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Tips for Self Service Promotion within a Customer Service Strategy

By Chris DiMarco, TMCnet Managing Editor

Service differentiation provides businesses the ability to treat each customer uniquely, fostering memorable and ultimately pleasant experiences that will keep them coming back.  When taking into consideration all of your customer it makes sense to have a self service options available for some of them.

Not everyone has the desire or need to speak with an agent for every issue they may encounter. However suggesting that a customer use a self service line without alienating them is a delicate process. Push too hard and they could become defensive, but promote infrequently and customers may not know they exist. So what are the best ways to promote self-service alternatives without pushing too hard?

Incontact’s Basam Salem said in a recent webinar, “the most obvious thing is that the self-service option needs to be easy; it needs to be what I naturally want to use. And I think the best example I think of here is a FedEx or UPS Tracking and the self-service that you can get by going onto their website and very conveniently typing in a tracking number and immediately determining exactly where your package is and when it’s expected to arrive.” Going hand in hand with this is ensuring that each interaction with automation is of superior quality.

Providing a subpar experience to a customer is the fastest way to get them to distrust a self service option. This makes getting it right the first time mission critical. Whether its utilization of an IVR or automated email response, these solutions need to be tested to make sure they’re delivering a successful alternative to speaking with a representative.

Giving an incentive for people to use self service methods can also ease the pressure on your agents and provide them with a sense of community. Salem also said during the Webinar, “one of inContact’s customers is an international gaming company and they have mastered this. They have done a phenomenal job with self-service and what they did is established programs that provide their customers - who are on their discussion boards and their social media sites – they have offered them coupons and discounts for answering questions or providing advice to other customer’s on their social media and discussion boards. And what’s happened is they’ve built a phenomenal community where people are getting advice and getting answers from their peers.”

Self service options get a bad rap, and if you’ve ever worked in a call center you’ve heard at least one person complain about having to deal with a computer before getting to a person. But while older customers may prefer an agent, those of us with daily interaction to computers generally opt for service that doesn’t require anybody else. Making both agents and self service options readily available is the best way to please all of you customers.

Chris DiMarco is a Web Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Janice McDuffee