How Do You Get Your Customer Self-Service Strategy Right?

A few days ago, a large part of my family and I went to a place called ‘Freeing India,’ which is a game zone in Chennai. The day being a holiday, most games were booked in advance, and we had only one game left to pick and play.

We chose the only available game called ‘The Lost Chamber.’ This is an escape room game where you are kidnapped, and you go unconscious. By the time you wake up, you are in a pitch-dark room with your hands cuffed. Now, you have to remove your handcuffs and escape from that room. Your allocated time is 45 times to find all the clues in the room that you are in and escape.

We separated ourselves into two teams – one made up of adults and the other made up of children. We adults went in first, and we escaped from the room in 28 minutes. Then the kids went, and they came out in 15 minutes.

What was the difference? They were faster and sharper, which made them find the clues faster.

Likewise, some people would like to use technology and solve things for themselves, while others take the easy route of reaching the support person directly.

As an organization, unlike the game I mentioned, you will have to cater to both the audience groups, for both of them are paying customers.

This means you will have to create a self-service journey that makes it easy for customers to help resolve their queries without human intervention.

Example of a Customer Self-Service Journey

I wanted to change the Name that was spelled wrongly in one of the government documents. I tried figuring out the procedure to do it, and I found it difficult. So, I decided to use a consultant who can help make the changes.

What is the first step I took?

I opened google.com and typed “’Name of the document’ name change consultants in Chennai.” I found only the names and the websites of consultants and not their numbers.

I visited the first website of a consultant. I tried looking for information on the website on how the process works and who I can get in touch with. While I understood the process and also understood a lot of nuances by reading their FAQ page, I did not know how to get in touch with someone in the organization.

Not finding the information on the main page, I clicked on the chatbot that popped up.

I typed my query, and the chatbot responded by asking for additional details. The bot took all the details and sent me the application that I had to fill out, the list of supporting documents I had to submit along with the application, and the fee to be paid.

After that, the bot also mentioned that one of their consultants would reach out to me in the next two hours and help me with the name change process. It also mentioned the typical timeframes for getting this done. 

I organized all the documents, filled out the application, and paid the fee in the next two hours, and one of the consultants called me and helped me file the request for the name change. The request was accepted, and I got the reference number with the promise of changing the Name within the next five working days.

Why Customer Self-Service?

Customer service can get very expensive, especially when there are people involved in providing them. Besides, it can lead to frustration when the queries are not resolved well on time.

In the last few years, most companies have been looking at using technology to help customers self-serve themselves and resolve their queries with as little effort as possible and at a lower cost to the company.

It provides customers with the choice of choosing self-service, reduces wait times, and lowers efforts. For the organization, it increases flexibility and cost efficiency while driving loyalty.

How Do You Get Customer Self-Service Right?

Step 1

Begin with FAQs, which would always be the starting point for any customer. Ensure that you answer all the foundational questions like who, what, where, why, when, and how (the six honest serving men of Rudyard Kipling) across the customer journey.

Keep them updated on a daily basis or a few times every day, as this would be the foundation of your self-service journey.

Step 2

Create a knowledge base in a dedicated space on the website. It should have support documentation, user manuals, how-to videos, and support articles.

These can be linked with your product pages or provided as suggestions when customers are looking for specific information.

Step 3

Create an online community where all your customers interact with each other. This can be in Quora style, where customers can post their queries, and other customers can provide possible answers to them.

This will build a database that would cover most support issues that may come up for your existing as well as new customers.

Step 4

Create a chatbot that is AI-driven. It would be able to understand your questions and provide the right answers contextually.

It would get all the transactional queries right most of the time, and for complex questions, it would lead you to the most appropriate FAQ, knowledge base, or community portal query.

The chatbot should be capable of qualifying a query and seeing if this is something that the bot itself can serve or if it should divert the customer to a human agent.

Besides, the chatbot should always provide an opportunity for the customer to seamlessly reach out to a human agent anytime during the interaction.

Step 5

Measure the effectiveness of each of these channels by using customer satisfaction (CSAT – how satisfied were you with the experience of your self-service channel?) scores, customer effort score (CES – how easy was it to access what you wanted), and task completion – were they able to complete the task?

You can also use open-ended questions as a follow-up to CSAT and CES, with the option for customers to provide text responses that would help improve the customer experience.

These five steps would ensure that most transactional queries are handled easily by the self-service channels, and this would account for about 80 to 85% of queries. For the remaining, you can reach out to a human agent easily.

A study by Gartner reveals that 70% of customers now expect a company’s website to include a self-service application, and over 60% of customers prefer resolving their issues without speaking to a representative.

Effective self-service doesn’t just reduce operational costs – it builds trust and loyalty. Businesses that excel at self-service can see up to a 20% reduction in customer service call volumes while also boosting CSAT scores.

Self-service is no longer a backup option; it’s often the first choice.