Customers want to get the information they need or place an order as quickly and simply as possible. According to various survey results, between 50-80% of consumers view more favorably those companies (in both B2B and B2C sectors) that have (convenient) customer self-service portals. This not only drives high customer satisfaction rates, but is often one of the decisive factors when choosing a company to partner with.
Independent problem-solving by customers, 24/7 access to answers, reduced burden on customer service and sales teams, lower probability of human error – these are just some of the benefits that an automated customer self-service portal can offer your business and customers.
This tool is relevant for companies operating in both B2C and B2B sectors. In this article, we'll review several advantages provided by customer self-service portals.
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• Cost Savings and Efficiency
Every response to a customer inquiry by phone or email requires service or sales staff. Savings and increased service efficiency can be achieved by creating and implementing a customer self-service portal. As the name suggests, this portal allows customers to independently place orders and find answers to their most important questions. It's a tool that works around the clock, even when your sales team is resting. With a customer self-service portal, your customers' questions and problems can be resolved immediately, regardless of the day of the week or service staff working hours.
• Convenience for Customers
With a self-service portal, customers can place orders at their convenience, regardless of your sales team's working hours. Conveniently and clearly presented information about products/services enables customers to find answers to their questions and submit orders from anywhere in the world, at any time of day. Placing orders through a customer self-service portal also reduces the likelihood of errors due to miscommunication or incorrectly heard requests during phone calls. The customer can see the entire product range and relevant product/service information themselves.
• Loyalty
Research shows a direct correlation between content personalization and customer satisfaction, and high customer satisfaction means the customer will continue to prioritize your business in the future. What role do self-service portals play here? The information gathered from customers using the self-service portal can be used to improve each user's experience (UX) or converted into personalized offers, blog posts on topics of specific interest to customers. This tool is an excellent solution for understanding what consumers need and, accordingly, improving service and increasing customer loyalty. Thanks to the customer self-service portal, you can easily implement a loyalty program of any complexity and combine it with an existing loyalty program in other systems you have.
A quality self-service portal creates a direct connection between the customer and your business, while avoiding large volumes of phone calls or emails. Research data shows a growing consumer need for self-service portals, so now is the perfect time for businesses to take advantage of all the benefits this tool offers.
• Everything in one place
One of the most frequently implemented features in customer self-service portals is data integration and display in one place. Customers can not only place orders, but also track order status and progress, find all invoices or other necessary documents, view their outstanding balances, or other relevant statistical information.
In many cases, self-service portals generate invoices themselves and transfer them to accounting systems via API, but reverse integration is also possible, where the invoice comes from your accounting software.
Customer self-service portals can be integrated with any systems that have an API, both receiving and transmitting the necessary information.
• Increased visitor traffic
A customer self-service portal is an excellent channel for informing customers about new promotions, products, or other relevant offers. By consistently providing useful information, visiting the customer self-service portal becomes a habit, so without significant additional advertising costs, you can have a new channel that customers will want to visit regularly.
This is just a small part of the benefits and opportunities that a customer self-service portal can provide. More information about preliminary customer self-service portal development pricing can be found here.