'Help Me Help You': Providing Customers with Self-Help Content

While most companies today engage in direct customer support to some degree, there is the fact that live agent support is expensive to operate. Any technologies that help customers help themselves before they pick up the phone or send an email should be welcomed and capitalized upon. Luckily, the Internet makes this much easier today than it used to be.

For companies that don’t sell directly to customers – think of those who sell through retailers or other distributors – the stakes are even higher. Customers often return to the seller of a product for advice or to make complaints, and how good that middleman’s customer support is is a factor you cannot control. At the risk that customers will receive indifferent customer support from distributors – which can negatively affect their perception of your product – it’s important to ensure that customers have other options. According to a recent blog post by Rieva Lesonsky blogging for business VoIP solutions provider Nextiva, one approach to this problem is creating a deep and available knowledgebase of self-help materials that can be accessed via multiple channels and easily found with search functions.

“You can—and should—create how-to content in a variety of formats,” wrote Lesonsky. “Some people learn better by reading, others by looking at photos and others by watching a video that talks them through it, so offering options covers all your bases. In the example above, you could write blogs about how to use the product, make one blog photo-based showing each step with captions below, and finally create a video showing the product in use with a voice-over giving directions.”

Once the easy-to-follow content is created – and it should be extensively reviewed and tested to be sure it IS easy to follow, put it out in as many places and on as many channels as possible so all types of customers can be sure to find it if they look for it.

“Once you’ve got your how-to content, share it in a variety of places,” wrote Lesonsky. “Of course, your business Web site is the number-one place to host it. Include it as part of your customer service page. Also put videos on your YouTube channel and share links to the content on social media.”

The process should be ongoing, as well. It’s not enough to create the content once and hope it serves. Monitor your most common customer support inquiries and see if you can’t create new content to help customers help themselves on these issues. Self-help content is also a great vehicle for upselling and cross-selling, so be sure to involve marketing in the process.