CRM - October 2007 - (Page 28)

SELF-SERVICE SUCCESS the antivirus program from his PC and bought a service from that company’s archrival. “If I could’ve gotten service I would’ve stayed,” he says. “After all, I spent money on the subscription. I need a very straightforward Web self-service experience. But that was not it.” Web self-service is far from new, but companies are still grappling with enabling customers to find relevant information online quickly without the aid of a live CSR. Analysts and experts agree: Organizations must learn to view online self-service as a critical component of their customer loyalty initiatives rather than as an implementation intended simply to cut costs. 2007, for more on enterprise chat.) Still, a sizable chunk of customer irritation with Web self-service is the product of two intertwined culprits: shoddy content and barriers to finding relevant information. To make matters even worse, there are times when customers cannot locate information needed to solve their queries and there’s no option provided for them to migrate to assisted service—connecting to a live agent via channels like phone, email, or chat. This dovetails with the siloed mindset still common among lagging companies and their continued inability to create a seamless experience across channels. Susan Aldrich, senior vice president and senior consultant at the Patricia Seybold Group, puts it this way: “Self-service is owned and designed piecemeal. The result is that the integration of these piecemeal pieces is owned by the customer.” Aldrich recommends that companies appoint an executive to be in charge of the selfservice experience, someone like a chief has no clear plan as to who is targeted, the channel leveraged, or the type of service provided—whether it be purely knowledge base content or a mix of content and escalation into assisted service.” WEB WOES It’s no secret that the number of consumers migrating to the Web—and subsequently, Web self-service—continues to trend upward. For instance, 80 percent of the customers in a 2001 JupiterResearch/NPD survey said they’d used ANALYZE THIS Developing a plan for bolstering Web self-service requires companies to go back to basics: Determine what you’re trying to accomplish with self-service and identify key performance indicators (KPIs) your company will use to define success. Does your definition of Web selfservice success revolve strictly around diverting customers who intended to phone your contact center, enabling them to find answers directly from the Web without the help of a live rep? Or does your definition expand beyond service issues to incorporate the ability to carry out e-commerce transactions? “Define what the metrics are that mean that the interaction was effective for your organization and then measure “The core problem on the technology side is that companies jumped on the bandwagon, were trying to be early adopters…and they haven’t done a lot since then. We need a major technology refresh.” self-service search during the prior six months; that figure had risen to 88 percent in a JupiterResearch/Ipsos-Insight survey five years later. FAQs have caught on at an even hotter pace: 83 percent of the 2001 respondents said they used FAQs, compared to 94 percent of those surveyed in 2006. A rise in adoption, however, has yet to translate into much— if any—improvement in satisfaction. In fact, while FAQ satisfaction improved a meager three percentage points between 2001 (52 percent) and 2006 (55 percent), satisfaction with self-service search actually fell over the same period, from 56 percent to 51 percent. Of course, Web self-service has evolved into more than just FAQs and elementary search capabilities—today’s systems include additional functionality, such as increasingly sophisticated naturallanguage search, guided help, and automated chat. (See “Yackety Clack,” May 28 customer officer or vice president of customer experience, and invest resources in an information-management team. A lack of investment in the proper tools can play a major part in weakening online self-service initiatives. “The core problem on the technology side is that companies jumped on the bandwagon, were trying to be early adopters, put out a knowledge base, put out search, and they haven’t done a lot since then,” says John Ragsdale, vice president of research for the Service & Support Professionals Association. “We need a major technology refresh.” The umbrella issues, however, appear to be the undervaluing of Web self-service (and service in general) as a competitive differentiator and lack of a clear strategy. “One area of struggle we often see is a lack of self-service vision or plan,” says Bob Peery, director of knowledge base product management at Talisma. “And, all too often, if there is a vision it’s nebulous and it against those metrics you’ve defined,” says David Vap, vice president of products at RightNow Technologies. (See sidebar, “Break Out the Measuring Tape,” for a partial list of recommended KPIs for Web self-service effectiveness.) According to Talisma’s Peery, when it comes to measuring Web self-service success, the first instinct is to expect a decrease in interaction volumes—although how quickly this happens, if it happens at all, depends on a company’s offerings and customers. As an example: Data management software provider Vision Solutions uses Knova Software’s adaptive search functionality, which includes guided search, direct answer, resolutions flows, and adaptive navigation capabilities coupled with a centralized knowledge base. As a result, Vision has trimmed the number of incoming customer calls by 10 percent. Peery notes other items that are typically tracked: customer satisfaction surveys, www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | OCTOBER 2007 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - October 2007

Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity Coupons Without the Clipping Something Special in the Air Oracle’s Name Game Market Focus: Sports & Entertainment: CRM Scores for Sports Franchises Statistically Speaking The Pulse Required Reading Are We There Yet? Help Them Help Themselves The Chain Gang Pay Day OutClick Media Gets a Second Opinion Best Kiteboarding Makes a Splash with NetSuite True-Blue Service Documentation Secret of My Success The Tipping Point Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - October 2007

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