July 21, 2006

Case Study: Customer Focused Self Service

Making self-service add up so that it is not only cost-efficient but also customer-effective is premise for this whitepaper which creates the ROC factor for building Balanced Business Case for Self-Service. That would include self-service terminals providing web-based help systems for customers ala kiosks.

Download Whitepaper

Excerpts

Meet Albert
With an important business trip coming, Albert is about to place a rush order for a set of long
sleeve shirts with coordinated wool trousers from the Web site of a retailer he has used on
several prior occasions. This time, however, Albert has questions about the products: Should he
choose a 100% cotton fabric or a wrinkle-fighting polyester blend? Does the retailer offer a
tailoring service? He types “tailoring” into the Web site search engine and receives 542 “matches.”
Lost in a sea of options, he does a second search under the term “wrinkle-fighting polyester
blend.” But this time, his search produces zero matches. Albert sends an email request to
customer service, but in return receives a polite but uninformative, standardized response. As a
last ditch effort he places a call, but soon hangs up because the interactive voice response “menu
tree” doesn’t have options corresponding to his questions.

The good news is the retailer saved $8 by deflecting Albert’s request to automated self-service
channels.The bad news is that Albert is frustrated and abandons his shopping cart, which costs the
retailer a $271 purchase.At a competitor’s Web site, he finds the products and information he needs,
and places the order. Happy with the self-service experience and support from the competitor,
Albert shifts his clothing purchases–about $1,500 a year–to the competition.


By 2010, says Gartner, self-service will account for 58% of interactions.


A recent study shows that 99% of U.S. adults said that, if they had a positive customer service experience with a company, they would be likely to recommend that company to a friend or colleague. Eighty-five percent said that if they consistently received excellent customer service from a company, they would be most likely to greatly/somewhat increase their business with that company.iii


Traditionally the self-service business case has focused on lowering costs-and for good reason.For every email that selfservice prevents, about $3 is saved. For every telephone call, $5 is saved (and as much as $30).


According to a 2005 survey of Forrester’s 200-plus member Customer Experience Peer Research Panel, 65% of respondents from companies with $200 million+ in revenue said Web-based self-service was critical or very important to their 2006 customerexperience spending plans.

Posted by keefner at July 21, 2006 10:18 AM