A recent Fast Company article seeks to explain Why the Future of Customer Service is Self-Service, and I’m not one to disagree that self-service will continue to rapidly grow in popularity. With consumers now connected to the web more often than not via laptops, smartphones, tablets and wearables, seeking out service online is only natural. From pre- to post-sales, customers are looking for and helping themselves to any information they can find.
A recent study from Fleishman-Hillard found that 89% of consumers go directly to business websites or turn to Google, Bing or another search engine to find information on products, services or businesses before any human to human interaction takes place, if it ever does. And according to a new 2013 study titled The Real Self-Service Economy, 40% of consumers in a global survey say that they prefer self-service to human contact for their future contact with companies.
While increased connectivity and the power of search engines has definitely led to increased self-service usage, I would also venture to guess that that the bright future of self-service owes its success to the many poor live-person customer service interactions of the past. How many of us dread calling when it comes to customer service because we anticipate a long wait time, have been passed around to multiple customer service reps or have happened upon a CSR who was apparently having a very bad day and wasn’t afraid to let it show? That’s what has sold me on using self-service whenever possible, and nothing is more appreciated than brands and organizations that help me help myself to the answers and information I need.
Apparently, many consumers feel the same. If you’ve been searching for statistics to back up your organization’s investment in a self-service or knowledgebase solution, here’s a powerful collection:
