In an online service environment, customers look for answers to questions and solve problems themselves. But what you often encounter as a customer is that the online customer service or service environment is often not optimally set up and you cannot find the right information to solve your problem. How do you set up your online service environment so that customers really find an answer to their question and can solve the problem themselves? I will discuss three online service environments and show which changes can contribute to an (even) better online service.
Benefits of a good online service environment
Why is it important to have your online service in order? It is not only nice for the customer to solve the problem or find the answer to a question without too much effort, but the results are also positive for companies. Because:
Save money: telephone, website and counter costs
Boudewijn Bugter published the article ' Service is the new sales ' last month in which he argued that a well-designed online service environment saves money and generates money. If people can easily find the information on your website for answers to their questions or to perform their task, you save telephone, website, correspondence and counter costs. The degree of success of customers in performing their tasks on the website partly determines the pressure on the ('real life') customer service.
Positive brand experiences are shared
Research shows that customers air their positive experiences (29%) or dissatisfaction (34%) about a certain product, service or service on social media. Almost a third shares their positive experiences!
Retaining your customer
With a good online service environment, you invest in retaining your customer. If he is helped well, the chance that he will return for a next purchase is greater. Reason enough to optimally set up the online customer service and to direct customers more specifically through the online environment.
But how do you optimize an online environment? The key word here is 'task orientation': put your customer first.
Why do customers come to your online service environment?
By 'task-oriented' we mean that you set up a website or intranet according to the tasks and needs of the user. If you know why they come to your website, intranet or online service environment, and what tasks they perform there, you have knowledge with which you can set up or improve an online service environment. Based on the top tasks of the visitor, you can then set up the service environment.
How do you find out the tasks of your visitors?
The top tasks can be identified using the task analysis method of the internationally recognized Internet expert Gerry McGovern . These task analyses are also called Long Neck or Customer Carewords .
In short, this method involves the following. The 'Long Neck' is created from the result of identifying the top tasks. This means that only a small set of tasks receive a lot of attention; of the 80 to 100 tasks that are defined, 5 or 6 receive as much as 20-25% of the votes. These top tasks ensure that your online service environment saves or generates money: customers find these tasks the most important.
This qualitative and quantitative research method provides figures to get started with and to set up your online environment in a task-efficient way.
The process to arrive at the top tasks in a nutshell:
List all possible tasks that visitors can perform on your online service environment. This list can run up to 400 or even 1,600 tasks.
Next, make a shortlist: sit down with people who know the target group well and work very precisely and thoughtfully in deduplicating, categorizing and prioritizing keywords and task definitions.
Let your customers speak for themselves by testing the shortlist with them. Let them point out the most important tasks from this list.
Then you analyze the results and use this input to make your online environment more efficient and user-friendly. (Christiaan Lustig previously wrote about how to turn top tasks into a successful website or intranet .)
To continue optimizing, measure how your website performs on these tasks and further align your philippines telegram data service organization accordingly.
Other methods to engage in conversation with your customer
Is there no time or budget for a task analysis? Then focus groups or interviews with the target group can also provide insight into their tasks and needs. You cannot distill a clear list of the most important tasks from this, but this approach provides insight into the tasks and needs of your customers and thus direction for your choices.
Efficient online service environments: a few examples
Using 3 cases, I will show how online service environments can be set up efficiently. Cisco and Telenor (a Norwegian telecom provider) have already gone through an improvement process. I will explain parts of the process to achieve a more efficient online service environment using these two cases. Then, using Ziggo.nl, I will show where improvements are possible.
Cisco Maps Users' Top Tasks
Cisco 's corporate website shows that even with adjustments in an existing service environment a big step can be made. Cisco chose to redesign the website, and to take the top tasks of their visitors as a starting point.
Key improvements to Cisco's online service environment.