Digital self-service allows internet users to gain autonomy on a web page. Find out what user needs require the implementation of such a solution, what are the different self-service solutions available today and if its supposed effectiveness is verified.
Contents:
- What is Digital Self-Service — A Definition ℹ️
- Why Is Self-Service Important? 🙋
- Examples of Customer Self-Service Solutions 🧑💻
- Benefits of Digital Self-Service 💥 💯
What is Digital Self-Service — A Definition
Digital self-service is a solution or a group of solutions enabling web users or employees to be completely autonomous on a website or intranet. These tools and information enables them to find the answers to their questions without having to contact customer suport or their HR department. Digital self-service usually affect actions that are quite simple, such as asking for a quote or even managing a contract.
Why Is Self-Service Important?
The implementation of one or more self-service solutions becomes relevant when a client service department is facing numerous online requests, to the point where it’s humanly difficult, if not impossible, to manage these.
Beyond this, self-service meets the ever-growing needs of Internet users: autonomy and speed.
Studies are clear on this point: web users first look for a way to find the information on their own before contacting customer service.
“A Zendesk study shows that 81% of customers try to to take care of their own problem before reaching out to support channels”
Source
And beware, if you don’t manage to meet their expectations, you risk suffering the wrath of your clients/web visitors! With users hyperconnection, a customer lets his entourage and the entire web know that he is not satisfied. This word-of-mouth, or even worse this bad buzz, can have a significant impact on your business and drive away potential prospects.
“76% of clients have stopped doing business with an organisation due to its poor client service and 39% have even immediately abandoned their purchase to switch to another supplier.”
Source
Examples of customer self-service solutions
Chatbot, dynamic FAQs or even semantic search engine: self-service can take several forms. The solution you choose to implement depends on your original need. We recommend aiming for an omni-channel strategy, or Omnibot strategy, which is the context Inbenta evolves in. Deploying a bot across all customer relation channels is a great way to manage all touchpoints and harmonize the message.
Arthur Marcel, Business Developer, gives his vision:
“The Omnibot concept combines a simplified and fluid interface to a rich reflection on how to adapt processes and channels for the business. These two pillars form a major lever in acquiring and retaining customers. By using a single solution in order to build an omnichannel bot, companies are able to set up in record time, in an optimized manner, a solution that provides a consistent response throughout their customers’ journey.
Getting in touch with customer service by phone in the morning via a Callbot, receiving the answer to an issue via Messenger at noon thanks to a Chatbot and subscribing to an additional product in the evening via a speaker connected to a Voicebot, these are the kind of experiences that the customer is now expecting – and the business in order to increase its profitability.”
This strategy is obviously useful for large businesses facing a large amount of online requests on several channels, although sometimes a single chatbot or a dynamic FAQ is more than enough to relieve customer service queues.
Before choosing the solution(s) you wish to implement, it is important to frame your requirements and above all to know and understand your users’ preferences.
Find out all our solutions: Chatbot, Dynamic FAQ, Semantic search engine
Benefits of digital self-service
As you’re now aware, self-service can take many forms and be adapted to a multitude of sectors and services. Its benefits are numerous:
Increased customers’ satisfaction
By providing an optimized customer experience to your users, through a solution that effectively answers their questions, available 24/7, you give them autonomy and time savings that will make all the difference. A satisfied client is a loyal one! According to a Salesforce study, more than 88% of clients say that an immediate answer to their issue encourages loyalty.
Reduction of low added-value incoming contacts
“I’ve lost my confirmation”, “Where’s my parcel?” or “I’ve lost my credit card”, this type of questions with low-added value are recurring ones in all customer services. These routine questions are time-consuming for customer advisors to handle because they are the most recurring ones. Yet at least 80% of these low added-value contacts can be fully automated! By responding automatically to these routine questions, your team members will have more time to devote to contacts with greater added value or to real issues and you will be able to observe a reduction in incoming contacts ranging from 30 to 50%!
Increase in conversion rate
Self-service solutions are designed to simplify the customer journey. By streamlining access to information and communicating it at the right time you will gain your client/prospect’s trust.
Self-service solutions also offer the possibility to dynamize sensitive processing funnels, such as quotations, and thus promote conversion.
However, keep in mind that a self-service solution will only be really effective if it is intelligent enough to understand the language of your users. This underlines the importance of investing in a proper automatic Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, without neglecting the human investment!
Far from being a plug-and-play product, the chatbot is a full-fledged solution capable of adapting to all channels.
