We are currently living in the self-service generation. Modern companies offer their customers the ability to do anything by themselves online – from ordering a pizza to booking a European getaway. A win-win solution, self-service allows businesses to save on costs and lets consumers complete processes quickly and easily. The key, however, is that the self-service offered to consumers needs to function well to work—otherwise it can be a disadvantage.
Unfortunately, simple self-service has been difficult to implement. This is especially true for processes such as changing cellphone or insurance plans, where consumers need to sort through complicated options to find the one that works for them and complete the transaction. These difficulties present customers with two options: not completing a transaction (perhaps leaving for a competitor) or connecting to a call center. In order to retain these customers and minimize customer service costs, businesses need to adapt their customer service to ensure that customers do not abandon their websites. Below, I have outlined three suggestions for businesses to enhance their online customer service.
Quick and Responsive
In order for businesses to create successful customer experiences for complicated transactions, they first need to understand the basics of simple transactions, and use them consistently throughout the entire customer lifecycle. The very first interaction a customer has with your website is getting there—a process for which patience is limited. Research commissioned by Akamai shows that 40% of customers abandon a retail or travel webpage that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Customers, particularly those looking for self-service, visit websites to save themselves time and feel like they are in control. A website that makes customers wait and is unresponsive to their clicks commits a double foul and customers will not hesitate to leave. A website’s landing page, and every page thereafter, needs to load and respond quickly.
Easy to Navigate
Once a website loads, customers need to understand what they are seeing and know how to easily navigate the site. Customers want to figure out where to go, how to get back and, if the business is lucky, how to visit another part of the same website. As tempting as it might be for businesses to try to separate themselves with intricate, dynamic designs, simplicity reigns supreme in web design. Rather than separating themselves with overly intricate design, businesses can distinguish themselves by incorporating the feel of their brand on every page.
When planning a website for your business, try to conform to industry standards as much as possible – after all, they are industry standards for a reason – they work.
- People spend more than twice as long looking at the left side of websites than on the right, which is why navigation bars should stay there, along with a prominent logo.
- A website’s design should also showcase its products. This means using high quality images with multiple views and making use of white space, while removing clutter.
- Presentation is crucial – 92.6% of people report that visuals are the top influential factor influencing purchase decisions, and these judgments are made within 90 seconds.
Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes
Within the framework of simply designed websites that keep the feel of their brand, have visual appeal and load quickly, customer experience is strongly influenced by several additional elements. Businesses should provide their customers with consistent information at every contact point. This is of course true within websites—FAQ pages and product pages should have identical information—but also true when it comes to websites, stores and call centers. When customers receive consistent, compatible information on all fronts, they have a better customer experience. Personalization also boosts customer experience: over 60% of customers preferring that stores remember their personal information and payment methods. On the subject of payment methods, offering more than one serves to please customers: 73% of customers prefer multiple payment options when making online purchases. Additionally, when people are asked to go through lengthy processes, progress bars help increase engagement and are wanted by people who do not have them.
Even when websites follow these suggestions and build websites up to industry standard, people still need assistance with self-service. As simple and straight forward as online tasks may be, or at least seem to be from a business standpoint, customers need help. According to Econsultancy, 83% of consumers require some degree of customer support when making a purchase online. The degree of difficulty facing customers is reflected in online conversion rates as well. For people seeking professional or financial services, industry averages indicate a 10% conversion rate. However for complicated bookings like travel or hospitality, conversion rates are at a remarkably low 4%. Conversion rates for retail are similarly low, at 3%. The bad news here is that 97% of visits to a retailer’s website do not result in a sale a conversion. The good news is that by bringing up their conversion rate by just 1%, they can increase the amount of their conversions by 33%, an increase sure to boost sales and customer loyalty.
Clearly, consumers cannot get through websites on their own without support, despite how much they would prefer to answer their inquiries themselves. Multiple indications analyzed by Forrester show that consumer self-service is growing. Likewise, ZenDesk gathered a variety of research, comparing the desire to use online self-service with indicators of successful self-service. Among the research they found was that 91% of customers would use online service visa-vis an online knowledge base, if it were available to them. They also found that 40% of people calling customer service centers do so after already trying solving their problem on their own. What this means, is that the overwhelming majority of customers are ready to use self-service and customers are trying to use it, but they are having trouble.
The questions facing businesses today are: How can they provide their customers with the easy self-service they are after and how can traffic to customer service centers be reduced?
Businesses can meet these challenges by providing superior self-service opportunities to their customers. Websites should use personalization tools to better communicate with their customers as individuals, by providing them with information about their specific purchases, travel plans, or service requests. Likewise, businesses should continue integrating their entire customer service chain. In other words, businesses should create communication channels across all of their contact points with customers. Call center representatives should be able to access details from a customer’s conversation with another representative, as well as their in-store and online experiences. Online experiences themselves are also likely to become much more human. This will happen through the advanced use of behavioral data, which will allow companies to speak to customers based on how they interact with their websites, and where else they have been online.
By using advanced real time analytics to analyze this data, websites will gain the ability to instantaneously respond to customers and provide them with support mid-process. Rather than having customers refer to a standard FAQ or click the help button on a form, websites will be able to start providing customers will tailored answers, without having to click away from a webpage. The sooner businesses make these effective customer experience changes, the sooner they will separate themselves from the pack.
