Nearly 4 of every 5 customers would prefer to use self-service options rather than contact a customer service department, according to a study. This convenience factor would allow customers to learn and perform tasks on their own that otherwise require a representative years ago. For many customers, as well as business owners, this dream is now a high possibility.

Companies have strived to offer the best customer service possible, and because of today’s technologies, it’s now easy to resolve issues by just interacting with a chatbot. Here’s all you need to know about customer self-service.

What Is Customer Self-Service?

Also known as self customer service, customer self-service is a technique that simply allows customers to find what they need, by turning to a hub or virtual agent.

AI takes it one step further thanks to chatbot technology, in which you can basically search for what you want to find, and the AI agent will retrieve it for you without scrolling through pages of text and clicking on links endlessly.

Self-service agents can contain knowledge bases and FAQs that are replete with information about a company’s products, website, policies, and more. These agents can also show users convenient buttons or links that simply perform the tasks they need to perform, such as cancel or pause a membership.

Customer Self-Service Benefits

Customer self-service is designed to solve many problems for companies, which can positively impact earnings and revenue. Here are all the reasons you should invest in customer self-service:

• Customer autonomy: Self-service gives customers another option for how they want to resolve their issues — even with the option to access self service on their preferred devices.
• Reduced customer service stress: Self-service can lead to fewer tickets and emails being sent out having to be addressed, leading to less pressure on human specialists.
• 24/7 support: With customers able to get the help they need at any time, you won’t have to worry about customers with urgent problems after hours.
• Improved customer retention: With self-service designed to meet the needs of customers, you can almost guarantee your customers will continue to support your company in return, as 79% of customers claim they will stay loyal after a positive customer service experience.
• Fast and reliable service: While times spent with chatbots may vary, customers will get help immediately and fulfill their needs in just a matter of minutes.

Customer Self-Service Examples

Global and Fortune 500 companies are already taking advantage of customer self-service to retain their market share and not lose some of it to competitors. Here’s how companies today are using self-service solutions:

• Apple: With a customer loyalty of over 90%, Apple continues to deliver with self-service refunds, allowing users to get money back on recently purchased App Store, Music Store, and Apple TV items.
• Uber: This transportation and ride-share company offers a vast knowledge base for customers regarding any scenario that could happen with an Uber experience, and allows easy ways to report problems with rides or food orders.
• Home Depot: Taking self-service a step further, Home Depot allows you to retrieve items you purchased online by entering a password received in your email to open a tightly sealed pickup locker outside the store — avoiding the long wait in line.

How To Create A Winning Customer Self-Service Strategy

A customer self-service strategy requires thorough planning and research for its purpose to be justified. With the right ideas, you can create a self-service hub that can leave a lasting impression on both your customers and your finances.

1. Identify common problems your customers face: Take the time to compile a sample of customer support tickets and chatbot logs to understand the most common concerns your customers have.
2. Make content that’s easy to understand: Create a series of guides and FAQs that are easy to find and read, with straightforward and engaging titles.
3. Make pages and resources easy to find: Any page dedicated to helping customers can benefit from SEO best practices to make the page easier to find in search engines.
4. Use competent customer service software: Take advantage of customer service tools to make finding help efficient and pain-free for customers.

You can use any Help Center pages you write for a library of knowledge that your chatbot can learn. Voiceflow makes it easy to upload documents to your Knowledge Base and train your chatbot in less than a minute.

Voiceflow has all the resources needed to build an all-in-one chatbot that can help customers with all kinds of inquiries. See for yourself how easy Voiceflow’s Workflow Builder is and get started with a free trial.

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Best Customer Self-Service Software 2024

There are various IT companies that offer appealing services for businesses looking to up their customer support games. Here are the best choices for setting up a customer self-service hub:

Voiceflow has all the resources needed to build an all-in-one chatbot that can help customers with all kinds of inquiries. See for yourself how easy Voiceflow’s Workflow Builder is and get started with a free trial.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do I Still Need a Customer Service Department if I Have Customer Self-Service?

Even though customer self-service can be helpful to companies, having a customer service team is still vital to companies to help solve complex issues that self-service might not be able to help with. For unique problems or urgent matters that need to be escalated to human specialists, be sure to put a system in place that can easily connect the customer service department with the self-service system.

What Forms of Customer Self-Service Are There?

Customer self-service can take many forms, including a help center, knowledge base, AI-powered chatbot, mobile app, or smartphone features, such as interactive voice response (IVR). All these forms are meant to help customers to find the answers or solutions they need.

What’s The Easiest Way To Automate Tasks With Self-Customer Service?

A chatbot is the simplest way to offer self-customer service, as it serves as a virtual assistant where customers expect to ask it questions and give helpful solutions or the proper links for where to go. Chatbots from Voiceflow can also reduce the workload of a customer service department and improve response times.

How Can I Make Updates to My Self-Customer Service System?

To make updates to a self-customer service system, you can usually charge or upload new documents to your system’s library or knowledge base, such as for Voiceflow. Be sure to assess your chatbot's settings to ensure it can receive accurate and current information about your company, so the information they use is the most relevant when addressing customers.