7 Ways to Elevate Your Self-Service Options

When designed and managed well, self-service can reduce support costs, speed up resolution time, and improve overall customer satisfaction. But too many contact centres stop at the basics before turning their attention to other channels.

So, what does it really take to excel? We asked our consultants panel – featuring Dan Pratt, James Edmonds, James Parkin, Mike Aoki, Pierre Bauzee and Steve Sullivan – for their best advice on how to elevate your self-service channels for everyone’s benefit.

1. Mirror the Way Customers Naturally Search for Information

Effective self-service has to mirror the way customers naturally search for information. When I look up a missing delivery as a customer, I want to enter my tracking number and see when my item will arrive.

If a system forces me to confirm what I bought, when I bought it, and how much I paid before showing tracking information, I feel frustrated because I just want to know where my package is.

To help create the proper information flow, the customer service team should be involved in the self-service design, since they hear real issues from customers every day.

Contributed by: Mike Aoki, President of Reflective Keynotes Inc.

2. Always, Always Keep People in Charge of Accuracy and Tone

Yes, AI can do amazing things for self-service, from suggesting relevant articles to spotting patterns in customer behaviour.

But it’s not a magic fix. If your knowledge base is out of date or badly structured, AI will only highlight those weaknesses faster!

The best approach is to let AI do the heavy lifting, like automating tagging or summarizing long articles, while keeping people in charge of accuracy and tone.

Contributed by: Dan Pratt, Founder & Director of DAP Consultancy

3. Find the Right Balance Between Personalization and Privacy

When I speak with firms across the industry, I often hear the same challenge: how do we make self-service intuitive, without losing the trust that’s so vital in our sector?

The answer lies in smart design, clear escalation routes, and striking the right balance between personalization and privacy.

AI has certainly helped push self-service forward, especially in areas like FAQs, document retrieval, and claims status updates. But there is such a thing as too much personalization.

If a system feels like it knows more than the customer has shared, it starts to erode trust rather than build it.

Particularly in insurance, where conversations often involve sensitive life events or financial situations, customers value control and clarity over cleverness.

Contributed by: James Edmonds, Managing Director at Duty CX

For advice on finding the balance between automation and personalization, read our article: Balance Automation and Personalization in CX

4. Let Customer Feedback and Journey Data Shape Your Updates

Too often, businesses launch self-service options and call it a day. But new questions and issues come up all the time.

If you want self-service to become a real asset, let customer feedback and journey data shape your updates. Track what customers are searching for, where they struggle, and which topics keep causing confusion.

For example, in one organization I supported, we noticed repeat “account locked” complaints. After adding a clear step-by-step video and giving the chatbot the ability to recognize frustration signals, the number of repeated support requests dropped by 40%.

Making self-service smarter is about meeting customers where they are by giving them relevant, clear, and direct solutions when they need them (whether that’s on your website, app, or help portal).

In other words, don’t just update your help content; analyse feedback after every interaction and act on it!

Contributed by: Pierre Bauzee, Founder of Beyond Satisfaction

If you are looking for advice on improving your VoC programme, read our article: What’s Next for Voice of the Customer (VoC)?

5. Ditch Your Tired Old “Contact Us” Page

Of course, if customers self-serve, it’s almost certainly a cheaper solution for the brand or business owner. But 90% of consumers 90% of the time have no desire to spend time interacting with the contact centre and will be delighted to self-serve their way to a solution.

In which case, why is it we spend so much of our time baffled by why our customers don’t use the self-service solutions we’ve designed and tested for them?

…Because we’re all creatures of habit! So, if we genuinely feel that we have great self-service solutions that meet customers’ biggest needs then we need the strength of our convictions and we need to offer them up front, wherever the customer looks for support.

So ditch the tired old “Contact Us” page and proactively offer remedies and resolutions, in the most customer-friendly, low-friction ways possible!

Contributed by: Steve Sullivan, Founder, Channel Doctors

6. Make Sure Your Agents Always Recognize a Customer’s Previous Efforts

Always remember, when a customer reaches a live agent after trying self-service, they are already part way through their problem-solving journey!

The customer may also feel frustrated because their self-service attempt at problem-solving did not work. Agents need to recognize they are joining an already existing journey!

Even a simple acknowledgement from the agent can help calm the customer and ease the handover from self-service to a human agent.

For example, “Thank you. I can see what you entered, and I am reviewing it now.” This recognizes the customer’s previous effort and reduces friction.

Contributed by: Mike Aoki, President of Reflective Keynotes Inc.

For advice on the crucial role emotions play in shaping loyalty and nurturing long-term customer relationships, read our article: 10 Game-Changing Ways Emotion Will Shape the Future of CX

7. Be Mindful That Self-Service Isn’t for Everyone

Recently, I was flying out of the UK very early in the morning, on my own, with a well-known budget airline. At Gatwick, this airline has the self-service bag drop and I think this is an excellent physical and visual example of how self-service impacts different groups.

Flying is stressful for many people, and I heard and saw several people, particularly in family groups, increase their stress levels when encountering self-service at 3:30am due to the perceived risk involved in getting it wrong.

However, regular travellers or solo travellers like me love it as it speeds us through with minimal fuss and so we find the quickest route through before disappearing off for a coffee.

Then there are those customers that don’t fly regularly and the whole process is alien to them. They need reassurance and the “human touch”, otherwise they can back up the whole system.

Lastly, there are those that started off on the wrong foot to begin with, with over-packed bags, extra hold luggage etc. and the self-service system just can’t handle them at all so points them at a human.

So finally, there are “agents” on the ground trying to tie loose ends and manage when terminals break down or queues get too big, parachuting in and putting out fires!

The point is, depending on who you survey in this scene, you’ll get widely different opinions on its success.

When self-service is your first point of contact with a potentially stressful process, and your only route through, this doesn’t suit everyone.

Organizations that plough ahead in the hope that people catch up eventually (and to cut costs) impact total customer satisfaction and loyalty in ways that are sometimes hard to measure but have bottom-line effects.

Contributed by: James Parkin, Founder of Ellison Coast

The Best Self-Service Options Don’t Just Deflect Demand

Elevating self-service isn’t about pushing customers away from human support – it’s about designing journeys that feel effortless, intelligent, and respectful of their time.

Ultimately, the best self-service channels don’t just deflect demand; they build confidence, capability, and long-term loyalty.

If you are interested in learning more about improving your contact centre customer service, check out our webinar: The Future of Customer Contact

If you are looking for more information to improve your customer service, read these articles next:

• Create a “Win–Win” Self-Service Strategy
• How to Maintain High Quality on Self-Service Channels
• Are You Harnessing the Power of Outbound SMS?

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman