Self-service vs Case Deflection: What’s the Difference?
While self-service encompasses all customer interactions when seeking an answer, case deflection is specific to cases where the customer would have submitted a ticket, but instead found content to answer their question. Intelligent search powered by AI can track this metric and help you understand customer patterns as well as improve the overall relevance of content for each user.
Self-service is providing customers with a way to search for and find the information they’re looking for on their own. This could look like a customer searching a knowledge base or customer community for answers to their problems or using a chat bot or instant chat service on your website. The goal is to empower customers with what they need to successfully use your product while helping them avoid the annoyance of reaching out for personal assistance. AI-powered search can greatly increase the success of your customer’s self-service journey by offering more relevant information when they need it.
Case deflection is specific to customer interactions where the customer had the intent to submit a ticket for help, but found content with the information they needed that deflected them away from completing a submission. Explicit Deflection is when a customer lands on the page where they would create a case or ticket submission but then finds the information they need before submitting. A way that you can support this is by providing helpful and relevant or personalized content on the case creation or ticket submission page. Implicit Deflection is when the user interactions imply that a case was deflected without them reaching the case creation page. Certain pageviews or content feedback can indicate this kind of deflection
Self-service and case deflection work together to provide the most seamless online customer experience possible for your customers. The most effective self-service is relevant to each customer’s inquiries and personalized to the individual based on their behaviors and patterns. The stronger your self-service is, the more thorough your case deflection strategy becomes. Over time, with the help of machine learning, case deflections increase and customers continue to find what they’re looking for without having to reach out for direct help from your customer support teams.
