According to a Gartner study, 70% of customers in the United States use self-service channels to solve problems, which makes this channel a must for companies.
Self-service allows customers to find solutions to demands on their own. This makes the customer journey flow more naturally and quickly since it avoids exhaustive processes such as exchanging e-mails or unnecessary calls.
What is self-service?
Self-service is the true digital transformation in customer service, as it allows customers to solve most of their requests on their own, with total autonomy and convenience.
In addition, self-service allows the customer to go through the company's different communication channels and get quick answers, thus contributing to a satisfactory experience.
Gartner also pointed out in the Future of Sales study that in 2025 about 80% of sales interactions will take place in digital channels, reinforcing the immediate need for companies to implement omnichannel communication and self-service solutions.
Challenges faced in the implementation of self-service solutions:
In most companies, communication is done in a fragmented way, and as the offer of products, services, and the customer database expands, many different communication platforms are used, such as social networks, webmail, CRM, and others.
This growth comes with the challenge of ensuring efficiency and consistency in responses, as well as providing fluidity and interaction between systems and people.
It is necessary to find an interactive, centralized, and flexible communication platform, such as the rocket.chat solution, which brings together all these channels and offers the best possible experience to the end-user and its internal and external collaborators.
Self-service examples
To give you a broader idea, we explain below the main self-service models adopted by companies:
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page: while choosing this option a standout point would be creating a page not only based on the identification of keywords but able to understand and respond to different contexts, leading to greater accuracy of certainty in the answers.
- Applications: widely used nowadays, customers can contact the company, start a chat, or use their voice to communicate with the organization in just a few clicks.
- Chatbots and Messenger with artificial intelligence (AI): chatbots answer questions at any time. Today, it is possible to implement this tool on the company's website and app, as well as on social media channels such as Facebook, WhatsApp or even emerging technologies such as Alexa and Siri.
- Automated call centers: these consists of virtual assistants that use artificial intelligence (AI) technology and machine learning, to generate natural conversations. That is, instead of doing a traditional journey in which the customer dials determined numbers to personalize his/hers query, virtual assistants can understand different accents, slang, and terms, and elaborate more accurate answers, using the preferred means of communication by customers, the voice.
grupoGBI develops State of the Art Virtual Assistants based on artificial intelligence (AI) and NLU, with the ability to extract the true meaning of spoken/written speech and interact with business systems, to respond assertively to the consumer's real intentions.
Self-service case studies
RoyalBank is Canada's largest bank, with over 16 million customers and about 1200 agencies.
The transformation of the contact channels happened with the implementation of the Omilia, virtual assistant. This project allowed RBC to enable its operation to assist, in a fully automatic way, more than 55 million calls per year, through the most diverse channels (IVR, Chat, E-mail, APP's and messaging).
The bank also registered a 27% increase in the success rate of user identification and authentication. It also led to an increase in the ability to fully understand the user's needs when contacting the bank in approximately 96% of the cases.
This ability to identify the reason for contact, based on what was verbalized by the user, is one of the main drivers to improve and automate the bank’s serving skills for all RBC customers.
Main benefits of self-service
Among the main benefits of self-service, we must mention:
1. Proximity to the customers: the more flexible the means and forms of attendance, the more comfortable the customer feels about contacting us and making new purchases.
2. Optimization of the customer journey: everyone can decide how, how much, and where to buy, quickly and efficiently.
3. Availability 24/7: artificial intelligence never rests. Online self-service services are available to the customer at any time.
4. Humanized customer service: today, bots and virtual assistants can generate a natural dialogue that resembles a human dialogue, promoting a conversation through free and unstructured speech.
5. External and internal agility: with AI systems solving superficial incidences, the human workforce can focus on other projects and on solving priorities with agility and effectiveness.
6. Cost reduction: as mentioned above, a single system can solve different types of complaints automatically and simultaneously.
7. Customer autonomy: today's dynamic consumer has little tolerance for low-quality customer service and demands agility and responsiveness from companies. Self-service, in turn, allows users to contact a company in different ways and resolve issues on their own.
8. Improved communication: a satisfying and unforgettable customer service experience throughout their buying journey becomes even more important, and is increasingly becoming a priority in companies, according to Gartner studies.
9. Customer retention: good self-service can help in customer retention, as customers feel that their needs are met quickly and conveniently.
10. Possibility of increased sales through referrals: the power of a recommendation from well-served customers cannot be underestimated. A Nielsen report shows that 83% of consumers trust recommendations from family and friends.
Digital transformation involves adopting intelligent self-service tools, taking customer experience to the next level.
The grypoGBI develops State of the Art Virtual Assistants based on artificial intelligence (AI) and NLU, with the ability to extract the true meaning of spoken/written speech and interact with business systems, to respond assertively to the real intentions of the consumer.
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