Is your Web self-service giving your customers what they want? For some companies today, a full 80 percent of customer interactions are occurring in the Web self-service channel, keeping customers satisfied and lowering overall support costs.

Yet Yankee Group analyst Deena Cherenza projects that customers will conduct only 14.3 percent of all interactions over the next two years, up from the current 7.7 percent, using the Web self-service channel (Customer Self-service Experience Improves With Cross-Channel Approach, 2005). What can companies do to encourage use of Web self-service well beyond industry projections?

The answer, as usual, is to understand the customer. By proactively meeting the customer’s needs, companies can reduce the number of interactions as well as time spent with issue resolution. According to SSPA Research 2006, customers are looking for timely and consistent responses in their interactions with companies. Thirty-two percent prefer Web-based support and 81 percent of customers believe they can initiate their own cases online.

The promise of Web-based support is that your customers can have what they want—information they need in a quick and efficient manner. But the reality doesn’t always meet the promise. So while customers want to use Web-based support, the actual migration to Web self-service is stymied because of poor implementation and inadequate cross-channel management. As a result, the easier and faster solution for customers is to default to costly phone support.

Define the problem

Success of Web self-service can be determined by how well you define the problem you want to solve, both in terms of customers and your corporate goals. A comprehensive assessment of the customer’s characteristics and needs in relationship with your existing support operations can help you determine choices about navigation, content, organization, escalation rules and other functionality. By clearly outlining which inquiries are appropriate for on-line support, companies can deflect the low complexity/high volume issues to self-service and realize immediate value.

Support channel integration

To be effective, Web self-service should be one component in an integrated, multi-channel support strategy that provides seamless escalation to assisted support. Through cross-channel integration, business intelligence can be gathered to identify content gaps and create real-time opportunities to give customers what they want – information—when they want it.

For example, assume a company provides support content about a new product in its knowledge base and tracks 2,000 interactions in the self-service environment. However, the call center has logged three times the number of interactions about the new product in that channel. With cross-channel integration, a company can analyze the intelligence from all channels to determine where knowledge gaps exist and update the knowledge base to provide the relevant information to the customer in the self-service environment. By proactively monitoring customer interactions and, in turn, updating content to address customer needs, companies improve customer satisfaction by providing information at the customer’s first attempt and deflect a more costly phone interaction.

Meeting customer needs

If you’ve defined the problem you want to solve and developed an integrated multi-channel strategy, then you probably have a good idea of what content your customers are asking for. Providing customers with the specific content they need or issue resolution within the self-service environment contributes to customer satisfaction, but how a customer uses it is just as important. According to John Ragsdale, vice president and research director at Forrester, after five to seven resolution attempts in the Web self-service channel, the customer will leave the site unsatisfied and make a phone call. Most likely, that customer will not return to the Web self-service channel.

Effective Web self-service offers customers multiple navigation choices, such as natural language search and knowledge base browsing functions, but in addition, a more dynamic approach to helping the customer locate relevant content wins the day. For example, with a dynamic Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section, customer interactions can be monitored and ranked continuously, allowing companies to determine what content is being consumed on a regular basis. When a particular article ranks at the top of the list, it’s a signal that customers aren’t finding information they need and that can increase call volume. A dynamic FAQ increases consumption of the knowledge base and reduces the need for customers to submit a case via e-mail or phone.

When a customer needs to transition to the next level of support, actively managing the transition from Web self-service to the next (e-mail, chat, etc.) offers companies another opportunity to meet the customer’s needs. After Web self-service, e-mail is typically the least costly way to interact with a company. When customers submit their cases via e-mail, the service can automatically execute a search of the knowledge base and present information one additional time to try to provide the customer with the right answer. By adding an e-mail deflection tool as many as 20-40 percent of customers can get the information they need before moving into the next level of support.

When properly implemented and maintained, Web self-service can fulfill the promise of improving customer satisfaction and lowering costs. By focusing on quickly and efficiently meeting the customer’s needs with in the self service environment, companies build customer loyalty and establish a pattern of giving their customers what they want, when they want it.

D. Blake Cahill is vice president of marketing and product management at SafeHarbor. Prior to joining SafeHarbor, Cahill led a 900-person multilingual call center organization at a major telecommunications company with responsibility for $400 million in annual revenue and significant increases in customer satisfaction. His background includes senior management positions at AT&T, Ameritech, Belgacom and SBC. He can be reached at blake.cahill@safeharbor.com. SafeHarbor