Customer Experiences With Digital Self-Service

Leveraging a self portal is very beneficial to customers which in turn makes self portals critical to business as well. The market has become very competitive, making customer acquisition and retention vital for organizations. Self portals are one of the features that are not only preferred but are expected by todays consumers. From a customer perspective self portals allow for faster response times, and higher satisfaction.

As customers are becoming more accustomed to online services 72% of consumers are preferring to have the ability to complete standard interactions without having to engage with any other person. Taking this a step further 88% of customers actually expect to have a self-service option when engaging with businesses. With the plethora of options just having a self portal itself is not enough to keep a customer. The experience the customers are having with the portal are critical as 91% of customer will leave without ever notifying the business of the issue. It is more than just having the service that is key but ensuring that the experience is a positive one.

To help get a better understanding of what a good interaction for a customer using an online service portal we can first look at response time. Leveraging an online FAQs, Helps, applications, enrollments, or basic services allows for faster response times to complete. Some of the slowest requests for consumers can takes weeks to months to complete due to manual processing or human interactions. Leveraging more online automated process and self-help areas allows customer to complete tasks with minutes rather than days, and weeks.

As we are exploring digital self service options for customers, we should also be considering the fluidity for customers to move from one device to another. 40% of customers will start an activity on device and will finish the interaction on another with 88% using 2.3 different devices each day. With this information in mind, it is critical to ensure that all digital content is available for the array of different screens that can be accessing the content to ensure the best customer experiences possible.

Next time I would look to move our focus specifically to how leveraging digital self services can benefit the business directly. Specifically, what measurable savings and gains can organizations plan on seeing when they move toward more self-service options for their customers.

Angèle Taylor, Strategic Solutions Architect & Adobe AEM Champion.

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