The demand for self-service is soaring. Today’s customers increasingly prefer to resolve their own issues on the digital platforms of their choice. And rapidly evolving expectations have made delivering seamless, personalized customer experience across channels even more challenging than ever before.
However, when done right, self-service pays dividends, as evidenced by these real-world success stories:
- Healthcare Leader Improves CSAT by Increasing Automation Resolution
A leading healthcare organization wanted to improve its service capabilities in advance of its annual Open Enrollment period. The organization used AI on its conversational data to identify activities and issues that were ripe for automation —gaining interaction insights automatically to determine the next best actions and resolve issues. As a result, the company implemented the 24/7 self-service customers were seeking, reducing the number of interactions on assisted channels during its peak service period.
- Household Media Company Transforms CX by Optimizing Knowledge Management
A media company turned to smart self-service after noticing a surge in customer service calls each time it announced a promotional offer. The company used AI to discover that the messaging on the promos was very effective in driving interest but that the terms and conditions were raising lots of questions—driving traffic to assisted channels. The company was able to enrich its Knowledge Management resources to help answer customer questions through self-service.
- Telco Minimizes Customer Friction with Proactive Customer Service
A major telecommunications firm noticed a spike in calls about internet outages at certain times of the month. Using AI, the company discovered that these outages weren’t actual internet interruptions but rather, service disconnections when customers failed to pay their bills. By conducting proactive outreach with bill pay reminders, the business mitigated many calls before they occurred. The telco also supplemented its email payment reminder with texts and in-app notifications to improve customer compliance and satisfaction.
- Bank Uses Omnichannel Insights to Accelerate Issue Resolution
A large bank was experiencing a surge in refinance applications due to record-low interest rates. However, its existing self-service channels couldn’t keep up with the demand, leading to longer handle times and frustrated customers. The bank decided to harness valuable data-driven insights through AI to address the highest priority issues with smart self-service channels. The result was improved containment, as well as customer satisfaction.
The common denominator in each of these examples is that the companies went beyond traditional self-service, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver truly smart self-service.
What is Smart Self-Service?
In a recent survey by Aberdeen Research of more than 300 organizations across industries and around the world, contact center leaders ranked self-service at the top of the list of planned channel adoption. At the same time, the research confirmed that leaders don’t feel self-service goes far enough.
More than half (56%) of the leaders surveyed said customer needs are too complex to be addressed via self-service, and one-third said customers are unaware of self-service capabilities. Others said self-service is hindered by customers’ difficulty navigating self-service portals (33%) and a lack relevant of information in them (22%)[1].
In short, the complexity and pace of changing customer expectations has made digital transformation of traditional self-service to smart self-service an imperative. Smart self-service helps you surpass the boundaries of the contact center to deliver CX that gets smarter with every interaction by leveraging AI, analytics and automation. It improves issue resolution, finds automation opportunities, and streamlines complex interactions happening on assisted channels.
This empowers contact centers to move from reactive to proactive customer service by tapping into insights gathered from historical interaction data on all channels. And an automated, continuous intelligent feedback loop enables data-driven, continuous improvement that optimizes both customer and agent experience.
The research by Aberdeen found that businesses who are using smart self-service report significant benefits over those that do not,[2] including a:
- 39% improvement in customer satisfaction rate
- 2x reduction in service costs
- 2.2x increase in annual company revenue
- 2.2x improvement in customer effort score
How to Get Smart about Self-Service
Smart self-service is an essential part of meeting your customers on their digital doorsteps. A next-gen, AI-powered solution can help you get started or improve your current functionality. Take your CX to the next level by analyzing data to update self-service workflows, tailor customer journeys based on previous interactions and more. Read our recent eBook, How to Build Smart Self-Service Fast, to learn more about exceeding the limits of your contact center—and the expectations of your customers. You can also learn more about the research in support of smart self-service in Aberdeen’s report, The ROI of Smart Self-Service: Using Modern Tools to Delight Modern Customers.
[1] Aberdeen Research, The ROI of Smart Self-Service, Oct. 2021
[2] Aberdeen Research, The ROI of Smart Self-Service, Oct. 2021