Do-it-yourself Support
Use the Web to help your customers help themselves
September 2006 By Linda Formichelli
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Consider the Options
Sure, FAQ pages and search tools are great, but there are plenty of other self-service options, both do-it-yourself applications or via software solutions. You can analyze customers’ data—such as their history with you, what products they own and what they’re doing on your site—to create a customized self-service page just for them, says Ragsdale.
You can initiate (or let the customer initiate) chats, and even co-browse with customers, says Chopra. Case-based reasoning asks the customer a series of questions to narrow down to the correct solution. Chopra also points out the effectiveness of decision trees, which are step-by-step guides That bring the customer down a different path depending on her answers to various questions.
Be Warm
No one wants to wade through an FAQ full of corporate-speak or use a search tool that requires them to enter terms they’d never use in real life.
“When you push customers into self-service, it must be intuitive,” says Jeanne Bliss, president of the customer service coaching and consulting firm CustomerBLISS. “Think about the scenarios they’re in when they use your Web self-service, and what questions they’re asking. Don’t off-load them into a site that has no feeling.”
For example, use natural language search tools, and phrase your FAQ questions the way a real person would articulate them, such as, “I turn on my widget and nothing happens. What’s wrong and how can I fix it?” A great idea is to catalog the questions you commonly receive via phone and e-mail, and then incorporate them into the self-service system.
Jump In
The last thing you want is a frustrated customer who’s vowing to never buy from you again as he reloads the FAQ page 50 times or spends half an hour trying to decipher your instructions. Some self-service options let you monitor customer actions on the Web site and alert someone if the customer seems to be having trouble.
“You can track how long they spent on a URL or how many times they’ve repeated a certain act, like asking a question or searching an FAQ list,” says Ragsdale. For example, says Chopra, studies show that if a customer spends more than 20 seconds on a checkout screen, he’s likely to abandon the shopping cart; you can set a timer to automatically initiate a chat if someone has been on a checkout screen for 15 to 20 seconds.
Give Them an Outlet
It may sound like the point of Web self-service is to dump complaining customers into a wasteland where they won’t bother you. But if your self-service is not enhancing the customer experience, you need to give customers an out, whether it’s the option to initiate a live chat, call a service number or send an e-mail. Also, give customers a guaranteed promise of how quickly you’ll get back to them, says Bliss.
De-escalate
That said, offer customers one more chance to de-escalate before bringing in live service. For example, with the KANA solution, when the customer tries to escalate to an e-mail, a pop-up box asks her to further describe her issue. The software then conducts a search, brings up the top three solutions and asks if they’re helpful. If the customer clicks “no,” then the communication escalates to an e-mail.
Review and Revise
Review the customer self-service interactions on your site, ask customers for feedback and log service calls so you can update your self-service operation as needed. You may notice several customers have entered a particular search term that brings up zero responses, or that customers with a certain issue always end up escalating to an e-mail or a phone call. You then can add the appropriate information and/or solutions to your Web site to help customers find what they are looking for faster.
Linda Formichelli is a freelance writer who has published articles in national business, consumer and trade magazines. She can be reached at linda-eric@lserv.com.
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