Customer relationship management can represent a significant cost in relation to your enterprise. Self-help portals are crucial to keep your costs down in this area. But self-help portals don’t just help you, they help your customers, and can dramatically improve your CRM virtually overnight.
A customer service self-help portal is a go-to Web page or resource for your customers that can be an indispensable component of your organization’s site. Some avenues of self-help in the world of CRM include the knowledge base, user or member forums, and of course the FAQ. Another viable option that may companies are turning to are live-chat features on the Web site.
People like to help themselves. They enjoy researching and seeking out their own answers or service, especially if they feel it will be more efficient and quick. Consider self checkout lines at retail stores and supermarkets. These are successful because people feel that checking themselves out will be faster. We like to feel empowered, not only with great choices, but with the power to get what we want for ourselves.
Self-help portals can do just that for your customers, giving them the tools to feel in control of their situation. If there’s a problem with a product, there’s nothing worse than feeling like things are not right, and that there’s nothing you can do about it. Self-help portals relieve this sense of powerlessness immediately, by providing the customer with tools and information to help them tend to their own needs.
This can take the form of knowledge base wikis (an expanded and more thorough version of the FAQ), troubleshooting walkthroughs, and more. These can be much less frustrating than the traditional FAQ, giving customers the information they need with search based delivery. This means that the information the customer gets is only what they need, minimizing irrelevant data. The live-chat portal can take two forms; some Web sites proactively reach out to those surfing their site, with a pop-up box that inquires if they need help. Others offer this option as a clickable link on their site. Member or user forums, in which the customer posts a message about his or her issue, and gets tips and troubleshooting from peers, is a great way to use crowdsourcing to offer answers to your customers.
Self help CRM portals make your whole operation more efficient by answering common questions, guiding customers through common troubleshooting routines, and dispensing information freely. This frees your CRM staff to handle the more difficult cases, reducing inefficiency and redundancy.
Remember, however, that self-help solutions can be counter-productive, and can actually damage the customer relationship, if the information presented is not relevant or helpful, or if the delivery method isn’t built with the user in mind. This includes both when writing the content, and in customizing the architecture to deliver it. Even when the platform has been proven in other contexts, or when the content has already helped customers, bringing them together can be more tricky than you might think. Never underestimate the value of testing.
Perceptive Software, an enterprise content management software developer, is one company that enjoys the benefits of a self-help portal. They deployed a customer service portal for over 6,000 users while importing multiple customer databases into a single company-wide system, and were able to deflect calls, reduce staff, and improve customer satisfaction in one fell swoop.
Nothing is certain, but a little due diligence can mean the difference between a self-help portal that delivers the goods, and a maddening maze of useless information that makes your customers give up on trying to help themselves. Empower your customers—and free up your company’s resources—by providing an effective, multi-faceted and information-rich self-help portal.
