When it comes to HR Service Delivery, employee satisfaction is key. One of the first steps to achieving employee satisfaction is utilizing a self service portal. In fact, companies and HR organizations alike love when customers go to the Self Service Portal for support.
They love it because resolving an incident through self-service may cost $1, compared to $7 via email, compared to $15 or more, with a live agent over the phone. There's money in self service, if you can just get your customers to go there.
So, what’s the secret? How do companies who are successful at coaxing customers away from the phones and into self service make it happen?
There are essentially two factors to consider:
Easy begins by making the self service portal easy to find. Employees feel connected and prepared when they have the resources they need at their fingertips. Don’t bury access to the portal deep on your website. In fact, treat it like a marketing “call to action.”
Make the link to the portal as clear as day to see and place it in more than one spot on your website so that the customer can’t miss it!
Too many human resources organizations have multiple HR-related websites, portals, and applications for employees. It’s like putting the employee in front of five closed doors, and saying, “Pick one for service.” This will not result in satisfied employees so remember to keep things simple and clear!
Make it easy to navigate.
A site that’s hard to navigate is a site that won’t get much traffic. When designing your self-service portal, keep in mind the employee experience and try to make their life as easy as possible.
Finding your way around the self-service portal can be a big part of the employee experience.
Make it easy for the customer to find their answer.
This means putting the right content in the portal. You'll want to identify those 20% of the solutions that solve 80% of the problems and make them very findable.
Employing a “recommendation engine” can also help. If the customer must manually search for the answer, you'll lose too many at “hello.” Many won’t invest the time or effort. Instead, they’ll to the phone to speak with their fellow HR representative.
However, if the search is automated using key words and algorithms to find and present precisely relevant content, you’ll have made life a lot easier for the customers, by saving them the hassle of searching. Employees will enjoy article suggestion for a smarter employee experience.
OK, so you’ve made the Self Service Portal easy to use. But just because you build an easy Portal with easy access to the right answers, doesn’t mean that the customers will come to use it.
Customers want value, and customers want convenience. The more reasons you can give your customers to go to the portal, the more they’ll go there first.
Making it valuable means making the Self Service Portal the "go-to" place for the customer - the default source for anything and everything associated with their employment.
For example, HR may not provide service for the employees’ retirement plans. But employees see those plans as something associated with the company. Therefore, you may want to consider including access to this and any other service provider related to the employee’s scope of employment.
So, by making Self Service easy to use and focusing more on the customers' interests (beyond simply support), more customers will utilize the portal.
Employees tend to go wild over a great Self-service portal!