Business owners and marketers need not feel uncomfortable about asking their customers to serve themselves online.  We are finding in testing that consumer acceptance of a self-service model is high across a wide range of consumer target groups and industries.

The reasons for this high level of acceptance includes some obvious ones such as market maturity and increasing comfort with the internet, but in some cases the sad fact is that poor experiences with a business’s other contact channels are sending users online by default.  Customers have told us that they’re happier to transact online, even as it relates to sensitive information such as health records or financial services, than face dealing with a poorly trained and surly call center employee or store front attendant.

The online self-service model suits Australians’ increasingly busy lifestyles, as the ability to control the time and place where interactions occur means that tasks that used to be conducted on a business’s schedule can now be completed in the consumer’s own timeframe.

There are, however, areas in which many organisations offering online transactions still make it harder for their customers.

Expecting your users to interact with your business on your terms is probably the most basic but common reason why self-service systems fall down.  Often, self-service systems are designed to adhere to a business’s own internal processes, and attempt to ‘force’ customer interactions to mirror these processes.  For example, your CRM system may assign customers a unique account number which identifies them to the system.  Naturally, the simplest way for you to identify the customer when they return is to have them remember their account number.  This may be simpler for your business, but unless your customer interacts with you nearly daily or at least weekly, it’s unlikely they will remember that number.  Your user wants to interact with you on their terms, not on yours.

Being mindful of a few basic rules when implementing a self service interface will go a long way to building users’ comfort and confidence.  These include:

1. Locate the entry point for self service in a prominent and easy to find position on your website. Typically, users will look for sign in options in the top right hand corner of a page.  While in testing users are usually able to find the sign-in when it’s placed on other parts of the page, they still expect to find it in the top right hand corner location, so whenever possible it’s good to locate it in that expected location
2. Do not force users to register. Allowing users to complete a transaction without having to first register on your site can increase conversions dramatically. Wherever possible, offer users the option to register should they wish (to speed up future transactions) or to conduct the current transaction without registering first.
3. Allow users to choose their own usernames and passwords. If users must register, consider whether requiring users to remember a customer number or system generated PIN is really necessary, and whether either can be replaced by a username and password of the users’ choosing.  Users will likely have several usernames and passwords for multiple websites, and unless they transact with you on a near daily basis the chances are that they may not remember the necessary unique details required to access your site.  It’s also recommended that users be allowed to use an email address as their username
4. Make security cues and signals be prominent on the interface. On ecommerce websites, the names and logos of recognised security infrastructure providers are essential to help reassure users that they are using a legitimate website.  We would also recommend that a business provide a link to a plain English privacy policy that is free of legal jargon.
5. Alternate contact information (such as a phone number and physical address) should also be easy to find. If you think a strategy of making this information difficult to find will work to encourage your users into using self-service, think again.  Concealing this information will not build trust with your users.  Worse, you risk alienating those users who are happy to use self service but have had a problem with the process that they need resolved.  You may get away with this strategy if your service is truly unique and can’t be replaced, but you won’t be doing your relationship with your users any favours.  And as soon as they find a comparable service that’s easier to use, they’ll be off.
6. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Remember that your user is saving you money by using self service, so be respectful of their time when they visit.  It may be tempting to cross promote your other services to the users when they visit, but don’t impede their ability to complete what they intended to do.  If a user is visiting your website to check their account balance, providing a call-out box located near that information which suggests other products is the right way to introduce them to your other services.  Requiring users to click through a marketing splash page prior to reaching their own account information is not.

Improving online self service processes can be a win for everyone. Your customers can access your services when and wherever they want, whilst you can increase efficiency and conversions by moving more of you business online.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 13:56 and is filed under User centred design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.