When a customer has questions or found errors he doesn’t always need to contact you. The less you get disturbed for minor issues, the more time you can spend on the more heavy cases. Frequently asked questions and solutions to known problems (including software fixes) can easily be handled by the customer himself. The only thing you need to do is make them available and searchable...

Not all Self-Service options fit the needs of your customer base. Evaluate frequently if a service still meets the needs of your customer. Ask, at least once a year your customer for feedback on the self-service options provided.

Self Service options do not make your Support staff redundant. It is a service tool for those customers who are able to work with it quite well and find the answers they require (quite quick).

Solution Store and Knowledge Base

The Search option of the Solution Store and Knowlegde Base has to be really user friendly. Keep in mind that your customer is searching for solutions for his problems. He knows what his problem is, not what the solution will be. The provided search mechanism should be based on problems and errors, not on solutions.

When you also provide software fixes, the customer must be able to down load and install them easily. The mechanism you use for the installations of solutions should support software and data integrity. When you provide individual solutions this becomes even more important. A software fix should always go along with an explanation of the problem and solution provided. In some cases even installation instructions should be provided, like table configuration.

Easy download of manuals and such makes life of both parties a lot easier. The more information provided the more a customer can do himself. A list of available documents makes it easier for you to refer to.

To provide all above described self-service options you probably require a large and complex database. The market has several options and search engines. A thorough investigation is required before you decide to implement one. Make sure you are convinced you made the best choice by investigating the consequences of all pro-‘s and con’s of each product.

When customer requires a software and maintenance contract for using the self-service options you need to put these options behind a login and pass word.

Service and Feature Pack information should be available via the Solution Store and Knowledge base.

The Solution Store and Knowledge Base should be able to handle questions based on the following search criteria:

  • natural language
  • keywords
  • latest solution for a session
  • release, version, package, module, session

Selected solutions based on the used search criteria should be ranked and displayed. From the displayed list the customer must be able to go to the details of each and every individual solution. When solutions are not meant for all customers these ssolutions should be marked in a way the Solution Store and Knowledge Base can limit access to them.

When a customer does not want to use this service or can not find what he is looking for make sure you can be approached easily by phone or email. Do not put them on hold by referring to this service.

When you set up such a service or maintain it a customer requires:

  • accurate content
  • immediate answers
  • a user friendly way to get answers on "personal" questions. Read personal as: for its own specific 'company' situation.
  • a well maintained website

Discussion forum

Customers could help each other via a discussion forum. When you provide it you can easily follow what your customers are working on or are thinking of your product. Every discussion forum is subject to censorship. Not all remarks or actions can be tolerated. Keep in mind not to be to strict else customers will not use it. Criticism helps you to improve your product and your organization further. Respond to it in an open manner. Acknowledge when you are wrong. Customers will appreciate it.

Email notification

Customers would like to be informed, as upfront as possible, on changes, improvements and defect solving solutions of the product(s) they are using. Via email you can easily inform them frequently. Ask them to tell you via a profile in what they are interested to receive from you. The profile should contain your products (packages, modules) and your actions you wish to inform your customer about. Collect all data on weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis and send them via an email, based on their profile, the collected data.

System Check Tool

When a system is running for a longer period of time, often more data is held by the system. Sometimes more data leads to a lesser performing system. To help the customer keeping his system optimal, provide tools that check his system. It will help the customer a lot when the tool provides:

  • advise on archiving actions
  • advise on changing parameter settings
  • advise on database settings
  • advise on logging
  • advise on performance increasing actions

View and update own incidents

Next to all possible options to get information, documentations and solutions from you, the customer needs to be able to follow and update his own reported support issues. Of course of each reported issue he requires to see the history as well as the current status. Access to your support system via the web provides the service to do this 24 hours * 7 days.

To help the customer with the registration of his incidents make sure his master data can be checked and updated by himself. Master data like:

  • Contacts details
    • Name
    • Email address
  • Used Product(s)
    • Product name
    • Product version
  • Hardware configuration
  • Operating system
  • Database system

The more is known about the customer the better the Support Analyst can act upon his support issues.