Self-Service Best Practices: Boost Efficiency and User Satisfaction

Customers want a hassle-free experience when they choose your product, including an easy setup and proactive customer service. They'll move on to another solution if they don't get what they need. That's why developing customer self-service channels should be one of your top priorities.

Self-service tools can help customers onboard quickly and at their own pace, while digital resources like support forums and how-to guides offer immediate troubleshooting.

Customer self-service is becoming the norm in the SaaS industry, and it's easy to see why. It can scale customer onboarding, reduce support costs, and alleviate pressure from service reps.

In this guide, we'll cover the benefits and key components of a self-service portal and show you how to implement an effective customer self-service experience for your SaaS business.

How does customer self-service benefit customers?

Today's customers are shouting it loud and clear: they want self-service support. Here are a few reasons why they love it.

Increased control and ownership

In 2023, SaaS users want to be in the driver's seat. More tech-savvy than ever, customers expect do-it-yourself options for solving routine issues. For example, 81% of customers say they try to solve problems on their own before reaching out to live help. 

Having self-service resources readily available gives customers ownership over the service experience. Rather than being dependent on live support or customer success managers, customers are free to learn about products and troubleshoot their issues whenever they want and at a pace that suits them.

Quick access to information

When a customer gets sidetracked by a simple issue that needs a quick fix—like a password error or an admin task—waiting to hear back from an agent can be extremely frustrating. 

By contrast, customer self-service resources are available 24/7, allowing customers to easily access the help they need the moment they need it. At any or day of the week, customers can find answers to their questions and start troubleshooting right away, greatly speeding up the resolution process and improving product adoption.

Improved customer experience

The traditional customer service experience can be a daunting one. Service reps are often overburdened, resulting in long wait times, dropped phone calls, and unresolved issues.

These interactions can be so unpleasant that customers would rather avoid asking for help altogether—one survey found that 24% of Americans would rather shave their heads than reach out to a service representative. 

A self-guided approach allows customers to avoid these friction points when they feel capable of fixing an issue themselves, resulting in a much more positive experience.

Self-service portals are built to be simple, easy to navigate, and packed with answers to the most commonly asked questions. They also tend to be highly flexible and responsive to users' needs. Resources are often interactive and come in various formats, resulting in a more engaging learning experience.

How does customer self-service benefit SaaS companies?

A self-service approach to customer support and success isn't just great for your customers, it's great for your business, too. Here's what your SaaS company has to gain.

Cost savings through reduced support requests

One of the most apparent benefits of self-service for SaaS products is drastically lower support costs. Self-service resources take care of a large share of customer data and requests, resulting in fewer tickets for support agents. And fewer tickets means you'll need fewer agents, greatly reducing your costs.

It's also much cheaper to serve customers through self-support channels than live support. According to this HBR report, helping one customer through live support costs between $7–13 on average, while it costs pennies to handle a query through self-service. Over time, these savings add up—another HBR report shares how one brand's community was saving them an estimated $2.9 million/year in support costs by handling customer queries. 

Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty

A customer self-service approach helps you meet your customers' expectations for fast and efficient service, increasing their satisfaction and loyalty. Customers run into less frustration and can solve routine issues quickly and easily, resulting in a better brand and product experience and a higher likelihood of retention.

Self-service also helps customers discover your product's value sooner. User onboarding is product-led, meaning that customers are pulled into the product as they learn how to use new features step by step. This contextual learning increases engagement and brings customers closer to the activation point, as they quickly uncover your product's benefits.

Put simply, self-service helps you keep customers happy and lowers the chances of customer churn.

Increased scalability

Traditional customer service involves deploying one live agent per customer. With automated self-service resources, thousands of customers can make use of the same learning tools. Accordingly, you can scale your support and success as your customer base grows.

With self-service onboarding, automated tools like drip emails and tooltips can guide growing numbers of new customers through your product's setup and first use. Educational resources like your knowledge base can be continually updated as customers learn about new products and features independently.

Similarly, customer self-service support tools like chatbots and discussion forums can handle increasing numbers of requests from users. This way, you can continue to offer fast and efficient support without scrambling to hire additional agents.

Key components of customer self-service portals

With the help of self-service software, you can create a customer portal with various tools to assist customers. Here are some noteworthy tools to have in your portal.

📖 Click here for a step-by-step guide on effective self-service support.

Knowledge base

A knowledge base, sometimes called a help center, is a centralized hub of helpful information about your products and services. Compiled resources can include FAQ pages, how-to guides, and product documentation. 

Knowledge bases can cover routinely asked questions and quickly point customers to resolutions to their problems. They can also include in-depth manuals that educate customers about all your product features and how to use them.

Your knowledge base articles should be intuitively organized and searchable so customers can easily find the information they need. And if it's SEO-enabled, customers can also find your content via Google searches.

📖 Click here for a step-by-step guide on creating a knowledge base.

