The amount of knowledge consumers have for our services and products today is astounding. The great part of all this knowledge is consumers are eager to first rely on their ability to fix an issue, or answer a question they have on their own, before engaging your organization direct assistance. This is why Self Service, has become such a HUGE buzzword in the customer service world, and it seams like there are support solutions every where for your company to chose from.
So how does your team pick the best solution for your
customer’s specific needs?
My answer is that there is no one end all, be all
solution. The best solution is found by
the combination of a few solutions to make sure to cover your entire customer
base, which only take 4 easy steps to get started:
Step 1: Knowledge
Base
Before you have any hope of building a self-service solution
for your customer, you first must perform a complete review of your current
knowledge base for your technical support, customer service, and billing
teams. What you are looking for is that
all questions are documented digitally and the answers to them are documented
and correct.
Once you have performed your review, make sure to update and
correct any mistakes you have found so the knowledge base is near 100% as of
that moment. Don’t worry if something
changes the next day, you can and should be continually updating and review
your knowledge base, as it must be a living database.
If you are not already
doing so, I would strongly suggest you have a way for these teams to submit
questions they are asked for review by subject matter experts; so new data is
continually being added to your knowledge base.
Step 2: Interface
Now that you have all your knowledge base updated and ready
to go, it is time to talk about interface.
The easiest place to start is going to be the Internet, and will be the
most used.
Don’t start thinking huge cost here!
There are plenty of ways to build extremely affordable self-service
tools that work great. My suggestion is
to get a web designer and developer together and put together a page that can
search your knowledge base by keywords, and allow some type of ranking system
for relevant articles and use by customers.
This will allow your customers to help improve the system and make it
much more user friendly.
Remember K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid!)
The easier your interface is, the more likely your customer
will be to use it.
Step 3: Video
The best self-service tools on the Internet always
incorporate some amount of video demonstration in them.
Again, there is no reason to begin thinking huge cost here.
All you need to provide great, usable content is a digital
video camera and a person willing to take some time to record content from your
knowledge base. The key here is (from
your knowledge base)!
This should not be original content, as that would mean your
knowledge base is not up to date. All
you are looking to do is make your content easier to understand, and help your
customer get a visual for what they need to fix.
Step 4: Integration
The most common sin I see committed by organizations is that
they get to step 3 or 4 and call it a day.
They have built the tool, and now just hope their customers will begin
to use it. The reality of this is that
your customer has no clue about it, and more than likely will not use it.
This is why I tell my client’s to begin integrating their
self-service tool into every aspect of their organization that directly
interacts with their customers.
Example:
Your long-term customer Mike emails your billing department
because he has a question on an invoice and needs supporting materials before
he will pay it.
Most companies would simply send the supporting materials
and maybe call to review them with him.
Instead, send the supporting materials, but also include a link to your
self-service system which show Mike how in the future he can obtain this
information by him self. In addition,
when your representative calls him to review the supporting materials, make
sure he/she also informs Mike of the ability to get this type of information by
himself online.
This not only satisfies your customer, but also teaches your
customer of this great tool you have, and how to use it. Now your customer is empowered, and next time
he/she has a question they will first check your self-service system before
having to use the most costly support solution you have, labor…
Self-service systems are nothing new, especially
online. But, their demand is growing and
the need to keep them current and updated is an ongoing effort that your
customer will appreciate.
To Your Success & Prosperity!!
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