Today's consumers are savvy - they expect companies to provide the highest levels of service and solve problems efficiently and swiftly - in one interaction. Waiting 24 hours for an answer, or only operating in business hours, is simply no longer an option. Today's consumers prefer self-service.
When the self-service principle first started to take root, the underlying motivation for companies was often a search for efficiency. In their desire to create a super-efficient organisation, it seemed only logical to have the client perform certain tasks, says Steven Van Belleghem, award-winning author of The Conversation Manager and The Conversation Company.
"Today, the self-service principle can be much further reaching - self-service has the biggest impact when based on a win-win philosophy. The primary goal should always be an improved customer relationship. The advantages for the organisation are efficiency as well as higher profits."
So how can companies operating in this new scenario achieve customer relationship success? A blog by Ocular Technologies partner, Aspect, titled "Consumer Engagement in the Self-service Economy", states the self-service economy is here and the only way for brands to achieve success is to ensure every technology investment or process change needs to support new consumer expectations.
These expectations are listed by Joe Gagnon, sales VP and GM of cloud solutions at Aspect Software, as:
Know me: Carry the context and data from every interaction seamlessly to the next interaction even if the customer switches channels or switches from self-service to live assistance.
Make it mobile: A complete mobile customer experience must leverage all channels available on a mobile device. In fact, the vast majority (70%) of consumers would rather text than talk.
Let me do it: The reality is that customer satisfaction is higher in a do it yourself model, largely because users are much more forgiving of themselves when it comes to service. According to IBM Retail Research, 72% of customers prefer self-service over picking up the phone and 91% would use self-service if it were available.
Make it social: Consumers use social media to crowdsource for help, speak to a company representative, and publically vent. Brands and consumers are drawn to social media for its inherent simplicity as a communication channel.
Fit it into my life: Consumers don't feel they should be constrained by business hours of operation anymore. They are on the go, conducting their business at every hour of the day. As a result, brands should enable their customers to contact them at any hour of the day and on any medium they prefer.
Save me time: Advances in mobile technology have lessened consumers' patience for waiting. No one is willing to tolerate a three-day wait for an e-mail reply or a hold time longer than a minute. They also have little patience for having to go through a contact centre for simple queries they could have solved themselves.
Make me smarter: Consumers expect they will be informed ahead of time if there is going to be a known change in service. Brands can proactively communicate with customers to inform them of order status messages, appointment and prescription reminders, service outage notifications, and other messages depending on business needs.
"The consumer-company relationship has forever changed. Self-service consumer engagement does not have to be lacklustre and unfulfilling. With the proper technology we can help consumers as they aspire to do more, have more, be more and at the same time create greater loyalty and longer-term customer value by engaging with them differently and on their terms.
"Self-service represents an exciting opportunity for both brands and customers and it will be fun to be part of this shift in consumer engagement and the opportunities afforded those who get it right," concludes Gagnon.
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