Here in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses are embracing self-service technologies to enhance their customers’ experience and to improve the quality and performance of their service teams. The customer expectations, market trends and customer service methods have been completely transformed since past few years. Now a days, the customers are more familiar with the technology, the rise of social media, smartphones, and other consumer technologies have completely changed the customer behavior and their expectations.
For any good business it is crucial to meet customer’s expectations to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction. Customer experience and customer service quality plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction. That is the reason we saw a huge rise in self-service technologies in past few years. Basically any technology that enable the customers to do a transaction or to get a service by the means of digital and automated systems without any staff involvement is called self-service technology. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are utilizing a variety of different technologies to enhance customer experience and to boost customer happiness.
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The 2020 COVID pandemic have shaped the modern customer service and compelled businesses to evolve very quickly. Although it is over now, and everything have restored completely but its impact will remain for a long time. Several studies have been done so far, and it is witnessed that the new customer service methods have not only improved customer experience but also employee satisfaction which is a key factor in improving service quality and customer experience. The digital channels have been utilized in order to avoid physical interaction with the customers at the service centers. This also give a rise to self-service technologies and solutions.
The self-service solutions are win-win for everyone, customers love the control and freedom it provide, employee likes it because it lift-off some of their workload, the businesses embracing it with open arms due to its cost-effectiveness and higher customer satisfaction. In this blog we will discuss top digital self-service trends of 2022 which we are also anticipating to continue in 2023 and even beyond. These trends will help you upgrading your customer experience and customer satisfaction strategies to ensure long term success and consistent growth in future.
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Rise of Cloud Based Services and Solutions
The cloud technology have become the foundation of the modern self-service technologies. The biggest advantage is that the businesses can create all-in-one kind of ecosystem where they can easily scale as per their needs. The self-service solutions and systems can be expanded easily as per the growing needs and demands. The cloud offers a simple user control dashboard where with a few clicks businesses can scale up or down as per the current need. The cloud is totally managed by the vendor/service provider and the businesses don’t have to worry about the IT infrastructure or data center management, they don’t need technical staff to manage it, everything is fully managed by the vendor.
These attributes make cloud the most cost-effective solution for modern businesses. Another great advantage of cloud is that it help businesses achieve a unified environment where multiple systems can be deployed and this makes data sharing and integration super simple and very convenient. Such features help offering innovative solutions and services, which is considered to be the bedrock for the digital self-service solutions.
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Websites, Mobile Apps and Online Portals
The websites, mobile apps and online portals have become very common these days. Businesses are utilizing their corporate websites for communication and service purpose. Here in UAE almost 99% of the population have access to internet, they use smartphones and they are also using multiple social media platforms. In general an average user spend almost 3 hours daily on their smartphone. Which makes mobile apps even more important. Businesses offer dedicated web pages on their websites to enable self-service and they also provide various types of online portals such as customer portal, job portal, supplier portal, employee portal, etc.
All these portals can also be integrated with the mobile apps. Due to advancements in the smartphone technology, larger storage and increased computing power is available on an average smartphone, which fuel mobile apps trend. Customer also prefer mobile apps because of the personalized experience. The websites, mobile apps, and online portals are a great way to offer self-service solutions. People can access them on-the-go which enhance user experience and provide them more freedom.
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Interactive Self-Service Kiosks
Interactive self-service kiosks have gained huge popularity since past 5 years in Dubai and all around the UAE. Businesses tend to use interactive kiosks to offer self-services and to facilitate several internal processes. The interactive self-service kiosk usually has a touch screen based UI (user interface) which help customers to easily interact with the system. The self-service kiosk comes with a software solution which is linked to the relevant internal databases and systems to facilitate self-service functionalities. The self-service kiosk is capable of improving user experience as well as the internal operations and business processes.
The digital interactive self-service kiosk help businesses digitalize their services and various internal processes which not only enable them to offer innovative features and intuitive methods for self-services but also help the performance of the customer service staff by streamlining various internal processes and with the automated features.
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The interactive self-service kiosks are built on a very flexible technological platform which allow businesses to attach various input devices such as EID Scanners, Passport Scanner, QR Code, RFID, document scanning, document printing, invoice/receipt printing and integration with payment methods. Most of the time when a complicated service has to be delivered it might require scanning & printing documents, scanning ID proofs, and receiving service charges. These all features can be offered on a humble touch-screen based interactive kiosk.
