Hey everyone. I'm Cristina.
Today we're sharing how you can create an exceptional digital experience
for your customers with self-service
while reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Then I'll share four tips to help you build your self-service strategy.
With a few examples of how we do it here at Salesforce.
If that sounds good, let's get to it.
Welcome to Salesforce on Salesforce.
An inside look at our sales, service, marketing and IT business with helpful
how to tips you can use for your own business
for service professionals will help you get to the heart of service
with tips on things like how to increase agent productivity,
how to deliver proactive service and so much more.
As always, you can learn more on Trailhead Salesforce's
online learning platform, which is linked in the description below.
And don't forget to subscribe
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So first, what exactly is self-service?
Self-service is when customers find answers on their own
without the help of a service agent.
Think about when you need a return something you've ordered online
and you process the return without having to submit a case.
That is an example of beautiful self-service.
Today, 67% of customers prefer to self-serve
and we know that number will only increase.
Self-service isn't just good for customers
it's good for businesses too.
By giving customers what they need without the help of an agent.
Self-service saves you and your customers time and resources.
With that extra time, agents can focus more time on cases
that are highly technical and complex. In terms of cost
companies report reporting seeing a 25% decrease in support costs
once they implement a self-service strategy.
So here are four ways to use self-service to be more efficient
while still prioritizing customer experience.
Tip number one. Know your customer and their needs.
A customer portal is an opportunity to provide a great experience
for your customers.
So this first tip is simple. Design your portal based on your customer,
their behaviors, their needs, and their preferences.
Ask yourself what are our customers are trying to accomplish with your site?
How do they prefer to receive information?
And don't forget to get granular.
We discovered during this exercise at Salesforce
that customers are looking to find solutions to their problems.
Their objective isn't actually to file a case.
In fact, we also discovered our customers loved short chapterize videos.
Today, self-service videos are a big priority for our self-service team.
Next, you should analyze your customer service data
to identify trends such as top case drivers.
Do you have articles that cover all of these top items?
What cases have the lowest average handle time?
Could those cases be better suited
self-serve?
Last year we ramped up our multi-factor authentication
resources after seeing a spike in support cases.
Remember, self-service is a way to scale your support team's expertize
while helping customers get to their answers even faster.
Lastly, look at your website's performance.
How are customers finding your site?
What pages have your biggest bounce rates?
What could you do to make these articles even better?
And don't forget, after you've implemented self-service or if you already have.
Look at your customer surveys
to see how you can improve the experience and offer something even more helpful.
Salesforce looks at our customer's journey all the time
and we continue to iterate to make it even more useful.
Today, 97% of visitors who come to our Salesforce
help page with the intent to solve an issue actually do.
This translates into massive savings.
Tip number two. Invest in SEO
search engine optimization
improves the quality and quantity of traffic to your site or specific pages.
Digital
it's essentially our new billboard.
So you're doing your teams and your customers a disservice by not prioritizing
SEO. In fact, 70% of our help portal traffic comes from search engines.
If customers can't find what they need, it's almost like it doesn't even exist.
If SEO is new to you, here
are some questions to ask as you're building your SEO strategy.
What are the top keywords for
searches bringing people to your website.
How does your site rank on their search results?
What can you do to improve your ranking?
Are your pages competing against one another?
Pro-tip. Videos will increase your SEO performance
because they'll keep customers on your page longer.
We recommend using videos within self-service articles
and it's not just about getting people to land on your site,
but also optimizing where they should land on your site.
Make sure keywords send people directly to the page that will best
help them answer their questions.
Tip number three. Personalize the experience.
When you go to
a video streaming site, you expect content that is catered to you
that isn't any different for your customers.
Your customers expect a personalized experience no matter
how much or how little they are paying for your product or service.
The best way to ensure customers are receiving
the best experience is by getting them to authenticate.
So, when you're designing a portal, make sure you're designing
an experience that makes the customer want to authenticate.
So think, how can you encourage them to provide their username or password?
What would benefit them?
At Salesforce,
we encourage customers to sign in by showing them a preview of
what we'll give them access to
once they sign in with their trailblazer ID. With personalization,
an elevated experience opens up to both you and your customer. Homepages
that include only relevant information according to their purchase.
Differentiated experiences according to customer entitlement.
Customer portals with valuable insights.
You can even feature certain support experiences
over others. Like creating a seamless experience
from looking up an article to offering a chatbot or chat support.
And don't make a customer re-key what they're looking for if you can help it.
The result of personalization is a custom connected experience for your customers.
A customer comes frustrated but can leave inspired if you do it right.
Tip number four. Provide recommendations throughout the journey.
We all know and appreciate how easy it is when we're looking
for something in a store and a sales associate comes to help.
Well, what if there was a way to scale this experience?
Provide useful tips throughout your customers journey
and make it easier for them to find what they're looking for.
You can surface popular articles, suggest channels, or even have a chatbot.
At Salesforce we use Einstein
AI to service recommendations to both customers and to our support team.
While we're at it, you know who provides great recommendations at scale.
Your community.
Community enables your customers to get expert information quickly,
build camaraderie, and doesn't require agent assistance.
A win for everyone.
We do this through our Trailblazer community, which has more than
3.5 million users.
95% of questions asked in our community are answered within 24 hours.
We did it.
Four ways you
can utilize self-service experiences to drive more efficiency, reduce cost.
If you enjoyed this episode,
be sure to check out the resources provided
and check out the other episodes in the series.
We'll see you next time.