<aside> đź’¬ Self service support means that people find by themselves the answers to their questions for examples via public knowledge bases or automated support chat bots. This can lead to faster resolution time for the user, but also to extra work that is called shadow work.
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The business value of customer self-service
Original study — Presented in this article
Do you expect a brand or organization to have an online self-service support portal?
Across industries, fully 81% of all customers attempt to take care of matters themselves before reaching out to a live representative. - Source
67% of respondents prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative. Source
70% of customers now expect a company’s website to include a self-service application. - Source
73% of customers prefer to use a company’s website, instead of using social media, SMS and live chat for support. - Source
40% of consumers now prefer self-service over human contact. - Source
Self-help portals are worth it
« shadow work—it represents a kind of parallel, shadow economy in which a lot of the service we expect from companies has been transferred to the customer » — The Organized Mind (public)
Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich called “shadow work”: unpaid labour that benefits someone else. - Source