February 2004

By Michael Lough and Dr. James Lester, LiveWire Logic, Inc.

Companies around the globe need to address the changing face of customer service. With customers expecting instant gratification from the Web, every company is faced with the challenge and the opportunity to provide customers with a less expensive alternative to person-to-person, or 'live,' contact.

With a host of Internet support channels available, customers now expect multitiered, multichannel customer service from companies. In addition to standard phone support, companies must provide additional Web-based support alternatives, including savvy Web sites, e-mail support, chat solutions via the Web, search utilities, FAQ tools and automated agents.

Businesses are pushing their customers to perform more interactions with them over the Web ' for sales, service and support. Consumer products companies, retailers, banks, etc., are adding to the demand by marketing their online products and services, thus driving their e-commerce business. Major retailers continue to see increases in their online business, and their customers expect quality customer service offerings on their site as well. Many customers are seeking to resolve their own problems and answer their own questions through self-service tools.

In a recent survey by Forrester Research, 62 percent of Fortune 1000 companies reported that self-service is now the most important CRM initiative at their companies. Driven by rising online self-service contacts that are expected to reach 1.8 billion in 2008 and increasing pressure to 'offload' phone and e-mail volumes, market analysts recently predicted total CRM spending on online self-service would grow annually at 10 percent, reaching $1.1 billion in 2008. More important, natural-language-based self-service technology can be leveraged and extended into knowledge management/CSR desktop applications, a largely untapped area that will grow annually at 12 percent and reach $9.2 billion in 2008.

The challenge is to deliver quality service while keeping customer service and support costs in line. As volumes increase, it seems implausible to provide 'live' service to everyone, especially when the majority of questions are repetitive by nature and most could be answered by providing the information on the Web site.
One problem with this is that most of the information customers are seeking is located on the Web site, but often they can't find the answers to their questions. It takes too much effort and time to locate what they are looking for; hence the need for automated self-service technologies.

Breadth Of Service Offerings
It is widely known that customer service is a key factor in determining retention and satisfaction ' it has a direct impact on revenues and repeat business. Smart companies should consider customer expectations and available technology when determining their service offering. More important, the solution should be both economical and effective. To satisfy customers and the corporate budget, the following should be considered:

Multichannel access. By providing a number of options ' phone support, e-mail support, self-service and Web navigation, users can determine what channel best suits their needs.

Automated and live support. As people have become more accustomed to the anonymity the Web provides, many actually prefer automated support to live support. Not only is it oftentimes quicker to search for the answer, many feel more comfortable researching information via the Web.
Consistency across channels. A chief complaint of consumers is inconsistency of information across channels. Companies have multiple sources of knowledge, both structured and unstructured, that support solutions must leverage. Call center and chat representatives should be privy to any information offered via your Web site, knowledge management system or self-service solution to deliver consistent responses.

Reducing live support costs. There is a progressive cost increase for each channel and tier of service. For example, it might cost a company $1 to answer a self-service question on the Web, $7 to answer the same question via e-mail and $15 to answer the question over the phone. With this in mind, it is important to determine a strategy that maximizes the use of less expensive alternatives to live support.

Progressive Use Of Web-Based Support
Companies want user questions answered the most cost-effective way possible, so they instituted e-mail support. Initially, this was the solution for cost-effective support. Users type in the question and someone from the company responds. While the customer may wait for a response (some companies have a one to two-day response time for e-mail support), what typically occurs is the customer support representative (CSR) sends a reply that seeks to clarify the user's question. The user responds and hopefully that response is clear enough to receive an answer from the CSR. At this point, multiple days pass and multiple interactions have occurred, creating user dissatisfaction while also costing the company money.
Self-service is a form of automated customer support that simulates live support. Self-service is a rapidly growing industry that enables users to find answers to their questions via the Web, as well as through kiosks, automated phone systems and more.

A primary purpose of self-service is to address commonly asked questions, which greatly reduces the number of inquiries being answered via more costly support channels ' primarily e-mail and phone. Although some customer inquiries require person-to-person assistance, and some companies want to drive high-value customers to personal interactions, the great majority of inquiries are derived from a relatively known subset of information and can be answered by automated solutions.

However, not all self-service solutions are built alike. Web-based approaches include search, frequently asked questions (FAQs) and an emerging area called automated self-service or virtual agents. Consider the following when selecting a self-service solution:

Answers vs. lists. Search provides a valuable role for users on a site, allowing them to 'zero-in' on an answer. Smart self-service solutions use linguistics to produce a single answer and/or a small list of related topics, whereas keyword search utilities provide a long list of hits. Users do not respond well to expansive lists, but prefer seven or fewer 'choices' for their solution. Obviously, providing the 'right answer' to a question is optimal.

