Chapter 2
There are no self-service shortcuts
Customer journey mapping is the first step towards ensuring that your brand’s customer experience is low on friction and actually focused on the customer’s needs. Self-service takes this focus further but still has the added benefit of allowing an organization to increase the level of care it provides without increasing the cost to serve its customers.
When optimized, a self-service strategy can provide round-the-clock support, improve the overall product ownership experience and, crucially, give your business greater freedom, flexibility and scalability.
For brands that are looking to market direct to consumers or diversify current sales strategies, self-service becomes an absolute necessity. In digital spaces, customer acquisition is a major challenge and visitors to your site will be looking for the provision of how-to guides, knowledge bases or chatbots — not to mention positive reviews and social media posts — before they look to make an initial purchase.
Comprehensive self-service features provide the reassurance and initial confidence consumers need when considering one brand over another when those brands only exist within a digital marketplace. But it is impossible to unlock any of these benefits unless your brand gets its approach to self-service right.
Key takeaways
Self-service can be key to strengthening brand perception for organization that only sell in digital channels
Self-service is not a quick fix and will fail to deliver without a methodical data-driven approach.