Traditionally, customers have always relied on customer support representatives (CSRs) to address questions and product concerns. Since next-gen technology has maximized automated systems, top companies are putting the power back into the hands of customers through self-service features and functionality. Whether they’re used alongside traditional customer support options or as the primary point of contact for any customer-related issues, these self-service portals revolutionize the way consumers interact with today’s support teams.
What Is Customer Self-service?
Customer self-service portals let consumers complete transactions, troubleshoot problems, and resolve issues without having to interact with any live company representatives.
Self-checkouts, or SCOs, are among the most common examples of customer self-service in public use today. For example, instead of bringing merchandise to a cashier, customers simply scan their own items, bag them, and pay for them. If everything goes smoothly, this entire process is completed without ever interacting with a live cashier or any company representative.
In the business-to-business (B2B) arena, users can refer to the platform’s knowledge base to check for guides specific to their problem. In the absence of a clear answer, they can engage in a conversation with a chatbot or artificial intelligence (AI) assistant before talking to a CSR.
Depending on the industry and general purpose, however, customer self-service examples can take on many different forms.
Customer Self-service Use Cases
Modern self-service options for customers run the gamut from in-person SCOs to digital help desk platforms. There are various self-service applications spanning nearly every industry, so organizational leaders need to find the solutions and strategies that work best for their organization, their team, and their customers.
Paying for Goods or Services
To continue with our initial example of customer self-service, it’s quite common to see retail outlets with SCO functionality. Gas stations, grocery stores, and even fast food restaurants are all using different SCO and self-service platforms, helping customers save time while reducing their own overhead costs.
But we see self-service payments and transactions elsewhere too. Suppose you’ve had a meal delivered to your house, purchased a product or service on the internet, made an online payment, or applied for insurance coverage through a website. Then you’ve already experienced some of the most popular self-service options for customers available today.
Creating & Maintaining Personal Accounts
Self-service portals are an easy way to let customers create and maintain personal accounts with your company. Because today’s consumers are far more tech-savvy than prior generations, and since they’re probably already familiar with setting up email and social media profiles, it only makes sense to give them full control over their company-specific accounts too. Not only does this further empower your customers, but it also spares your staff from spending their time performing routine account maintenance on behalf of your patrons.
An example of a self-service portal integrated into HubSpot (Source: HubSpot)
Personalizing & Customizing Services
Today’s organizations offer greater amounts of service personalization and customization than ever before. Some of the most common use cases include changing the frequency of notifications from a smartphone app, requesting a credit line increase from a credit card, or comparing the different features of a multitiered subscription service. Self-service personalization is often offered to customers, but employees can benefit from this kind of self-service functionality too.
Receiving Customer Support
Self-service is very common in customer support. In fact, recent Salesforce research indicates that 61% of customers prefer the self-service approach for tackling basic or simple issues.
Like the other use cases highlighted above, self-service customer support empowers both your customers and your staff. Not only do customers gain the ability to troubleshoot problems and learn more about your product or service, but your support staff doesn’t have to spend the time facilitating that experience. However, you should still have some human support representatives available to handle any complex or escalated issues as they arise.
Benefits of Customer Self-service
Although self-service customer service is really meant to benefit consumers and, in the case of technology, end-users, it also offers numerous advantages to your staff and your organization as a whole. While it’s easy to see how a self-service portal would save time and help reduce overhead costs, some of the other benefits—such as scalability and the ability to provide actionable insight to your support team—aren’t so readily apparent.
Saves Time
One of the biggest and most obvious benefits of customer self-service is the amount of time it saves for both customers and employees. Customers don’t have to worry about contacting a support agent during business hours, which is great for those who are located in different time zones or who have irregular schedules. Plus, your staff doesn’t have to spend time troubleshooting basic or unnecessary issues.
Maximizes Availability of Support
Customer self-service lets you maximize your support staff’s availability. It minimizes downtime since your live agents don’t have to wait for incoming calls or support tickets, and it makes it easier to ensure access to human customer support staff when it’s really needed.
Reduces Costs
Integrated self-service options for customers help reduce operational costs too. Most organizations don’t have the funds to staff a round-the-clock customer service team, and, for most, there is little value in doing so. Instead, it’s much easier—and more affordable—to implement a self-service portal.
Scales Customer Service Capabilities
The best customer self-service examples provide the ability to scale up (or down) as necessary. As such, startups and small businesses can offer self-service functionality right from the start, and without having to worry about finding a new solution as their needs grow. Likewise, established corporations and enterprises can easily downsize their platform as needed.
Informs Human Customer Service Teams
Self-service customer service is also used to inform your live representatives and generate actionable insights. By tracking and analyzing customers’ habits when using the self-service portal—including the time of day (or night) they’re using the system and the amount of time they’re spending looking for solutions—your customer service staff will find it easier to identify bottlenecks and improve the overall customer experience even further.
Accommodates Disabilities
In some cases, self-service customer support can help accommodate consumers with certain disabilities or other personal issues. Self-service telephony systems, for example, are ideal for those who can’t drive to a local office to pay their bills. AI-powered chatbots can alleviate the stress and confusion that is sometimes associated with live service representatives, and in-store kiosks can be installed at a height that makes them accessible to wheelchair-bound customers.
