Perils and Pitfalls

The greatest peril for companies deploying self-service support environments is the tendency to be lulled into management satisfaction by the deep sets of data being generated on the back end by self-service applications, Klein says. The reports generated by self-service software systems very often do not reveal the most important element of the story: the customer service experience.

"The most important element to be evaluated when selecting and implementing a self-service solution is for company management to assume the role of a customer and honestly ask: 'Is this how I would like to be treated as a customer?'"

Klein says the problem with browse-based and search-based self-service tools is that they force customers into unnatural modes of interaction, making it difficult for them to find the information they need. Unable to make a simple request, a customer must feel his or her way through a complex maze of topics, or guess at the proper search terms to express his or her problem - either way, an effort-intensive process with a high likelihood of failure. Even in the unlikely case that the customer navigates directly to the right category or hits upon the perfect set of search terms, the customer must still pick the answer he or she needs from a list potentially numbering in the hundreds - another daunting task, for the right answer may not be in the list at all, or may be depicted in a form that he or she fails to recognize.

In a customer service scenario, these are fatal shortcomings. A customer with a pressing question or complaint understandably has no patience for a difficult discovery process, and will quickly resort to an attended service option. As far as the ideal customer service experience goes, it is easy to see that typical self-service tools fare well in terms of availability, but fail miserably in all other respects.

A customer who has engaged in a poor self-service experience is extremely unlikely to try self-service tools in the future, opting instead for a more expensive attended service channel. In the worst case, a poor self-service experience may drive a customer to take his business elsewhere. Attempts to calculate the total cost of ownership for self-service tools seldom take into account the hidden costs of damaged customer relationships and increased per-incident costs, Klein says. If they did, the true cost of browse-based and search-based tools would be far greater than most companies believe.

Some companies find they have to battle resistance from within before getting their self-service offerings off the ground. For instance in 1997 when antivirus provider McAfee began exploring Web self-service to handle customer support for the Dr Solomon software with Sento, then senior manager of WW McAfee consumer support Scott Lessard found the greatest opposition to the idea came from inside the company.

Sento is a proponent of a concept the company calls "customer choice": Guide the customer to a series of solutions and at every juncture offer them the option of live support if they want it. Generally speaking, if the customer can get a good solution, they will choose the self-service alternative and will feel good about having done so, Sento maintains. Yet the notion of moving from live voice to Web-enabled self-service and chat had the senior executive management, and particularly the CIO/CTO executives, worried that the quality of support would slip. The sales-people were even harder to convince because they were certain as soon as word got out that the company was no longer providing free phone support, they wouldn't be able to sign any deals.

As it happens, those worries proved baseless. After the initial rollout, Web support instantly surged to 85 percent of transactions, leading to early cost savings of 87 percent, and has now settled in to a consistent savings of 60-65 percent in overall costs. And the icing on the cake is that The Association of Support Professionals (ASP) named www.mcafeehelp.com one of the "Top 10 Best Support Web Sites" for 2002.v

SIDEBAR: The Push-Back to Talk

How to divert customers from the phone to other, less-expensive service channels

Phone service is undeniably the most expensive form of service, says Sento CEO Patrick O'Neal. Why offer it at all? To start with, it may be the only option available to a customer at a given point in time - for example, when the customer is travelling or does not have access to the Internet. Or the Internet service could be down. Or the kids may be monopolizing the computer to chat with their friends. Since written communication (chat and e-mail) does not always provide the perfect forum for expressing emotion, customers may just want to speak with someone.

"With that said, I submit to you that customers generally do not prefer the phone," O'Neal says. "In Sento's experience, customers choose non-phone options at least 80 percent to 90 percent of the time. Too often, companies position self-service, chat, and e-mail as ways of pushing the customer away."

O'Neal offers these tips for successfully diverting customers from the phone towards other options:

1. Create a self-service environment that parallels the ATM model: deliver those features that are used often and will be used successfully in this environment.

2. Provide customers with a simple transition to a live agent. Too many companies create a robust self-service engine and hide their phone number deep within the site.

3. Give the customer enough information to make an informed choice as to what live option they should use (for example, queue times and handle times).

4. Reward your customers for using your less expensive service options. For example, if your phone hours are Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, provide 24x7 Internet chat service. If wait times for the phone are typically three to four minutes, provide chat service within one minute.

5. Require customers to first visit your Web site before calling. Eliminate inbound phone numbers altogether, and instead have the customer request a call back via the Web. The request is routed to a contact centre that makes an outbound call. Or provide the customer with a PIN that they are required to enter into the IVR when calling. Customer rewards include no phone charges and more accurate skills routing.

6. When you have successfully moved most of your traffic away from the phone, consider positioning phone as a "value-add" service that includes a per-minute or per-incident charge.

SIDEBAR: Listen Well

TIPS FOR IMPLEMENTING customer self-service . . .

• Learn everything about your customers.

• Conduct focus groups to ensure that they want self-service.

• Define clear business goals.

• Evaluate the technology for its technical and financial merits.

• Does it match your customer base? Will it boost profitability?

• Work as a team. Have customer support, IT and other departments involved every step of the way.

• Offer training to employees.

• Expect this to be an iterative process that requires making changes as you learn more about your customers.

• Develop an effective way to measure results.

• Under promise and over deliver.

THINGS TO AVOID knowing that customers want personalized attention, whether they're contacting the Web site or the call centre . . .

• Don't leave customers hanging. Tell them when you'll respond to their questions. And give them an easy way out of the Web site.

• Don't implement Web-collaboration tools such as chat until your call centre representatives are adept at using the technology.

• Don't reduce everything to ROI. Look instead at the bigger picture of creating customer value.

• Don't try to predict what the end results will look like.

• Don't try to do everything at once. Implement in stages.

REQUIREMENTS for effective customer self-service . . .

• Technology, such as a search engine, that helps customers find what they need quickly.

• Knowledge management software that identifies each customer and his lifetime value to the company.

• Marketing software tools that let you track customers and target them with relevant offers.

• Tools that integrate all your communications channels.

• Links to the back office so that you can confirm orders and availability.

• Integrate everything. Consider letting an ASP handle the integration.

• Make sure your customer self-service strategy dovetails with your overall service strategy.