Self service customer service is the part of customer service the customer does without you: finding the answer in a help centre, seeing their own invoice or case, downloading their own document, and raising a request only when none of that worked. For a small company it is not a philosophy but a list: the twenty questions that make up most of the inbox, written down once and put where the customer will look. This page is about which questions belong in self-service, which should still reach a person, and how the boundary is measured; the customer self service guide it supports walks the portal itself, and the free worksheets on this site work the deflection and the content plan from your own figures.
What belongs in self-service: the repeating question
A question is a self-service question when the answer is the same for every customer who asks it and the customer can act on it alone: how to reset a password, where the invoice is, what the status of an order means, how to change a plan. The ticket log says which those are; the content plan worksheet on this site sizes the articles they need, 32 for eight categories on the worked example.
What should still reach a person
A question that depends on the customer's own situation, a complaint, a refund outside the policy, anything where the customer is upset: these are the tickets self-service should raise fast rather than deflect. A portal that hides the request form to protect the deflection figure is a portal customers route around by phone, and the figure it protects is false.
How the boundary is measured
Tickets a month times the share the portal answers is the deflection, and the share is read from the log rather than assumed: 1,200 tickets at 30% is 360 on the worked example. Accessibility is part of the measure, because a help centre a customer cannot read has deflected nothing; WCAG 2.1 is the reference the portal is held to, and the paid plan keeps the deflection per month so the share is a trend.
Questions people ask about self service customer service
What is self service customer service?
The help centre, account view and request form that let customers answer their own repeating questions and raise a ticket only when self-service has not worked. The guide on this site walks the portal; the worksheets work the deflection and the content plan.
What should not be self-service?
Anything that depends on the customer's own situation or state of mind: complaints, refunds outside the policy, anything urgent. The portal should raise those as tickets quickly rather than deflect them.
How do I measure self-service?
Tickets a month times the share the portal answers, read from the ticket log, and the cost of an agent-handled ticket to price it. The deflection savings worksheet on this site works both from your own figures.