Good content self-service options can provide your organization with significant benefits. Online users can get answers and receive the services they need quickly and efficiently, while your organization can be responsive and efficient in assisting them when they need it.

Since online self-service is a fraction of the cost of assisted support channels, it is by far the least expensive. If it is done well, it can help to ease customer effort, reduce operating costs, and even differentiate your business through superior service delivery.

Many factors drive effective customer self-service, including technology, the user interface, and personalization. However, one of the most powerful things your organization can do to drive effective self-service is developing truly user friendly content that is both quick and easy to find.

The trick to providing excellent customer service in a self-service content management world is describing the product in the words of the customer.

Getting the taxonomy right means understanding the customer—and recognizing that customers don’t necessarily agree on the terms. Describing content isn’t as easy as it looks. Acronyms can be a problem, since they can mean different things.

Meet the Expectations of Online Users

Self-service systems are only as good as the quality and usability of the information they deliver. The long-standing knowledge management statement “content is king” is particularly true in today’s self-service world, especially when you consider online users’ general self-service expectations:

They may not necessarily know exactly what they need to ask or do, just what they are trying to accomplish. Likewise, they may not always know your organization’s terminology or taxonomy.

They don’t want to spend time looking through lots of information or understanding the details of the self-service environment. They expect very little interaction. The two word “Google query” approach is the standard amount of information that is typically provided initially. Users generally consider performing additional clicks to deepen the context of their inquiry (such as scoping searches by specific categories or refining queries) if/when there’s a clear payoff trail to the answer.

Given the quick, concise nature of the self-service environment, it’s critical that customer facing content be written and structured to meet these expectations. This doesn’t mean you need only to provide a few short FAQs. Once the audience is understood, the principles of effective authoring can be employed to structure many information sources in a consumable way.

Start With the End in Mind

When developing self-service content, focus on the information that customers need, as opposed to the information that you have. For service and support content, here are some techniques that can help you gain insight into information that can be useful online:

• Ask your support and service staff: People who communicate with customers every day know the types of issues customer ask about, the terminology they use, and how much information they can easily absorb. Since support staff also knows what the top questions are, they are an excellent source of customer-facing insights.
• Examine your self-service content: Look carefully at the information that is most used online and what might be moved online based on what internal staff recommend. Flag the key information that would most quickly and clearly respond to common queries. Restructure supporting and related information into the background, and link it to the core knowledge objects. Create an easy-to-navigate path to success for common issues.
• Test search queries and carefully review the results: Take the journey with your online users. Enter the top queries and questions, and navigate them in the self-service system. See what results come back, and whether the titles, content scope, and information format provide the best response. Try variations of queries and browse topics to confirm consistent, predictable results. Query testing is a tried-and-true method of assessing relevancy and defining where to make specific improvements (to technology, the user interface, and/or content tagging and structure).

Design Effective Experiences Around Useful Scenarios

While a self-service experience must be clear, simple, and intuitive, it does not have to be shallow or overly simplistic. Many resources and knowledge objects can be melded into the self-service experience. The key is to help users identify the main information pathways they should start on and relate other resources from there. This can be accomplished through a variety of methods:

• Implement task-focused taxonomy: This can help users narrow their domain of interest intuitively by matching classification terminology and hierarchy to the most common support tasks.
• Make clear visual distinctions between primary and secondary information—Using featured markers, icons, starting/landing pages, and clear titling standards can help users see what information is likely to be most relevant and what might be useful as they investigate certain questions further.
• Organize content types for specific tasks: Most types of information can benefit from standard structuring that makes it clear what type of content users are looking at and how they should expect to use it (e.g., FAQs, How-To’s, Procedures, Diagnostics, Specifications, Promotions).
• Provide natural transitions to other locations, information, or assisted channels: Leverage technology, where possible, to carry the context of a self-service interaction (the query, categorization scope, and relevant details about the user) forward into the next channel, such as chat, email, or a call into the contact center. This can accelerate the user’s path to the answer by helping route the request effectively.

