Creating a self-service help center is not a difficult task. However, it’s hardly a stroll in the park, either. To get your self-service portal up and running, you’ll need a well-defined strategy.
In the long term, you and the service desk will save time and effort by taking advantage of self-service, but doing so will need some initial effort. The best results will come from tailoring the portal to the needs of your target audience rather than the designer.
We’ll go through some of the most important stages for creating a successful self service portal to ensure you make the most of it.
Establish Your Objectives
First, you will need to establish the reasons why you are building a self-service portal. Typically, businesses implement one to reduce the number of support tickets they get, improve response time, and boost customer satisfaction and retention.
And once you determine your reasons and know what you are trying to accomplish, you will be able to set the right goals. Creating a self-service platform is easier when you have clear objectives to work toward.
It is also important to consider what features you want your self-service portal to include when you are defining your objectives. For that reason, you will need to analyze your customers’ wants and needs, because ultimately, you’re building a self-service portal to help them out.
Talk to Your Sales and Support Staff for More Details
Your sales and customer service employees are the ones who communicate with clients on a daily basis, answering questions and maintaining a positive reputation for your company.
They can tell you firsthand what challenges your clients face when using your products or services. Their knowledge of clients’ tastes and preferences is priceless, and it can be used to create engaging material for your self-service site.
The content of your self-service portal, as well as the products and services themselves, may be improved with the input of your sales and support staff.
Review current customer tickets, listen to previously recorded calls, and read transcripts of recent chat and email exchanges. If you want to create content that is relevant to your audience, you need to know what problems they might have.
Involve Every Department
It requires patience and cooperation to build a self-service portal. Since this is meant to be a comprehensive platform that can respond to any queries consumers may have, working together to provide content is the best course of action.
You should consolidate your sales, product, marketing, and support teams so that they can all work together and exchange ideas. Give them complete control over content management by letting them make all decisions about creation, editing, and publication.
The product team may handle frequently asked questions and solutions to common problems while the support staff could focus on writing articles tailored to individual customers’ issues. Certain staff members could write the articles while others edit and manage the content. Promoting cross-departmental collaboration will guarantee that the self-service content is educational.
Make Your Self-Service Portal a Reality
Creating quality content is essential, but it’s much more important to give it a proper shape and form. Customers want a streamlined process where they don’t have to make extra efforts to get answers to their questions. Your self-service portal might be the customer’s saving grace in the face of the widespread irritation with conventional channels like email and phone calls.
The portal’s content should be organized in a way that makes it simple to find and digest information. So, make sure to include frequently asked questions (FAQs), troubleshooting advice, how-to video tutorials, and detailed written instructions.
In addition, there has to be a landing page that provides an overview of what kind of information your customers can find. It just takes a few seconds for visitors to the homepage to get an idea of the information included in the self-service website.
Build the Portal’s Layout and Structure Next
Keep in mind that the colors and images you choose may have a profound effect on your clients. Add your brand’s personality to the self-service platform by using themes, fonts, and styles that reflect that identity.
Final Thoughts
There’s a lot more to creating a successful self-service portal than simply putting up a bunch of forms for various questions. You’ll want to make sure that the majority of users can easily find answers to their questions and problems on your self-service website. By identifying the core goals of creating self-service and mapping out the steps from beginning to end, you’ll be able to create a functioning portal without all the confusion or related downtime.
