Customer self service
- Saved a month after the portal's cost
- $2,841
- Tickets deflected a month
- 360
- Saved a year
- $34,092
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Deflectvo publishes no industry deflection rate, no agent cost and no vendor price beyond the ones it cites: the share the portal answers, the cost of a ticket and the articles an answer needs are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
Customer self service is what a small company means when it says the same twenty questions make up most of its tickets: the customer could have found the answer, seen their own account or downloaded their own document without anyone in the inbox, if there had been somewhere to look. The portal is that somewhere, and the case for building one is arithmetic before it is a product decision: how many tickets a month, what share the help centre will answer, what an agent-handled ticket costs, what the portal costs, and how long the first articles take to write. This guide walks what customer self service has to do for a small company and what it should not try to do, and the free deflection savings worksheet on this site works the case from your own figures with no account and no vendor named.
Try the free deflection savings worksheet Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
The help centre: the questions that are already answered
Self service starts with the ticket log: the categories that repeat, the questions inside each, and the article that would have answered them. Eight categories at four articles each is 32 articles, and the content plan worksheet sizes the writing and the share of tickets covered. An article that answers 30 tickets a month is worth more than a feature.
The account: what the customer can see and do for themselves
The second half of self service is the customer's own account: their plan, their invoices, their documents, their open cases and their history, visible without asking. Most tickets that are not questions are requests for something the company already holds; the portal hands it over and the request form raises a ticket only when it cannot.
The measure: deflection, and what it saves
Tickets a month times the share the portal answers is the deflection; times the cost of an agent-handled ticket, less the portal's cost, is the saving. 360 deflected at $8 less $39 is $2,841 a month on the worked example, and the paid plan keeps the figure per month against the customers and the articles so the share is measured rather than assumed.
Customer self service: common questions
What is customer self service?
A help centre, an account view and a request form that let a customer answer their own question, see their own account and raise a ticket only when self-service has not worked. For a small company it is the twenty repeating questions written down once, and the worksheet on this site works what answering them without an agent is worth.
How much can a self-service portal save?
Tickets a month times the share the portal answers, times the cost of an agent-handled ticket, less the portal's cost. The worked example turns 1,200 tickets at 30% and $8 into $2,841 a month; enter your own figures, because the share and the cost are yours and this site publishes no industry rate.
Is there a free customer self-service worksheet?
Yes. The customer self service software worksheet on this site is free and needs no account: tickets, the share answered, the agent cost per ticket, the portal cost, set-up hours and a rate in, tickets deflected, the monthly and annual saving, the set-up cost and the payback in days out, printed as it stands. Deflectvo Pro keeps the portal and the deflection per month.
Will it do what you need for Customer self service?
Tell us what your customers need and we will tell you straight whether Deflectvo Pro does it today, whether it is coming, or whether you need a help-desk suite instead. A person reads these and replies.