Natural language understanding. A lot is being written currently about enhancing search with natural language understanding. Users respond more positively to a natural language search, and consequently will return to use the tool in the future. According to Jupiter Research, 'Using natural language search to process queries and guide business rules that present this enriched user experience is a best practice.' Make certain the self-service solution is not limited to simple FAQ/Q&A, but can also handle dialog.

Accurate content. On average, 46 percent of customer inquiries are not answered by current self-service solutions, which includes standard keyword search tools. This poor statistic has led to slow adoption of this technology. Make sure you select a solution that can provide a much higher response rate, as newer technologies can deliver up to 98 percent accuracy.

Flexible interface. The look and feel of a self-service solution should flow seamlessly into a company's Web site. The vendor should not dictate the design options for a self-service solution. A consumer should not notice the transition from the main site to self-service. Today's solutions can even move a customer from affiliate sites to others, simply based on understanding their question and the subject matter. These 'meta agents' are ideal for large corporations with multiple brands that want to keep their customers on their sites, delivering answers, products and services to them as needed.

Meta agents allow companies to deploy Web self-service agents across their enterprises, enabling a single, universal view for the customer, enabling multiple agent knowledge domains to be accessed by the customer from a single user interface. The customer does not need any knowledge of the area of expertise or category of his or her question. He or she simply asks the question and the meta agent determines from which knowledge domain to retrieve the answer. This process turns disparate data into knowledge and enables a more intelligent interaction with the customer.

Ability to use existing data. A self-service solution should not force duplication of current data and should leverage data from a wide variety of sources. A quality solution should allow you to use existing data, including structured and unstructured documents, Web pages and files. Customers don't care where the data reside; they simply want an answer to their question. Automated solutions can provide direct answers; suggested or related topics; links to additional information such as video, voice clips, manuals, .PDF documents, etc.

Channel independence. Although most self-service solutions are currently deployed over the Web, other channels are quickly following suit. Select a solution that is touch-point independent as well as language independent, enabling your company to expand automated support to other channels, such as the phone, live chat, e-mail or in multiple languages.

Integrated customer support. While new self-service solutions have improved dramatically, they cannot answer all customer inquiries. While the goal is to answer the customer's question, if the system cannot, it must be able to recognize this and escalate the customer to the appropriate channel. Escalation methods such as passing the user to a chat representative or a call center representative, providing conversation transcripts, phone numbers or sending an e-mail are also key success contributors. An important feature of a self-service solution is its ability to easily integrate with other support channels. Providing the detail of the customer's request(s) to the escalated channel is key to enhancing the customer experience.

Ease of maintenance. Select a self-service solution that can be easily maintained and does not require technical resources to update the agent's knowledge base. The goal is to quickly evaluate user questions and make updates to the agent's scope of knowledge when necessary. Being able to expand the solution's knowledge and easily keep it current is critical for a company's Web self-service solution. Providing easy authoring and maintenance tools keeps long-term cost of ownership low and return on investment high. It also enables the flow of new information into the system to occur (for promotions, recalls, new releases, etc.) in a timely manner.

Flexibility in terms of user input. Users should be able to inquire about a topic by using keyword phrases, partial sentences or a full sentence. Many systems can handle either keywords or grammatically correct sentences, but not both or a mix of the two. Because you cannot control how the user asks his or her question, and research suggests that partial sentences are the norm in terms of user input, it is important to select a system that can handle this type of interaction.

Dialog capabilities. As users ask questions, advanced self-service solutions will ask qualifying questions to fully understand the intent of the user. Only when the solution truly understands what the user is asking can it deliver for them. Newer offerings can even follow entire conversations and control the conversation as required. Even if the user changes subjects, today's solutions can understand and answer intelligently. This dialog capability is key for users to have the positive experience they require to come back and use the solution repetitively.

Web-based self-service solutions today are proving they can dramatically decrease e-mail volumes while also greatly reducing support phone calls and live chat sessions, significantly lowering service costs while enhancing customers' experiences at the same time.

Self-service solutions are becoming more prevalent in the everyday lives of consumers. As they experience the value new technologies are bringing to the market, and the Web experience is increasingly positive, they will increase their usage of these technologies and look for companies that provide quality self-service on their sites.

If you haven't looked at self-service solutions lately, look again.

Michael Lough, chief executive officer of LiveWire Logic, Inc. (www.realdialog.com), has been involved in the customer service market for 12 years in leadership positions with numerous successful software start-up companies, such as Remedy Corporation, Active Software, Acta Technology, Caere Corporation and more. Dr. James Lester, co-founder and chief scientist of LiveWire Logic, is a research scientist in artificial intelligence specializing in the area of computational linguistics and intelligent agents.

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