{"id":548917,"date":"2006-05-24T22:43:24","date_gmt":"2006-05-24T22:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/548917-five-simple-rules-for-successful-self-service.html"},"modified":"2006-05-24T22:43:24","modified_gmt":"2006-05-24T22:43:24","slug":"five-simple-rules-for-successful-self-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/548917-five-simple-rules-for-successful-self-service.html","title":{"rendered":"Five simple rules for successful self-service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are a few ground rules that will help any company to drive the maximum ROI from self-service.<\/font><\/p>\n

1. Make sure that your system delivers tangible benefits to the customer<\/font><\/p>\n

This point sounds so intuitive that one might wonder why it even needs to be mentioned. But many companies start off by designing the self-service environment around their own business processes or their own expectations of cost-savings.<\/font><\/p>\n

While companies can\u00a0– and should hope to – see benefits such as internal productivity gains and cost-savings, customers are not going to adopt self-service unless it is easier, cheaper, faster or richer in functionality than the processes and channels they currently use. <\/font><\/p>\n

In the early phases of launching your customer self-service system, be especially sure to offer your customers tangible incentives, such as discounts or lower service fees, in exchange for becoming early adopters of your self-service system. <\/p>\n

Then try to hook them by making self-service so convenient that they will want to do business with you through the system rather than visiting a branch or picking up the phone. <\/font><\/p>\n

2. Do not neglect change management<\/font><\/p>\n

Successful self-service deployments demand change in the way that your processes operate and in the ways that your customers interact with your company. You should not throw your own staff or your customers in the deep end when you launch customer self-service. <\/font><\/p>\n

Make sure that you have some form of support in place to guide customers through your system \u2013 call centre agents to walk them through the processes, detailed FAQs on your Web site, or even staff on your shop floor who demo your self-service portal to customers at your branches. And market your self-service offering so that your customers know it exists. <\/font><\/p>\n

Change management among your staff is also critical, especially when you remember that many service employees will feel that their jobs are threatened by self-service. <\/p>\n

They need to be trained to understand their parts in new processes that are usually more automated in nature to perform their own jobs and to help your customers. <\/p>\n

Also, try to reassure them that your goal is to remove the pressure of mundane tasks and interactions so that service agents can focus on more value-adding activities. <\/font><\/p>\n

3. Do not try to ‘put lipstick on a bulldog\u2019<\/font><\/p>\n

As attractive as the interface of your self-service portal might be, it is a rock-solid back-office that will determine whether your initiative is a success or failure. <\/p>\n

Many companies run into serious issues with legacy systems as they roll out self-service \u2013 poor response times, customer requests for service or information slipping between the cracks of poorly integrated back-office systems, constraints in the functionality that they can deploy because of a lack of flexibility in their legacy applications. <\/font><\/p>\n

Make sure that your back-office systems are properly integrated, clean up your systems architecture and look at introducing a solid enterprise application integration or middleware layer before you go too far down the road of customer self-service. Your return on investment may be disappointing if your back office is not in order.<\/font><\/p>\n

4. Create intuitive interfaces<\/font><\/p>\n

You need to create a usable and streamlined interface for your self-service portal. Minimise clutter and ensure that customers can complete transactions in a streamlined process with as few steps as possible needed between signing on and completing the task that they come online to do. <\/font><\/p>\n

Guide customers through the complex processes by giving them an end goal, providing feedback along the way, as well as an indication of how long the process should take. Provide a map of the process and highlight where the customer is at each step.<\/font><\/p>\n

Use clear fonts and conservative colours that enhance readability. Also ensure that each page follows a consistent design to avoid confusing the user and have clear links to help information.
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The interface needs to be attractive, but it also will not need any rich graphic or auditory elements. Keep the site simple so that the user is not subjected to any unnecessary distraction, and so that it will download relatively quickly irrespective of the Internet connection that the user is using. <\/p>\n

Not everyone in SA has broadband yet, so try to make your portal as light and quick to download as possible.\u00a0 <\/font><\/p>\n

Do not underestimate the importance of usability. Research has shown that 91% of customers who were inconvenienced by a poorly designed self-service Web site never used it again.<\/font><\/p>\n

5. Test the system and test it again<\/font><\/p>\n

A solid pilot project is critical to ensuring the success of a self-service portal, and it is especially helpful to involve some of the people who will actually be using the system in the pilot. <\/p>\n

They will uncover issues and glitches that somehow escaped your internal testers and developers, and they will be able to give you a clearer idea of whether your system is easy and enjoyable to use. <\/font><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/font><\/p>\n

Companies that want to drive the maximum return on investment from their customer self-service systems must get the basics right. <\/p>\n

Most of the basics outlined above simply involve understanding the needs of your customers and designing your systems to meet these needs. <\/p>\n

Once you meet those needs, you will see that your self-service initiatives will deliver on your business requirements, too.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online customer self-service can pay off handsomely for companies that make the investment in the technology, but it also often disappoints those who do not get the basics right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}