So, if you read my recent blog, "The Tablet's are Coming!", you know that I firmly believe that these new and extremely portable devices will be changing the face of user mobility faster and in more ways than Cell Phones did in the '80's for personal use and customer support. Don't think so? Get your hands on an iPad for more than 5 minutes and then Check this out...www.flipboard.com I'm an even greater believer after leaving my laptop power supply home while on a 5 day trip. Given that I run the business in the cloud, I was able to do everything I needed to do...short of a little spreadsheet work (could have done it but it would have been more tedious).
Moreover, they are going to change the way people demand, access and utilize support and service organizations world wide. Bold statement I know but follow me on this one.
These things are portable and "instant on". They are essentially easy and immediate windows into all the content the web has to offer. By this virtue they make it easy to reach your website to search for relevant content to solve a problem. Unfortunately, most sites haven't caught up with current technology so knowledge bases and content are static and clumsy to use. More often than not, they present information in bulk, requiring the customer to fish for the correct solution for a problem. Once and if the problem is solved, due to the nature of the delivery model, the fact that there was an issue is lost and the data which should be passed to management and manufacturing lost forever.
Enter - Guided Process Workflows...Guided Process Workflows and Guided Self Service applications, take a customer through a structured process to deduce and resolve their problem. These processes when structured properly incorporate industry best practice to assure that the process is simple and easily followed. They are easy to build and deploy by the subject matter experts...no web developers required. Just as important as the satisfaction of the customer, data of the steps taken is collected and collated so that the organization can see the issues their customers encounter and fix the root cause. Additionally, some tools allow you to fire business rules that can promote upgrades and up-sells.
Today, only a few forward thinking companies are incorporating Guided Process into their self service and support systems but the wave is growing. We see folks all the time who check out our capability because they saw it being utilized by another company and they wondered if it would work for them.
I believe we are also seeing the beginnings of pressure from end customers who may have experienced a good self help process on one site and expect others to have it as well.
Here is the point, if one of your customers has a Droid, iPhone, iPad or similar device, why should they be forced to dig through a heap of PDF's in a knowledge base or call a support center and speak with someone to solve a configuration problem that process steps and pictures can help them solve on their own? Shouldn't they be able to dance trough a guided workflow solving the problem with any product or service only escalating to live agent support if the problem is new and the resolution steps unknown? Think about the cost savings. Think about the satisfaction!
Intuitive...Yes! So what is stopping you from moving forward?
