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Recent studies have shown that 40% of consumers prefer self-service over human contact. Additionally, 70% of customers now expect a company’s website to include a self-service application and 73% of consumers were found to get support from a company’s website rather than use social media, SMS or live chat for assistance.
Customer self-service is a method that allows an organisation’s customers to discover answers or resolve issues without waiting for assistance from a support agent or any other team member.
This is good news for businesses as it can lead to reduced operational costs and greater resource efficiency, and the benefits for businesses don’t just end there.
Self-service can also improve customer satisfaction as it gives customers the power to resolve their issues without needing to contact customer support. As well as increasing the speed of solved cases and helping to resolve issues without added costs, this can be beneficial for businesses with large customer bases – as they can increase customer satisfaction at scale.
Reasons why self-service can improve customer satisfaction:
- Convenience
Customers can get the answers they need on their own time, without having to wait for someone to be available to help them. - Rapid Resolution
Self-service is often faster than waiting for human assistance. - Personal Pride
Customers feel more in control when they can solve their problems themselves.
What's the right solution to your self-service success?
There are several barriers to offering self-service for a firm, and technology is typically number one. High costs and long project timelines used to be the norm when it came to implementing self-service. However, Salesforce has changed the game for organisations looking to leverage the power of self-serve resolutions with Salesforce Service Cloud and Experience Cloud.
Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer service platform that gives businesses of all sizes the ability to deliver world-class customer service. When combined with Salesforce Experience Cloud, it provides businesses with everything they need to create a self-service portal that is tailored to their specific needs.
What’s more, Salesforce Service Cloud is easy to use and implement with an experienced Salesforce partner, like us, so businesses can start reaping the benefits of self-service more quickly than with traditional routes.
Best of all, Salesforce Service Cloud is built on the Salesforce Platform, so businesses can easily customise it to fit their specific needs. Since it’s cloud-based, businesses can get up and running quickly with the help of a Salesforce partner without having to worry about complex infrastructure.
How do Salesforce Experience Cloud and Salesforce Service Cloud work together?
The foundation of your self-service platform will rely on Service Cloud’s Knowledge component. Salesforce Knowledge is a database of frequently asked questions and answers. This would typically be the same database your internal customer support team would use to provide solutions to customer queries.
With Salesforce Experience Cloud, you can extend the Knowledge feature to serve those resources safely and securely to partners, customers or employees. Now they can use it as a self-service knowledge base.
When a customer creates a case, Salesforce Experience Cloud and Salesforce Service Cloud Knowledge can help them by suggesting the best article based on what has been put in the ticket or case.
David GoldarSenior Consultant 
Encourage active participation in public self-service portals
If your self-service portal is public-facing, then Salesforce Experience Cloud will give you the ability to deliver your Knowledge component through a designed self-service portal that is branded to your company and easy for your customers to use. You can also use it to track customer interactions and get feedback, allowing you to improve the customer experience constantly.
Salesforce Experience Cloud has useful features, such as Groups, Questions and Answers, Message Boards, and Chat, that can enhance customer support and even offer partner rewards to encourage more active participation from users.
Rewards and badges can be given to customers to recognise activities on your portal. These rewarding and badging capabilities encourage users to help to contribute to other members’ topics as experts on particular subjects. On top of this, you can highlight top community influencers and contributors to add recognition.
This means that if someone posts a question that’s already been answered, the community can vote on the answer – which improves the reputation of the original poster. Salesforce Experience Cloud can create a self-supporting community that’s always improving.
Integrate information from third-party systems into your portal
Let’s say you want to display product availability, shipment tracking data, or shipping notifications on your self-service portal… Salesforce makes it possible. Salesforce Experience Cloud ensures that you can securely post or provide access to information in third-party systems. You can achieve this with the help of a Salesforce partner like ourselves who can create some custom code to ensure that your systems are integrated.
Why should you choose a Salesforce Partner to implement your self-service portal?
Salesforce Service Cloud and Experience Cloud are the perfect pair to create a self-service portal for your business. With Salesforce Service Cloud, you get everything you need to deliver world-class customer service. In addition, with Salesforce Experience Cloud, you can extend that service to include a self-service knowledge base that is tailored to your specific needs.
When building your self-serve portal, experienced Salesforce partners, like us, will create a customised solution specific to your business needs. We can also help with the entire implementation process, from start to finish, so you can focus on running your business while we take care of the technical details. Furthermore, we can provide additional training for your self-service team to ensure that you can be up and running as quickly as possible.
By involving a Platinum Partner like us, you can:
- Ensure that your self-service customer portal is built to your bespoke needs, using recommended best practices and scalable methods.
- Benefit from our team’s technical know-how and expertise in successfully executing digital transformation projects.
- Give your staff the advantage of custom training on Salesforce so they may get the most out of your bespoke setup.
- Fast-tracking your unique demands with skilled teams with the appropriate expertise and project management skills guarantees that your platform is up and running when you need it.
- Integrate third-party systems with ease with the help of one of our expert developers.
If you’re keen to explore how you can bring your self-service portal to life with our award-winning Platinum Salesforce consultancy, get in touch with our team today by emailing ask@pracedo.com or schedule an initial call by clicking here.
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Pracedo is an award-winning Summit (Platinum) Salesforce Consulting Partner that delivers innovative Salesforce implementations to forward-thinking customers.
With over a decade of experience focused on Salesforce, and with offices in London, Milan, Rome, Belgrade, Amsterdam, Brisbane and Melbourne, we work with our customers to unlock the power of the platform through tailored implementations that facilitate achieving business goals and ambitions. Our talented team of over 80 Salesforce professionals globally means that Pracedo offers a boutique consultancy experience, delivered locally to you, with the breadth and depth of knowledge earned from delivering over 1000 projects across our locations.
Pracedo specialises in Digital Transformation and Change Management. Implementations and customisations include: Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formely Pardot), Salesforce CPQ and Billing, Salesforce Experience Cloud and Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.
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