Help Desk Multi-Channel Self-Service Strategy Research

Introduction and Research Objectives

The primary objective of this study is to define the characteristics of, and motivations of, companies looking to increase the performance of their Help Desks by expanding beyond a web-based portal to a more multi-channel-based approach. There is an abundance of secondary research demonstrating the benefits of moving beyond a single Help Desk model to one that encompasses multiple channels of support. These channels include web self-service, intelligent routing, and real-time chat. Best practices in Help Desk support — whether staffed with personnel or completely electronic — require a complementary set of channels, including web self-service, intelligent routing, and real-time chat.

Traditionalists argue that only a Help Desk is required; yet there is substantial research showing the need for multiple support channels, which are critical for interacting with customers in the ways they prefer to be served. The user of Help Desk services is quite different from the one needing only intelligent routing through guided solutions. The latter group of customers is becoming more prevalent as the Internet makes quick responses to service requests increasingly commonplace.

There is also a growing recognition that the higher the gross margin generated on a given product or service, the more companies place trained, senior personnel in Help Desk and service roles. AMR Research has found that the more face-time and personal attention to service at the front of a sales cycle, the greater the level of corresponding personalized service throughout the customer's period of product ownership or service subscription (Columbus, 2001). Correspondingly, with lower-margin products and services, there is an explicit expectation that automated Help Desk and other forms of self-service will be used (Columbus, 2001).

What emerges from this research is an elasticity of service demand. Service demand is highly elastic for lower-priced and lower-margin products, meaning that many service alternatives are acceptable to consumers — whether from the consumer or business sectors. The highly inelastic nature of service at the upper end of the product and margin spectrum is driven by customer expectations that service aligns with the price paid. This is the segment of the market where face-time invested at the beginning of a sales cycle must be maintained at a consistently high level throughout the product's or service's life. This inelastic nature of high-end service is one of the primary market forces driving multi-channel service strategies.

Revamping a Help Desk model — or selecting from its many variations in terms of staffing versus automation — is a critical decision; however, the expansion into multiple channels of support is even more critical. Architecting, defining, and executing a multi-channel self-service strategy built on top of an existing Help Desk is the best strategy for achieving best practices across multiple industries.

An explicit objective of this research is therefore to qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate the performance of a multi-channel-based self-service strategy. This will also contribute to the current body of knowledge regarding how companies are aligning their self-service strategies with the ways customers choose to interact with them.

Within the context of this study, particular attention is given to the concept of expanding Help Desk capabilities into web-based self-service approaches that rely on a single database — a single version of the truth — for populating and completing all inquiries, tasks, and processes. It is critical to recognize that a Help Desk is just one part of a multi-faceted, and often highly effective, multi-channel approach to delivering service.

The specific objectives of this study are:

1. To define and quantify the top reasons companies choose to pursue a more multi-channel-based approach to Help Desk and, in the broader context, self-service strategies.

2. To validate, quantify, and either support or refute the commonly held assumptions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using Help Desks and the self-service strategies implemented across multiple service channels.

3. To determine both the customer satisfaction and financial implications of a company expanding from a Help Desk model to a self-service model, including the role of synchronizing all relevant information for use in responding to customer requests.

4. To measure through primary, quantitative research whether Help Desk models and broader self-service strategies are effective in making consumers more productive. The implicit assumption in many Help Desk and multi-channel self-service strategies is that they improve consumer productivity.

Problem Definition and Research Hypotheses

The primary problem definition focuses on the productivity payoff of deploying more than a single Help Desk strategy for serving customers. Specifically, the study seeks to quantify the value of a multi-channel approach to Help Desk and broader self-service models.

The initial phase of research focuses on defining the unmet needs of customers who are currently using only a web portal. This unmet-needs analysis then serves as the basis for a GAP analysis to quantify the development of a multi-channel self-service strategy, of which the Help Desk will be a single component. This initial phase specifically examines the roles of web self-service, email, chat, and voice as components of the multi-channel solution. Help desk technology is keeping pace with this evolution by enabling web self-service, intelligent routing, real-time chat, and similar advances.

