
We’re in a new era of doing business. With more than 1.5 billion people under stay-at-home orders, retail stores shuttered across the globe and agents now part of a growing remote workforce, the world of support and changed nearly overnight.
For example, EVP Jim Roth shared in a webinar with Coveo CEO Louis Tetu that his organization went from 216 remote employees to 2,800 in just 16 days. And cutting staff or hours is not possible. The demand for support has climbed to deal with questions surrounding the pandemic, along with the inability to get questions answered in person. Customers today in nearly every industry need help to navigate the changing business landscape, whether it’s cancelling an airline ticket, upgrading cloud bandwidth, or learning to use new products.
Last week, Coveo SVP Mike Raley co-hosted a webinar with John Ragsdale, Distinguished VP of Research at the Technology Services Industry Association to help organizations navigate these issues. The webinar, “Help Customers Help Themselves: 3 Digital Strategies that Work” covered the critical and strategic importance of self- capabilities to see greater ROI and performance. right now and how every and support leader, with a few tweaks, can enhance their
Watch the replay of “Help Customers Help Themselves: Three Digital Self-Service Strategies that Work.“
Why Self Service Matters
John kicked off the webinar by explaining the current state of .
Comprehensive research from TSIA showed that customers overwhelmingly prefer to self serve. One of the common objections to is that it’s generational; older customers may struggle with it and receive the “white glove” treatment of a live agent. According to the TSIA 2020 Channel Preference Study:
- Every generation prefers to self-serve. Seventy-one percent of all respondents agree, including 60% of Baby Boomers, 72% of Gen X, and 77% of millennials and Gen Z respondents.
- Every region also prefers , including customers in EMEA (67%), APAC (71%), Central/South America (87%), and North America (69%).
“The truth is that customers really prefer to self-serve. Deflection is not a dirty word.”- @john_ragsdale @TSIACommunity #SelfServiceStrategy pic.twitter.com/rWdGV8KrBg
— Coveo (@coveo) April 30, 2020
Organizations have different approaches to assisting customers with self service according to the TSIA 2019 Knowledge Management Survey. More than 9 out of 10 organizations have a search box to assist customers on the self-service site, but the capabilities vary.
- One-third of organizations report that their knowledge base search only searches the knowledge base.
- Thirteen percent report using federated search, searching multiple databases.
- Just 22% use unified search which brings all content sources together into a single index, and 19% apply machine learning to rank results according to relevance.
Personalization, however, is not widely used; 51% of organizations provide real-time suggestions during case creation and only 21% reported providing list of FAQs personalized to the customer.
For more information, download The State of Knowledge Management: 2019.
3 Best Practices for Self Service Success
What does it take to create the exceptional experiences that customers expect? There are companies that have mastered the playbook: using and AI to deliver unified, relevant, and valuable content to their customers in their journey. And these investments pay off.
Digital leaders are achieving incredible results with their #selfservicestrategy. @Xero @tableau @EllucianInc @Informatica pic.twitter.com/T9ZcxkCDLg
— Coveo (@coveo) April 30, 2020
There are three steps to enabling relevant and effective digital for your customers.
#1 Unify content and journeys. Stitch together knowledge, content and behavior . across silos, systems, and the entire journey. Connect the channel silos to create one continuous digital journey, culminating in a
#2 Be relevant. Go beyond listing results to answer questions and make contextually relevant recommendations. Now that content is unified across the journey, use , and AI to rank content for relevance by understanding the ‘s context and intent.
#3 Improve continuously. Use about content consumption, gaps, and more to refine your understanding of what customers need from self . Evolve your content strategy based on demand and usage.
To help every organization achieve this, we’re here to help. With our “Digital Readiness package,” every organization can gain access to:
- Coveo for Pro – Enable rapidly with free use of Coveo for Pro Edition for 90 days, with option to extend.
- Getting Started Workshop – Define the scope of your project and best practices for getting started in a free workshop.
- Access to Expert Services – Choose between a Coveo-led implementation or self-led implementation with Coveo guidance.