Today we need to design our customers’ experiences with all possible channels in mind.  Customers expect to have a range of options for interacting with your organization – including phone, email, web, chat and mobile device and will want to use these channels interchangeably.

These options must be integrated to ensure a consistent dialogue with each customer. A single-channel customer service experience that separates telephone calls from online transactions results in higher operational costs and lower customer satisfaction ratings.   

Aside from the obvious benefit of Web, email and IVR technologies being considerably less expensive than their full-service human equivalents, self-service can automate routine tasks, improve online conversion to revenue, provide access to new and modern customer base, as well as provide your customers with access to your business 24x7.  Self service then becomes not only cost-effective but customer-effective.