Self Service Portals for customer interactions

Once upon a time, all businesses relied on face-to-face interactions to identify and manage all aspects of the customer relationship. From providing support at the very early stages of the sale, to providing support for any issues they may face afterwards. Even service-based industries relied heavily on physical offices where customers could meet staff and interact with them.

However, those days are largely over as more customers now buy in a completely different way. The rise of the internet and the changing approach younger people take to decision making, couple with the supporting technology means that more information is readily available at all times and this is now used by prospective clients to research long before they want to speak to face to face.

The COVID pandemic sped up this move when offices closed and homeworking became more prevalent. This meant that reaching out to companies via the internet became mainstream. Indeed, younger generations have been pushing for more online resources for years, being more likely to go online than drive to a shop or office.

As resources move online, businesses need to find ways to maintain customer engagement. Our recommended solution is a self service customer portal, which gives companies a great way to connect with their customer base online. 

What is a self service portal?

A self service portal is a web based system that allows customers to access information, carry out actions such as ordering or finding solutions without assistance from a company’s sales or service teams.

These portals are becoming critical for a modern business for several reasons:

1. 1. Increased Customer Engagement. As this is increasingly the first and often only way customers want to interact, businesses need ensure that the correct image is portrayed and that their differentiators are apparent. Therefore, an exceptional experience is essential. It needs to be intuitive and easy to use. Complex forms and convoluted multistep processes will not make for happy users.
   2. Efficient Customer Support. Self service portals allow customers to find answers to common queries and resolve issues independently, on their own terms and in their own time. If they want to deal with something at midnight, they can. No need to wait for normal business hours or sitting in a call queue. Making engagement easy for customers has real implications. In a survey carried out by Zendesk, more than 50% of customers will switch to an alternative supplier after just one bad experience. In addition to this, a portal allows a 24/7 support option at little or no cost, and customers can access FAQ’s and other tools at any time with no increase in staff or shift patterns. This functionality does more than improve customer satisfaction by improving response times (if done correctly), it also reduces the workload on customer support teams, allowing them to focus on more strategic issues.
   3. Significant Cost Savings. Good self service portals saves costs in other, more tangible ways. Enabling users to solve problems on their own reduces the need for large customer support teams, saving money over time. A self service interaction online costs most businesses mere pennies. In contrast, according to Harvard Business Review, on average, a live customer service interaction (such as phone, email, or webchat) costs approximately £3.50 for a business to consumer company and £6 for a business to business company.
   4. Operational Productivity Improvement. Self service portals can automate repetitive tasks and streamline processes, reducing operational costs and increasing productivity.

What should be included?

Now that we understand the benefits of  self service portals to both you and your customers, let’s consider what is necessary to make the technology work effectively for you.

1. 1. Prioritise Customer Needs. The first thing you need to do is properly understand your customers. For example different generations may have different capabilities when using online systems. Younger customers are happy to do so but older users may struggle more. So you need to consider who your demographic is and what to do with those outside of it. We recommend surveying your clients to understand their pain points when using on line systems in general and your website specifically. Uncover their most common problems when interacting with your brand and its products and services. What are they looking for in a self service portal? How would they use it; to find answers, troubleshoot problems, place orders or something else? Think about how clients navigate your site and how can you make their experience simple and effective, giving  the answers they’re after in front of them with as few clicks as possible?
   2. Self service Capabilities. Once you properly understand how your customer would prefer to use a self service portal, you can identify the functionality you need. This can include account access for billing history, order tracking, technical articles, FAQs, ordering and ‘How To’ videos.
   3. Ease of Use. Make your portal easy to use and navigate. Use clear language, get to the point, and leverage intuitive design. Include a search function that allows customers to find the information they need quickly and easily. Remember to make it mobile friendly, as many customers will be using use smartphones.
   4. Scalability. A scalable platform accommodates future growth, and if you’re portal finds customer approval, growth is sure to follow. Build a system that you can easily update and expand. Work with a system that can handle customer traffic increases.
   5. Security. The more information you put online, the greater the responsibility for protecting it. This is particularly important for client information. If your self-service portal is limited to providing product information, you just need to lock down the content to ensure it cannot be tampered with. However, if your portal allows access to client information such as names, addresses, credit card information and other personal information, you must take care in how you handle and protect that data. You need to consider the requirements of standards such as GDPR and PCI DSS. There are many ways to do this, encryption at rest, access controls and Multi-Factor Authentication for example. Your approach should be considered and implemented from day one of the portal.
   6. Promotional Strategy. As you build the portal you will need to promote it with your customers. Perhaps a email campaign to inform your existing customers and a onboarding process for new customers so they can use it immediately. To encourage continuous and scaled use, encourage your customers to explore it by including email links on invoices, order updates, and other documentation.
   7. Measurement and Tracking. You should implement a process of regularly reviewing the portal, tracking usage and overall effectiveness. Monitor the number of visitors, live chat engagement and other metrics to ensure that it is operating at its most effective and to identify areas that are lacking. Removing barriers to customer satisfaction on the portal is crucial to its success and you should look to do so as soon as they are found. Regularly report on these numbers will help you identify areas for improvement.

Building your self service customer portal

Once you understand what you want the portal to do and how it will be used, you need to consider the best approach. By far the best approach is to develop your own custom solution as it will absolutely meet your need and better interface with your existing and future business platforms.

A custom-built solution can address any requirement your business needs. Your initial development phase can include anything and everything you’d like your portal to have. If you build it correctly, adding new features can be a simple process, which means your portal can easily adapt to the market and scale with your business. And, of course, the technology always belongs to your business, you invest in something you will always own, doesn’t go out of date, meaning that money invested is never wasted.

If you want to understand more about creating a self service portal, we’re here to help you explore the possibilities.