Customer service goes beyond being there for customers when they have a problem. It is also about giving them the tools and information they need to get solutions on their own terms. In other words, customers want to be able to rely on self-service options that give them the ability to seek solutions on their own and feel self-sufficient.
Read the following article and learn about 3 must-have self-service options for your company to provide better customer service:
Build a community: forums
The sense of community and brand image are intimately related to the way your customers, users or community relate to each other around your company. Promoting a space where your customers can express their opinions and share with affinity can generate several benefits. For example: strengthening customer continuity, reinforcing good opinions, promoting services with real testimonials, letting you know what they want and revealing service failures.
This is why our first self-service option to mention is forums. A forum is what can provide a user-friendly interface for members to interact with each other. This space is arranged for customers to generate discussions organized into categories and subcategories. They can include voting systems, comments, and tags.
The reason this is an important self-service tool is that members can share their thoughts, ideas, and interests. In addition, they can post their questions and receive answers from other users who may have had the same experience. A forum is a valuable resource for connecting with other members and getting direct help or consultation and advice.
Benefits of a forum:
— Strengthen your community of customers and regular users.
— It is a source of first-hand information about your customers’ needs.
— Any user can ask a question, and it can be answered by other users or experts.
— Facilitates self-service through categories, subcategories, and tags.
Optimize your website: Blog
According to Tech Client, having a blog on your website increases your chances of ranking better in searches by 434%. This is one of the great advantages of a blog, better marketing. In fact, 71% of B2B buyers consume blog content during their buying journey (Demand Gen). In addition, it can reduce the costs of marketing efforts, as content marketing is 62% cheaper than traditional marketing according to Demand Metric.
However, having a blog on your website is no longer simply a marketing strategy for customers at the top of the funnel. When used intelligently, a blog can be an essential asset to the rest of the sales journey, as a self-service tool. Because it can help you answer critical questions, reinforce credibility, and guide your prospects to the end of the funnel.
Use your blog to provide your customers with more detailed answers in article format. Try to develop meaningful content that stands out in searches, and focus on your users’ frequently asked questions. This is a very important strategy for customer service. Since it is a direct access tool to make known the various applications of your products or services. In addition to giving your customers a resource, they can turn to whenever they want without delay.
Benefits of a blog:
— Improve your search ranking.
— Allows you to offer more detailed and extensive information on a topic.
— Facilitates self-service through meaningful content that is available 24/7
— Reduces costs -Reduce costs
Service with personalization: ticketing
Ticketing is a system that allows you to track customer interactions and complaints. Creating organized tickets for each of the existing interactions. Allowing agents to manage each request more efficiently.
Of course, the reason ticketing can be a powerful self-service tool is because there is the ability to allow customers to generate a request themselves.
Having ticketing from your self-service portal can offer your customers a simple and efficient process. It works by allowing customers to fill out simple forms with categories and using keywords. By exposing their situation and leaving supporting material that the agent can see immediately. Avoiding delays due to bureaucracy or manual data management.
For example, a traditional procedure to register and resolve a complaint involves manually entering customer information on a complaint ticket. The customer may have to wait on a call while answering multiple questions to be passed on to a second agent once the nature of their problem has been clarified. Waiting to be told each step to follow with no immediate solution.
Benefits of ticketing:
— A self-service ticketing model grants customers a simple user interface. Made for their issue to be addressed without major delays.
— Allows the customer to skip multiple stages of the customer service process.
— Optimizes the data and information collection process for speed.
Freshdesk is a customer service tool that can help you offer your customers all these options. From managing your own self-service portal with blog articles, FAQs and ticketing. Up to managing all incoming requests on your own internal service desk. Making it easier for your agents to workflow and offering various automation tools.
Ask our experts at GB Advisors how Freshdesk can address your company’s needs specifically, and help you optimize your customer service.
