Amid cost-cutting pressures, you may be exploring self-service approaches more aggressively.

Beyond addressing how to help customers be successful in a self-service environment, it's important to design the experience to legitimately enhance customer benefits.

Here are 26 potential benefits a self-service environment could provide. Your self-service approach might:

  • Cost less
  • Allow a customer to pay right away & save
  • Feature a reward/loyalty program
  • Minimize/eliminate the embarrassment of doing something wrong
  • Allow customers to do things in secret/privacy
  • Eliminate the need to deal with people & personalities
  • Provide greater convenience
  • Offer safety and security
  • Permit pre-planning
  • Be more fun
  • Provide a great customer experience
  • Allow immediate service, avoiding lines and saving time
  • Seem new and innovative
  • Provide something out of the norm
  • Be more dependable
  • Offer more service choices
  • Allow greater control
  • Allow a customer to choose a preferred personal service level
  • Be set up exactly the way a customer wants it
  • Be easier because it's always a consistent process
  • Be simpler
  • Provide 24/7 availability
  • Be used while multitasking
  • Offer more information
  • Be more accurate (or allow a customer to double check the accuracy)
  • Permit a customer to get everything done they need in one stop

See how you can deliver some of these benefits for customers as you make them do more. - Mike Brown