out improvement areas, identify issues to resolve and help to build trustworthy relationships with customers.