The interactive kiosks can take cash payments, credit/debit card payments, digital payments such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and can be linked with digital payment gateways, where the users don’t have to insert cash or card, instead they can make payment online from the touch screen interface. These features are linked with the main server application or core software, which is integrated with payment gateways, customer database, financial and other business functions to offer an effortless customer experience at the self-service kiosk.
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Omnichannel Self-Service Strategy
The self-service technologies and solutions help businesses in offering a fraction-less omnichannel service eco-system. The omnichannel service means offering multiple channels to users to interact or avail service and all those channels are integrated with each other. The main reason behind building an omnichannel self-service environment is the desire of customers to be able to interact with business instantly and more conveniently. These days, customers want to get support from digital channels, studies have shown that 69% of the customers want to resolve the problem by themselves before deciding to go to a customer contact center or service center. This trend demand businesses to offer omnichannel self-services.
Where the customers can reach out to the business any time from their preferred channel and would be able to get a service without any limitation. Businesses can utilize self-service technologies to offer omnichannel service without any barrier. This has completely revolutionized the tech-support industry, now a days businesses are offering instant tech support where customers can connect with the self-service portals or service agents any time they want. Chatbots and AL based natural language processing algorithms have significantly improved the quality and customer experience.
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Leverage Automation to Improve Self-Service
One of the most popular trend in self-service is the automation. The automation and digitalization help businesses achieve better customer experience with self-service solutions. The automation help reducing the need of human/staff involvement. Mainly the automation is done using intelligent algorithms and AI (artificial intelligence) based technologies. Most of the customers attempt to solve their problem at their own before reaching to the customer service and support. The most common trend to solve problems is to look it up in the internet. Customers tend to look for the online articles, blogs, how-to-guides, FAQs sections of the service provider/vendor, etc.
However, that is not always enough. That is why the customer portals, complaint systems, online support, and interactive self-service kiosks are deployed. This is where the automation can enable businesses to offer excellent customer experience through self-service without involving any staff. The self-service is not only for support and service, it also help businesses generate more sales. Businesses can create online portals, mobile apps, and interactive self-service kiosks where the users can make a purchase and acquire new services. Expanding in the physical markets, and opening up new offices or sale centers in new markets is very expensive, instead businesses can provide self-service interactive kiosks and online solutions to tap into untapped markets.
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Collect Valuable Business Intelligence Data via Self-Service Solutions
Due to digitalization and fast-paced markets, the businesses need an optimum level of maneuverability to tackle obstacles and market changes. In Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are highly competitive and the customer demands are skyrocketing. This demand businesses to follow proactive strategies rather traditional reactive strategies. For that the businesses will have to be very informed. That is why the modern business landscape is very much data driven. The data flows like the blood in any enterprise. The self-service solutions bring automation and digitalization to the internal and external business processes.
The digital systems are inherently very efficient at collecting data and stats. By implementing self-service solution a business can easily collect valuable business intelligence data. The data help management make informed decisions and alert them on time, which increase their readiness and ability to deal with unexpected scenarios. The business intelligence data also help businesses understand customer persona, their interests, and preferences. Such information is very helpful in personalizing customer experience and communication which results in better customer satisfaction.
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Conclusion
The digital solutions and self-service is completely revolutionizing customer experience and business practices. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are rapidly adopting to modern solutions and digital systems. This help them bring automation and self-service, which not only help them to improve service quality but also customer experience. Happy customers tend to be more loyal with the business and loyal customers always gives repeated business. According to several studies acquiring a new customer is almost 5 to 25 times more expensive than selling to an existing customer. Furthermore the self-service help businesses tap into further markets. Expansion become easier and cost-efficient with self-service solutions.
Most of the customers try to solve the problem by themselves before reaching out to the customer support, this help balancing the workload of the customer service staff and make them happy and satisfied, which improve service quality and reduce employee turnover. The self-service solutions are very cost-efficient and tend to have longer lifecycle which ensures greater ROIs. The self-service solutions are not just functional or operational improvement, in fact in Dubai and all across the UAE the customers are also expecting some kind of digital interaction and self-service solution from their favorite brands.
In this blog we have listed the most modern digital self-service trends of 2022 and the same trends will continue in the 2023 and beyond. The self-service is not just a value added feature but it have become industry norm now a days. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you need our help to build high quality and cost-effective digital self-service solutions please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
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