Beer and BBQ won’t be the only trends exploding this 4th of July. Customers are exercising their independence and new powers by demanding online self-service tools that allow them to be the leaders of customer service. Is your website pleasing the crowd with an awesome display of self-care pyrotechnics?
Self-service technologies have evolved well beyond static FAQ pages and the days of wading through pages and pages of search results, hoping to find your answer. Today, these question-to-answer matching solutions plug right into your website and map customer questions to one right answer, helping companies gain flag-waving fans.
Here’s the secret to how these answer engines put a smile on your customers’ faces. Advanced self-service technologies recognize and accept conversational language (sometimes even text speak abbreviations) and deliver a single, correct answer even when a customer’s question is asked or worded in many different ways. The self-care system “sees through” human grammatical and spelling mistakes to match a variety of questions with one right answer.
And, companies are achieving accuracy and recognizing results rather quickly. Within four months, a billion-dollar technology retailer was accurately answering 87 percent of customer questions with self-service technology. Ultimately, the company deferred 5,000 customer service inquiries monthly, saving $400,000 in annual support costs.
So, how should you celebrate customer independence? By freeing your customers from 1-800 hell and reaping the rewards of self-care. Here’s what to look for when you’re ready to invest in the new liberties that technology can deliver.
When investing in self-service technology, look for solutions that:
- Can be deployed across desktops, websites, social media networks, and mobile devices
- Provide a consistent answer message across all major interaction points
- Deliver concise, accurate answers (rather than a series of search results) to the most commonly asked questions
- Provide executive level reports as well as detailed, per-question analytical data
- Easily integrate with your existing knowledge management systems
This infographic was designed by Craig Maedgen, but we’re not sure who created it. The original infographic is here.