Ultimately, users are apt to like and use self-service when it’s fast, instinctive, and provides the information or services they need. Given the potential benefits of self-service, it’s well worth the investment to assess, structure, tag, and deliver knowledge in the most intuitive way possible. It really still is all about the content!

Galaxy Consulting has 20 years experience in content management and content self-service. Please call us today for a free consultation!

Forrester Research says that business leaders must dramatically revitalize the self-service experience offered on customer facing websites just to keep pace with evolving consumer expectations. There are key realities of modern online service that expose the gap between customer expectations and website performance, and how you can take steps to close that gap starting now.

1. Customers have grown tired of your old online help tools.

Customer satisfaction with today's most common web self-service features is abysmal and getting worse. In 2011, only 51% of consumers who used online help sections or FAQs for self-service were satisfied, down from 56% in 2009. As more companies rectify this by deploying next generation self-service solutions and virtual agents, fewer customers will tolerate antiquated self-service help tools online.

2. Customers now expect a superior experience online, not just a good one.

Exceptionally positive online experiences are now setting the bar for what customers expect when they visit virtually any website in search of answers and information. According to Forrester, 70% of online consumers expect businesses to try harder to provide  superior online customer service.

3. Consumers arc impatient and protective of their time.

Consumers cite "valuing my time" as the most important thing a company can do to deliver a good online customer experience. Yet most websites are complex, hard to navigate and filled with content that provides multiple possible answers rather than a single, swift path to resolution.

4, Customer service has gone mobile.

Mobile phones are now ubiquitous. Nearly 88% of US adults own them, and 27% of US adults are already considered "super-connected" consumers, using their phones for information. research and commerce. What is more, digital tablet sales are predicted to outpace sales of PCs by 2015. Convenience and ease-of-use are the hallmarks of these mobile form factors. and websites that offer experiences contrary to these attributes will only raise the ire of today's increasingly impatient and unforgiving mobile consumer.

5. Social media is increasingly embraced as a customer service tool.

Back in 2009, just 1% of consumers used Twitter for customer service. This number jumped to 19% in 2011 Delivering a consistent service experience across multiple channels is critical, especially today, as consumers are not shy about using social media sites to publicly complain and vent frustration about any interactions with companies that fail to satisfy.

6. Dissatisfaction online = hijacked revenues.

One of the most appealing benefits of delivering a positive experience in the web channel is the opportunity for organizations to provide information that supports and encourages purchase decisions. Online, the shift from a customer service conversation to a purchase consideration conversation can be a very natural and systematic progression. This progression is thwarted, however, the moment a self-service experience fails to satisfy.

The impact of the self-service experience on revenues should not be underestimated. Fully 45% of US online consumers agree with the statement: "I am very likely to abandon my online purchase if I cannot find a quick answer to my questions."

These trends underline the urgent need to revitalize the online service experience offered by most companies. Online self-service is in need of resuscitation and useful web self-service and virtual agent technologies that can deliver an enhanced customer experience are currently underutilized.

Where To Go from Here?

What should your organization do as the first step toward improving the online customer experience? 

Begin with an honest and objective assessment of the self-service experience your website offers today. Looking at your customer facing website, ask yourself these three questions.

1. Is there a single, highlly visible starting point for self-service activity? 

Today's consumers are task oriented when they go online. Your customers want their self-service journey to begin immediately and move swiftly to completion. Looking at your home page or most highly trafficked customer service page, ask yourself if the average customer would be able to identify the clear starting point for any customer service-related task in a matter of seconds. Any required navigation or clicking through to new pages is viewed as time waste and is out of alignment with their expectation.

2. Is issue resolution generally a multi-step or a single-step, activity? 

When looking for information online, customers want a single accurate answer that is accessible in one step. Any content page that offers more than one alternative answer or path to an answer, requires your customer to take additional steps for sorling, scanning content and/or comparing answers. On your website, when results are served, is the customer presented with a single answer, or multiple results to sift through?

3. How will you measure how your site is performing? 

A quantitative assessment of your self-service performance is the first thing you will need to establish for any improvement to the self-service experience. A free online self-service assessment tool, created by Forrester and InielliResponse, is vendor-agnostic methodology you can use for scoring your site's performance and charring a path for improvement.