When your service desk is facing many thousands of incidents and service requests, presenting home workers with a self-service web portal is essential to ensuring your people can get the services and assistance they need to be productive:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the benefits of a self-service portal will only be realized if it is designed and delivered in a way that appeals to employees. The user experience <\/a>(UX)<\/a> that your employees get from your IT portal<\/a> must be superior to calling the service desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an omnichannel support model where customers can call, email, self-serve there is often little guidance as to how these differ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are\u00a0a number of\u00a0ways in which a self-service initiative can fail\u2014and all of them are avoidable.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0important to separate symptoms from their root causes. For instance, if the issue\u00a0is\u00a0that employees\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0using the new self-service portal, then\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a symptom. The root cause might be one of many:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n They don\u2019t know that there is a self-service portal they can use to avoid waiting in a call queue\u2014because it has not been properly communicated.\u00a0Draw-up a communications plan to ensure everybody in the organization hears about this new support option. This might include a combination of town-hall meeting announcements, emails\/enewsletters, wall posters, line manager memos, and other communications options. Introducing the self-service portal and virtual agent channels when users call or email support are a valuable adoption tool.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there\u2019s no benefit to using the self-service portal<\/a> over other channels, people won\u2019t use it. In order to attract employees to this channel, it needs to be the \u201cline of least resistance\u201d\u2014a frictionless experience which makes it the channel of choice. If it\u2019s still easier to throw an email at the service desk, that\u2019s what they\u2019ll do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why it\u2019s so important that you start from a design\/usability perspective\u2014to ensure the experience is a simple and fast. Typically, self-service portals that are built purely to meet a need to save money fail to appeal to end users and they don\u2019t get the adoption levels they needed to hit to reduce costs. When you build for the end user, you\u2019ll get the adoption you need to make sustained savings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider offering better service levels around delivery times when users interact through self-service Vs traditional support channels. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe\u00a04\u00a0Common Pitfalls\u2026and How to Avoid Them\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
1 \u2013\u00a0They Don\u2019t Know it Exists\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
2 \u2013\u00a0It\u2019s Worse Than the Other Support Channels\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
3 \u2013\u00a0Legacy Technology\u00a0& Lack of Omnichannel<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n