Overview
Have you ever stood in line at a grocery store checkout line for more than 30 minutes? It feels more like 30 hours, doesn’t it? More and more stores have self-checkout lanes. More and more restaurants have an app where you can order a meal yourself. More and more service-related businesses have an automated website and/or telephone-based prompt system where you can take actions without needing to speak with a customer service agent. It’s so common now that we often get annoyed when we have to interface with a human! In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of a self-service approach and explore several examples that you should consider using.
Benefits of a self-service approach
There are several reasons why leveraging a self-service approach is beneficial.
It usually saves everyone time
When you’ve had to call in to change a flight, make a reservation, or speak to a customer service agent for some reason, it probably wasn’t a quick experience. When you can accomplish the same things via an app, website, or telephone prompt system, it’s usually much quicker. It saves you time and time of the company’s people too!
It often costs less
With the time that is saved, it results in less labor expense, because employees can focus on something more valuable with their time. Some of that savings is often passed on to customers, as it should be if you’re passing along some of the effort like bagging your own groceries!
It’s often less frustrating
I have several websites bookmarked, restaurant orders favorited, and other defaults set. It’s a lot easier to use those than to communicate specific details to another person or start from scratch yourself. AI is just going to make this better by learning our habits, tendencies, and preferences and applying them over and over again.
It results in less errors
One thing I love about using apps to order for myself (aside from favorites per above), is they rarely result in errors. Communicating your order to someone else introduces a significant potential error point, even when they read it back to you or it’s displayed on the screen (as a server, rarely did people pay close attention when I read their order back to them!).
The one downside – it results in less customer experience
While there are several benefits of a self-service approach, there is a key downside – there is less customer human interaction. Depending on the nature of your product or service, that could be bad for your business. Even if it’s not terribly important, offering the option of having a person available to take your order or otherwise help you with something is highly recommended. The more important personalized customer service is to your business, the more you should lead with that and offer self-service mainly for supplemental uses.
Examples of self-service approaches
There are several examples of taking a self-service approach that are applicable for most business types.
Online ordering
Regardless of how small your business is, having some sort of online presence is crucial, even if it’s just social media. If you sell something that people would consider buying online, it’s worth the effort to offer it online. There are more apps than ever that make this manageable and tie in to other systems you’re using anyway. COVID-19 greatly accelerated our tendency to buy online and have things shipped or picked up in-store/curbside.
Store self-checkout
As in the picture above, this is another major shift that’s been taking place over the last 15 years or so. It can be frustrating at times, but I think it saves the average shopper several hours a year. My favorite approach is the Scan & Go app feature at Sam’s Club. You check yourself out as you go by scanning the barcodes and an attendant checks your purchases at the door. It even suggests items you might have forgotten based on previous purchases. It’s so helpful, quick, and easy!
Online community
Depending on the nature of your business, it might be worth offering an online community where people can connect, ask each other questions, share best practices, provide feedback, and learn about how things work. Don’t underestimate how valuable this can be – bringing people together and learning from their vast experiences can enhance your product/service, as well as their experience with it.
Auditors
Many accountants start their careers as auditors. It’s a great way to learn a lot about business from many different clients. One of the biggest frustrations auditors have is following up on requests from their clients. It’s understandable – supporting the audit is beyond accountants’ normal responsibilities and it’s usually at year-end (a very busy time already!). The process has evolved from paper documents to emails and USB drives to auditor portals. But there’s an even better way.
My teams leveraged BlackLine to collaborate with the auditors – they provided their request list (which didn’t tend to change much each year), which we uploaded into the Task Management module – easy to filter to but displayed along with all other tasks if desired. We could assign due dates, preparers, and reviewers, track progress, and let the auditors do their thing. This had three awesome benefits:
- Control – ensure auditors have access to only what they need and that items are the right version, tie out appropriately, and have been reviewed.
- Efficiency – we could link their requests to the work we were already doing and not do things twice (or more!). We attached supporting documents continuously so we didn’t have to chase them down later. We leveraged the platform for repeatable logic and worked by exception.
- Visibility – we could easily see how everyone was tracking, what was past due, and where adjustments were needed.
Customers
Getting paid is one of the most important things a business can do to stay solvent. You’ve worked hard to earn that revenue, don’t neglect collecting it! One of the best things you can do to aid customers in paying you is making it as easy as possible. Make it automatic if possible. Provide a portal where they can check their balance, pay, ask questions, and take other common actions. This has several valuable benefits:
- Timeliness – with a portal driving alerts and data, customers can pay you faster, according to the terms you’ve agreed on. By collecting faster and reducing your DSO (days’ sales outstanding), you’re unlocking more cash you can invest and lowering the real cost of cash you are borrowing.
- Efficiency – with a portal, customers can indicate what they are paying for so you can easily apply the cash to open invoices on their account. It also reduces the time that must be spent following up on collections and other simple activities. Both of those free up an enormous amount of time for accountants!
- Reputation – providing a self-service customer portal is a key component of a quality customer service process. If customers could choose from a number of vendors, they’re likelier to choose one that offers this level of customer service!
Vendors
Leveraging a solution that provides a vendor portal can be helpful as well in similar ways as a customer portal. It can indicate to your vendors what you show as owed to them and when/how you intend to pay. That can eliminate a lot of inquiries like collection calls (which aren’t that fun for the AP team!).
Summary
If you want to save a lot of time for yourself, your team, your employees, your vendors, your customers, and other business partners, then establishing a self-service approach wherever you can (like the examples above!) is a fabulous way to do so. It’s important to note that this is not a substitute for customer service. Having real, human people available to help with issues that can’t be addressed via self-service and to build relationships is important. Balancing them both can be extremely effective.
What are your thoughts on taking a self-service approach? In what ways do you use this approach? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!
Recent Comments