Examples of Customer Self-service in Action
The best customer self-service platforms provide a seamless transition between human customer service agents and automated technology. While the two don’t necessarily have to be indistinguishable, customers should see some continuity when switching from one to the other.
These solutions are ideal for customers who prefer to do business over a traditional telephone, smartphone, or voice-over-IP (VoIP) connection. Alongside SCOs, these are among the most common forms of customer self-service seen to date. Some telephony systems, like bill payment portals, are often fully automated, while others simply direct callers to a human representative within a specific department.
Kiosks are becoming increasingly popular throughout the US. They’re commonly used to let customers purchase lottery tickets without requiring service from a cashier, but they’re useful in other applications too—including creating or maintaining a customer account, claiming rewards, or taking customer satisfaction surveys.
Next-gen AI has already proven effective when it comes to troubleshooting basic customer issues. Some of today’s chatbots already do a great job at mimicking human responses. In fact, approximately 69% of consumers were happy with their most recent chatbot interaction. However, as convincing as some of these chatbots are, challenging and advanced issues still need to be escalated to a human customer support team for further service.
Among the simplest—and most effective—customer self-service examples are online knowledge bases and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), which are invaluable resources for those who want to take troubleshooting and learning into their own hands. Some organizations even develop comprehensive wikis to disseminate even more information regarding their brand, their mission statement, and their products.
When implemented correctly, online community forums are incredibly beneficial to customers and staff alike. Not only do they provide a means of community troubleshooting, which can be faster and more effective than traditional customer support in many cases, but they also give consumers a channel to express their likes and dislikes about your products or services.
Although they’re not as interactive as some of the other applications on this list, video tutorials are another form of self-service that is relatively easy and affordable to implement. Even if your organization doesn’t have the bandwidth to host these videos on your infrastructure, sites like YouTube and Vimeo offer free hosting solutions for tutorials and other content that can further promote your company and educate potential customers.
Getting Started With Customer Self-service
While there is an initial investment of time, many customer self-service programs can be started with little or no additional cost. Most online forums can be set up and launched within a matter of hours. Online FAQs and knowledge bases can be populated by some of the content you already have, and tutorial videos can be scripted and filmed as needed. However, none of this content does you any good unless it specifically meets the needs of your customer base.
Step 1: Identify Customer Needs
While you can certainly implement some self-service features to cater to future customers, it’s vital to take care of the ones you already have. If you’re unsure where to begin, try distributing customer satisfaction surveys along with every purchase. Customer responses can provide invaluable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your current customer service efforts, ultimately making it easy to expand from there.
Step 2: Design Your Platform
Make sure to design your self-service platform in a way that is accessible by most of your customer base. If your customers prefer to connect via landline telephone or smartphone, for example, offer a self-service telephony system to meet their needs.
Step 3: Optimize Your Content
Spend some time optimizing your content for your intended audience. If most of your customers interact with your company via social media, for example, try to format and optimize your content for platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn. Not only does this make it easier for customers to find the assistance they need, but it gives you an idea of where you might be able to find even more customers in the future.
Step 4: Integrate With Human Customer Service Representatives
Don’t forget to integrate your self-service portal with live service representatives. Automation and AI can only go so far, so you’ll want to give customers the ability to speak with human agents as needed—especially when it comes to complex issues that can’t be handled by the average consumer.
Step 5: Monitor Performance
You’ll want to monitor the performance of your self-service program over the course of time. Use the results to identify potential areas of improvement and implement new features to make your self-service functionality even more beneficial for everyone.
Step 6: Educate Your Customers
Take the time to educate your customers about any new or upcoming self-service features. Leverage your social media posts to provide links to any community forums, knowledge bases, FAQs, or video repositories.
If you’re considering installing a self-service kiosk in your office or storefront, make sure it’s visible as soon as your customers enter the door. You can’t expect consumers to use these services if they aren’t aware of them in the first place, so it’s crucial to spread awareness through every means possible.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
If you have any remaining questions surrounding customer self-service, its purpose, or its benefits, or if you’re still unsure of what is required for customer self-service, make sure to check out our FAQs below.
What is the customer self-service model?
The customer self-service model is a loose framework used by companies to introduce self-service functionality to their customer base. It requires leaders to identify customer needs, establish appropriate customer service channels, optimize the design of the self-service portal, and integrate the self-service functionality with their traditional customer support team. It’s also important to monitor their performance to address any challenges that may arise.
Why do customers like self-service?
Customers like self-service functionality for various reasons. Self-service portals are useful for independent customers who prefer to do things at their own pace. They’re the ideal solution for customers who aren’t always available during normal business hours, and they’re a great way to build trust between new customers and established brands. In many scenarios, self-service portals are even quicker than waiting for a live customer service agent.
Bottom Line
From scanning your own groceries to setting up automated bill payments and finding answers to your own questions, customer self-service portals empower consumers in many different ways. These systems ultimately help modern companies free up valuable resources that could be better used elsewhere in their organizations—all while letting independent consumers receive support at their own pace.
