Self-service has become the first choice of most consumers. Studies show that nearly 90% of customers expect a brand to have a self-service portal. And they overwhelmingly prefer knowledge bases such as FAQs over all other self-service channels. Knowledge management is critical for self-service success, but it’s challenging to get it right. It can be done, though, and the payoffs for doing so can be enormous.
The Benefits of Customer Self-Service
A customer self-service portal is one of knowledge management’s most powerful applications. Customers quickly get the answers they need and call center agents are free to handle more complex queries and tickets. When agents can focus on higher-value cases, your business grows and scales service. It’s a win-win situation few other solutions offer.
Long gone are the days when a customer’s only way to get support was by picking up the phone. Today, when customers encounter problems with a product or service, their first thought is to head online and find the answers they need using FAQs, articles, manuals, videos, chatbots, and virtual assistants.
A vital cog in the customer support arena, self-service solutions offer many benefits, including:
- Quick, detailed answers to frequently asked questions.
- A personalized customer experience. You can track past purchases and interactions and make customized suggestions, address customers by name, and use customer data to create portal content that addresses new issues.
- The option of creating an online community where customers share information and support staff from your organization contribute how-tos and tips.
When you’re able to decrease total ticket volume, reduce the amount of time agents spend on simple tickets, and offer 24/7 support, you’ll quickly notice the direct impact it can have on employee happiness, customer satisfaction, and your bottom line.
Making Customer Self-Service Simple
How can you give your customers what they need from self-service? A customer self-service portal is an easy and efficient way to build customer relationships and satisfaction. Unfortunately, over half of customers find self-service portals difficult to use. If your self-service portal isn’t easy to use, the effort you put into creating it is all for naught because your customers won’t use it.
Most of your customers can solve their own problems, but only if they know where to look for the information they need. A knowledge base that provides simple, easy-to-understand solutions for common issues makes for the exceptional customer experience a more digitally savvy audience demands. Customers have long said they’d use online knowledge bases if they were available and met their needs.
It’s critical to choose a knowledge management platform with self-service capabilities that make customers’ lives much easier. Ideally, you want a solution that:
- Includes a self-service knowledge base with all the relevant information customers need.
- Helps customers complete typical tasks your live agents usually handle.
- Provides 24-hour support to anyone seeking assistance, from wherever they are, from whatever device they’re using, and on any channel, including chat, voice, email, and social messaging apps.
- Is easy to use but comprehensive enough to meet complex needs.
Self-service in a modern contact center has become a requirement for success. You’ll not only meet your customers’ expectations but reduce your organization’s customer support costs and enhance your brand’s reputation.
How to Measure Self-Service Performance
There are many metrics you can use to measure your self-service portal’s performance. Five of the most commonly used ones are:
- The percentage of contacts for live agent support vs. self-service options.
- How often customers visit a solution and leave without asking for live assistance.
- CSAT or customer satisfaction results are considered the most important metric of all and are usually measured via surveys.
- If customers are finding what they need via self-service, call volume trend or the number of calls per day should be dropping.
Finally, you should be measuring the savings your organization is realizing from self-service. And while the monetary savings alone offer plenty of value, you should see additional value in employee satisfaction and retention, which drives extra savings.
KMS Lighthouse’s self-service solutions not only empower your organization’s digital transformation but ensures your knowledge base is relevant and useful to your customers, agents, and employees alike.