Chatbot

A chatbot is a messaging tool that communicates with customers by simulating human conversation. Chatbots are pre-programmed to handle routine customer questions and suggest relevant solutions and helpful information. Sophisticated chatbots use natural language programming and artificial intelligence to interpret a customer's message and offer more unique responses.

With near-instant responses, chatbots can help customers solve simple issues very quickly. A chatbot can also be synced to your help center, guiding customers to educational articles or video content directly within the chat window.

Video tutorials

Video tutorials are another staple in the customer self-service SaaS world, as they allow businesses to pack tons of educational content into an easy-to-digest format. A how-to video can walk new users through an in-depth product tour or a multi-step process like an account or product setup.

Training videos enhance your customer onboarding process or teach sophisticated customers more advanced features as they get deeper into your product. Video content is a must-have for visual and auditory learners, who learn better by watching and listening than by reading documentation. 

Four best practices for designing an effective self-service experience

As you design your self-service portal, follow these basic rules to ensure a smooth customer experience.

Follow a user-centered design approach

Remember that your self-service experience should be designed from the point of view of your users. Your self-serve portal should be accessible, easy to operate, and present as little friction as possible. This ensures that customers can easily use and benefit from your resources.

To nail this design, you'll need to do some research into your customers' needs, goals, and behavior. 

Some questions to ask are: 

• How do your customers expect your customer self-service portal to be organized? 
• Do customers understand how to use your self-service portal? 
• Can customers easily locate all the buttons, menus, and search options? 
• Is the text legible and the language accessible? 
• Are the design elements simple and uncluttered? 

Running usability testing and gathering customer feedback can help you answer these questions.

Create a clear and concise information architecture

Your customer self-service portal will host a sizable collection of educational resources for your customers. So it's essential that this content follows a clear information architecture—in other words, that it's structured and labeled in a meaningful and helpful way to users. 

Customer portals are typically organized into different categories that link together to form a larger system. This helps users know where to find a particular piece of information. 

Check out our Saasplex template and its information structure for reference.

Ensure intuitive navigation and search functionality

The goal of your self-serve portal is for customers to be able to quickly and easily access help content without needing assistance, so it's vital they understand how to navigate it.

Help centers typically include menu bars to help users navigate the content. The main navigation menu can guide users to designated spaces, like a Q&A section, a Getting Started section, or a product documentation section. These menu labels should be clear and nonoverlapping to avoid confusion. 

Along with intuitive navigation, search functionality is equally important. If a customer doesn't know where to look for a piece of information (or doesn't want to spend time looking), they'll typically head to the search bar.

With advanced search tools, keywords and tags are used to interpret what a customer is looking for and point them to relevant results. Another key function is federated search, which allows users to search several portals with a single query. For example, when users search the support forum, they're presented with relevant results from the knowledge base, too.

These features are crucial because knowledge discoverability eliminates user frustration. The sooner you direct customers to what they need, the better. 

Here's how intuitive navigation is within the Bytelink's Help center.

Prioritize mobile responsiveness

Mobile responsiveness is an absolute must in 2024. By 2025, nearly three-quarters of internet users will be on mobile. With so many customers on their smartphones, this is often how they first discover your self-serve experience. 

So, when designing your self-service portal, you need to make sure it looks good and works well on all devices. This means the text is readable, the navigation tools are functioning, and the design features are clean and non-overwhelming. Anything less will hurt your brand's image and cause customers to abandon your tool.

If you don't know where to start with mobile responsiveness, use our Cloud Project template to get started.

Mistakes to avoid when implementing self-service 

There's no right or wrong way to implement self-service, but there are some common pitfalls that can set back your success. To ensure customers get the most out of your self-service experience, here are a few mistakes to avoid.

Failing to include personalization and customization options

Customers are at the center of the self-service experience. To make your portal as useful as possible for them, it should be customized to reflect their needs.

One way to do this is to offer tailored content based on a customer's demographics like their role, location, and language. You can also set up a recommendation engine that directs customers to relevant articles, tutorials, and solutions based on their history and behavior within the portal.

Another great feature is a personalized dashboard where customers can view their support history, such as any open requests they may have. This ensures customers can easily follow up on their ticket progress and feel in control of their service experience.

Customizing your portal ensures that users can take full advantage of your self-service options, while failing to do so can result in a lackluster experience and dissatisfied customers.

Ignoring user testing and continuous improvement

Finally, it's important to remember that building your customer self-service experience is an ongoing process. No matter how fantastic your portal is, it's going to need continuous monitoring to keep up the high-quality service.

Customers' needs and expectations are changing all the time, so you'll need to implement regular monitoring, testing, and iteration to ensure your self-serve process stays relevant and efficient for customers.

For example, you can test out different layouts and analyze how customers are using the portal. Does the current information architecture make sense to customers? What information are they not finding? Where are they getting confused?

Through regular tweaking and improving, you'll better understand your customers and gradually create a self-service experience that is adaptive to their needs.

How can Bettermode help SaaS businesses improve their customer self-service channels?

