Organizational Benefits of Digital Self-Service

We have looked at how self portals benefits customers, but it is also critical to understand how leveraging a digital self portal also benefits the organization itself. There is more here for organizations than customer retention and we will explore some those ideas here, such as the actual costs associated with supporting customers, the effects on internal staffing and the potential insights from a fuller customer journey.

The most tangible element for a business is the cost savings associated with leveraging a online service portal. Typical call center interactions can cost anywhere between $12-$15 dollars versus leveraging a service portal can cost as little as $0.10 for the same interaction. By allowing customers to solve common problems on their own organizations are able to drastically reduce the overhead costs associated with lower tier support. Organizations have reported or millions of dollars in savings by simply adding commonly requested items into an online portal.

Removing lower tier calls has a direct effect on the support staff that is required to handle these requests. Less employees need to remain in these lower tier areas and are able to continue their professional skills to move into higher levels of within the organization allowing employees to feel more accomplished in their work. From a business perspective this reduces the costs associated with employee turnover and ensures that the team you have is well versed and qualified to handle new situations.

The most interesting benefit of an online service portal is the data that can be gathered specifically about each individual customer. The more services that are offered online for a customer to engage with online allows businesses to track their personal customer journey. Leveraging this information organizations are able to be better direct personalized content to each customer showing the proper motivators and the correct time to not only increase customer satisfaction but also to expand a customer’s footprint by showing them offers, promotions or products, that are relevant to each unique need.

Now that we have looked at the benefits of for digital self service features, I want to begin to explore what makes a good self service interaction. Whether you are creating a brand-new application or evaluating your current offerings there are many different considerations that can move your business from having exceptional self service options to mediocre or terrible self service options.

Angèle Taylor, Strategic Solutions Architect & Adobe AEM Champion.

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