Customers increasingly turn to digital platforms to make purchases, conduct research, and seek assistance. It’s not surprising, however, that by 2025, the self-service strategy will account for more than half of all client contacts.
CX executives must concentrate on providing automated customer service benefits, which requires immediate action to improve the user experience. Moving forward, self-service tools will contain more than just a knowledge base and search capabilities; the most effective tactics will also integrate artificial intelligence and virtual assistants.
Here are five measures automated customer service experience leaders may take to strengthen their self-service strategy.
Establish Business Drivers For A Self-Service Revolution
To understand how self-service may improve the customer experience, business leaders should speak with CX, sales, marketing, and product development leaders. Although many encounters still require human support, a self-service strategy can deliver a tailored experience to high customer satisfaction.
- Speed– Businesses must identify which drivers are most important to them and align their consumer self-service strategy. Consider the following factors: Because the wait time to speak with a human being is typically long, customers may not be getting their issues fixed quickly enough. Customers can be accommodated faster if directed to self-service, but firms must first evaluate which automated customer service issues are the most suited. For example, customers can use speech chatbots to get information about overnight mailing addresses, account balances, and product details.
- Experiential Learning– Suppose a company’s knowledge management system isn’t engaging enough for its consumers. In that case, it might consider integrating multimedia content, such as how-to videos, podcasts, and photographs, to pull them in and provide them with the information they need.
- Revenue– Sales managers may be concerned that revenue would suffer by redirecting phone calls or live chats to self-service. On the other hand, businesses can offer product recommendations that will help them grow revenue by incorporating predictive analytics into AI virtual assistants.
- Costs Of Operations– The cost of running a contact centre is rising, and dealing with customers via live agents is the most expensive option. On the other hand, self-service solutions can reduce the cost of automated customer service.
Set Realistic Self-Service Volume Expectations
Estimating the percentage of transactions processed via self-service strategy may be difficult at first. Businesses must ensure that their knowledge base, web storage, virtual assistants, and network infrastructure are designed appropriately. The number and size of servers, the bandwidth linking the servers, and the number of virtual assistants needed to handle the expected load are all part of this engineering.
According to Metrigy’s “Client Engagement Transformation: 2020-21 Research Study,” which examined 700 firms, self-service will handle 36% of customer transactions in 2020. Though it varies by industry, Metrigy predicts that self-service transactions will account for 43 per cent of all transactions in 2021, 49 per cent in 2023, and 56 per cent in 2025.
Updating Knowledge Bases And Collaborating With AI
In most businesses, knowledge bases need to be overhauled. They’re out of date in terms of content, technology, and usability. Content creators and product managers must expand multimedia content, update old content, and enhance the available content. Knowledge bases should not be static; they should be updated regularly to supply clients with relevant and valuable information.
Search capabilities must also be more intuitive, which AI may aid with when combined with machine learning. The AI-driven knowledge base learns links between questions and successful resolution over time, as well as those queries it is unable to answer.
Virtual assistants had been introduced in 33 per cent of firms by the end of 2020, with another 34 per cent planning to do so in 2021.
Avoid The Most Typical Self-Service Blunders
When firms address and roll out a self-service strategy, they frequently fall into five traps that sabotage their effectiveness. Here are some pointers on how to avoid falling into those traps:
Virtual agents should not be overlooked. Businesses will need to sort out bugs with virtual agents because they aren’t plug-and-play. AI needs human input to correct default assumptions and wrong information to answer customer questions successfully.
Shooting blindly is not a good idea. Businesses require data to determine whether or not what they’re doing is effective, and if not, what has to be changed. Companies could use analytics tools to identify where customers get stuck and then place escalation hooks there.
Self-service should never be left on an island. Self-service should be integrated with other channels in organizations. When calls are escalated, customer care personnel can evaluate their journey across all channels and start up where they left off.
Your clients will determine which type of self-service is best for your company.
Automated call centers and diagnostic tools are ideal for customers who need issues fixed fast in a tech-heavy setting like the telecom industry. A chatbot with basic customer service algorithms can quickly speed up the path to purchase and resolve customer issues in a simple retail environment, freeing up your workforce.
Success Should Be Measured In Some Way
Customer self-service solutions, when used correctly, can assist enhance business metrics. Organizations must decide on the success measures they will operate from the start of the project and collect baseline data as a reference point. While this may appear to be a simple task, many firms rush to get a project up and running and fail to collect baseline measurements.
Businesses reported demonstrable before-and-after results when determining baseline success measures in customer transformation efforts, including a 7.9% drop in operational costs, a 37.9% increase in customer ratings, and a 33.2 per cent increase in agent efficiency.
Conclusion
Self-service solutions are sweeping the globe. Customers are increasingly searching for answers to limit their interactions with human agents and handle common problems on their own in nearly every situation. Companies that provide outstanding self-service strategies are more likely to achieve excellent outcomes.
Set targets to attain with your new technology to set the tone for a remarkable self-service campaign. It’s critical to track consumer satisfaction as you roll out new tools and be ready to change as your company grows.
Contact ONPASSIVE immediately if you need assistance deploying self-service solutions.
