Why a self-service strategy is a crucial part of your CX success

People are evolving with technology as much as technology is evolving with people. Regardless of how quickly the world changes, one thing remains constant: the expectation of the customer. This necessitates an all-encompassing service solution that is available when a customer needs it.

In today’s busy world, a connected experience is a prerequisite of an excellent customer experience (CX), so people can rightly expect the same level of service from multiple points of contact with your company.

However, customer satisfaction in the US has been declining for a fourth consecutive quarter, falling by 0.9% to a score of 75.7 (on a scale of 0 to 100) on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI®). This worrying deterioration was observed in every sector tracked by ACSI in the third quarter of 2019, including finance and insurance, telecommunications and information, durable and nondurable goods, as well as health care. This accounts for multiple aspects of customer journeys, but it is clearly indicative of the failings of some companies to meet the needs of their customers.

Moreover, it shows that developing a 360° view of your customer experience is necessary for achieving CX success. It isn’t easy, but it is attainable if you pay attention to the personalization of your customer journeys at every potential touchpoint, whether it is self-service or otherwise.

Self-service strategy: Giving people what they need, when they need it

No matter how or where they contact you, your customers deserve a joined-up approach to resolving their queries.

This is where a thorough understanding of what your customers want and when they want it becomes so critical to success.

An analysis of the data collected from your previous engagements with customers will show not only what people are asking, but also the manners in which they ask.

Some of the most common questions your customers have, for instance, might be best served in a series of onsite guides or FAQs that can be accessed at any time of the day or night.

By providing this kind of around-the-clock accessibility for your customers, you can demonstrate how much you truly value their time and, moreover, free up more time for your agents to deal with more complex queries on the phone.

Convenience is becoming much more valuable than a surplus of choices in a world that is already packed with options. It’s important to make it as easy and efficient as possible for your customers to contact you, when they want and how they want.

Make vital time for creativity and innovation in the workplace

We all want easy interactions when it comes to customer service. Whether you’re a customer or a contact center agent, there’s little denying that efficiency and convenience are our most basic desires.

No customers want to explain the reason for their call five times to five different people and no agents want to explain the password reset process to a thousand different people every week.

That’s why self-service solutions like chatbots, callbots and help centers are so conducive to optimizing customer engagement processes.

A chatbot conversation can help to qualify interactions before a customer gets put through to an agent or, more to the point, answer queries in full so that a customer doesn’t even need to speak to an agent at all.

The time this can save when multiplied across hundreds and thousands of agents and customers can work wonders for your overall CX – it can change the way people think and feel about you as a company.

What’s more, it can change the way people actually talk about you, too. According to Nielsen research, recommendations from a family member or friend after a positive experience are one of the top five influences on brand decisions before consumers go shopping.

The benefits work both ways: Customers are more satisfied because they’ve found it easier to reach a resolution and agents are more productive because they’ve found more time to think creatively at work. This brings us round to the most important part of any business: the people.

Creating seamless interactions with a human touch

We believe that a comprehensive understanding of your customers and their most common needs will help you serve them better, but a true openness to empowering your agents to do just that in the most innovative ways is also vitally important.

Self-service isn’t designed to replace personal interactions with other people; it’s designed to sit alongside them to help you finetune the way you serve your customers in an ever-changing world.

That’s why your people, processes, and systems always need to be synchronized around the customer if you are going to achieve CX success.

The Odigo cloud platform allows you to create seamless interactions between you and your customers. We offer self-service solutions at the right times and in the right places, whilst bringing in human-to-human engagement as and when it is necessary.

Would you like to find out how Odigo can support your customer engagement strategy?