At its core, Bettermode is a community platform for online engagement. It's designed to help SaaS businesses improve their customer experience and engagement, thanks to its ability to enhance customer self-service options.

Here's what we mean by that.

With Bettermode, your SaaS business gets a fully customizable, user-friendly customer community with self-service channels. Thanks to our community website builder, you'll be able to reduce support tickets, promote customer engagement, and ensure customer satisfaction.

Here are five ways Bettermode can contribute to improving customer self-service channels.

Bettermode allows you to create a dedicated knowledge hub

Our no-code platform allows SaaS companies to create a knowledge base where customers can access all relevant product information, guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting articles—anywhere, anytime. 

By organizing resources in a searchable format, your customers will be able to find answers independently without having to contact customer service teams.

Such easily accessible knowledge frees up time for support staff, allowing them to focus on more complex issues.

Users can contribute to the knowledge base by adding their insights or solutions, which creates a self-sustaining customer hub based on shared customer knowledge.

Bettermode promotes community-powered support

One of Bettermode's primary features is the ability to create community forums where users can engage with one another.

These forums take customer support to the next level: experienced customers can help answer questions and provide solutions to new or less experienced users.

This "peer support system" can help SaaS companies scale their support operations without adding additional support reps, as the community essentially becomes an extension of the customer service reps.

Another benefit of community-powered support is that users often trust other users' solutions because they believe they can resolve their issues faster and more organically.

Bettermode helps gather product feedback and ideation

With Bettermode, SaaS businesses can gather real-time customer feedback and insights through suggestion boxes, polls, and product feedback forums.

Having a tight-nit customer community means that customers can easily share their product experiences and openly suggest improvements.

The more information and feedback customers share, the more users will be willing to engage with the community, which drives a self-service culture. With such suggestions in mind, SaaS companies can prioritize developments and features that resonate with their users.

So, Bettermode can enhance product development while also improving customer experience by making the customers feel heard.

Bettermode offers gamification and engagement tools

Bettermode offers its users gamification features, such as badges, leaderboards, and reputation scores, to increase participation in the community.

These tools can encourage users to engage more frequently, ask questions, and provide answers to others. Bettermode helps SaaS companies create an environment where customers actively participate in self-service support by motivating users to contribute to discussions and offer solutions.

Such a gamified approach develops an engaging online community and is effective as a customer self-service channel.

Bettermode's focus is on search and personalization

SaaS businesses can develop effective customer self-service when users can quickly find relevant information.

Bettermode offers search options, allowing a customer community to search across discussions, articles, and available resources. Personalized recommendations are based on user history, preferences, or queries, which make the customer self-service process much faster and more intuitive.

This approach allows SaaS companies' customers to resolve their issues efficiently, making them feel more connected to the product.

Betttermode offers multiple integration with existing tools

Bettermode integrates smoothly with some of the most well-known CRM, analytics, and support platforms.

For example, integrations with tools like Zendesk, Amplitude and Hotjar allow your SaaS business to offer transitions between your community and other support channels.

Bettermode's analytics on community engagement

Bettermode provides analytics on community engagement rate, common issues, and trending topics, allowing you to moderate your community properly.

SaaS companies can use these insights to improve their customer offerings. For example, if there are constantly questions revolving around a particular topic, it can indicate your business needs clearer documentation or tutorials. Businesses can make decisions to improve self-service resources by analyzing user behavior within the community.

Considering all the previously mentioned factors, Bettermode supports SaaS companies by building a community-driven, interactive platform where users can find information, share their thoughts, and receive support.

With Bettermode, SaaS customers won't rely much on traditional support channels but will participate in a new self-service model. Such a model will ultimately lead to lower support costs, improved customer satisfaction, and enhanced online customer engagement.

Conclusion

SaaS businesses are turning to self-service to elevate their customer support and success efforts.

With self-serve tools, customers are empowered to learn about your product, troubleshoot, and resolve product issues on their own—starting from the onboarding experience and throughout the entire customer journey. Whenever they have a question, customers can quickly access helpful resources online without waiting on a support rep or a customer success manager.

For SaaS companies, going self-service is an investment that pays off in more ways than one. It means a more efficient customer service team, lower support costs, and increased scalability. To level up your customer support—and stay in tune with your competition—start building your self-service experience today.

Get started with Bettermode, it's free!

This article was originally published on October 27th , 2023, and was updated on November 24th, 2024.

FAQs

What is customer self-service?

Customer self-service is a system that allows customers to find information and resolve their issues without contacting the company's support team.

What is self-customer service?

Self-customer service refers to customers finding and accessing resources and tools, such as FAQs, knowledge bases, or community forums, to address their needs and solve potential issues.

What is customer self-care?

Customer self-care involves providing customers with tools and information to manage their needs and resolve product-related issues.

What is the customer self-service model?

The customer self-service model is a framework in which companies provide free resources and digital tools that allow customers to solve their product-related issues and find answers.