As part of the initial problem statement and hypothesis testing, the three C's — Customer, Competitors, and Cost — will be quantified through primary research, specifically focusing on how companies are using call centers and multiple support channels to address customer needs. Companies have responded to cost pressures by utilizing fewer agents while having them support multiple channels, thereby reducing overall call center expenses. The move to the multi-channel call center agent and a more multi-channel-based Help Desk strategy has allowed top-performing companies to remain competitive. The multi-channel call center agent has now become a competitive requirement.

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention are key performance indicators (KPIs) for any call center. They are used to measure the current state of operations and the impact of any changes to existing processes. This research study will quantify and track both Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention as part of the primary research into Help Desk users in a first phase, and then compare results to companies actively using multi-channel Help Desk strategies.

In addition to the expansion of Help Desks into multi-channel strategies, there are significant technology challenges relating to coordinating information across all channels. Many industry researchers have noted that Help Desk-only strategies fail due to a lack of data integration, with a direct impact on the quality of customer service delivered. This study will quantify the prevalence of homegrown or in-house systems that companies use to support Help Desk and self-service strategies, and will examine the impact of customer satisfaction, support costs, and agent retention as they relate to integrated IT strategy. The role of IT integration will ultimately make or break any integrated approach to self-service; it is the primary reason why stand-alone Help Desk operations often fail — they fail due to a lack of integration at the system level.

Taking all of these factors into account, the following hypotheses are defined:

Hypothesis 1: There is significantly greater effectiveness and higher KPI performance when a Help Desk is part of a broader multi-channel-based self-service strategy.

Hypothesis 2: Stand-alone Help Desk strategies are anachronistic by definition and fail to deliver the necessary level of customer service and support, while also leading to declining morale and performance among call center agents and service staff.

Hypothesis 3: Multi-channel-based self-service strategies in which the Help Desk is a component of a broader strategy are more cost-effective and reduce long-term customer retention costs by minimizing customer churn.

Hypothesis 4: There is a statistically significant difference between Help Desks that have integrated IT platforms and those that do not. The role of data and system integration has a statistically significant effect on customer satisfaction and call closure rates due to the availability of accurate and timely data.

Literature Review: Technology-Based Self-Service

Throughout the past fifteen years there has been a clear movement from traditional self-service to technology-based self-service (TBSS) (Dabholkar, 1994; Meuter and Bitner, 1998; Anitsal, Moon, and Anitsal, 2002b). In this rapidly emerging, technologically oriented service concept, customers provide service for themselves by utilizing technology with or without assistance from a service provider employee (Meuter, Ostrom, Roundtree, and Bitner, 2000; Reda, 2000; Henderson, 2001). This includes the use of Help Desks as the first point of contact and the first line of service and support for customers. The Help Desk has grown from being a stand-alone service strategy to one that is leading many organizations to support a multi-channel — and in some instances, fully multi-channel-based — approach to delivering service.

Examples of TBSS options across different service industries include on-demand service and support through guided solution applications on websites, guided help on telephone systems, ATMs, electronic kiosks for baggage check-in or boarding passes at airports, room checkout kiosks at hotels, and internet-connected service computers at airports (Dabholkar, 1994, 1996; Kotler, 2000; Meuter, Ostrom, Roundtree, and Bitner, 2000; Carlin, 2002; Harler, 2002; Wright, 2002).

The transformation of service options from the Help Desk to multi-channel, technology-based service strategies can be viewed in terms of the relationships among employee, customer, and technology components. A single strategy relying solely on a Help Desk fails to support the full triad of these relationships. Strategically, this is why Help Desks are increasingly becoming just one component within a multi-channel strategy — there are more unmet customer needs than a Help Desk alone can address. The intent of this research is to ascertain and quantify the gap between unmet needs and the effectiveness of a Help Desk alone versus all components of a multi-channel service strategy, including web self-service, intelligent routing, and real-time chat.

All interactions between these components are considered from the customer's perspective. The full-service option (A) includes customer-to-employee interaction, in which a service employee serves the customer directly. The joint production option (B) includes both the service employee and the customer working together to produce and deliver the service within the defined service system. The self-service option (C) reflects a customer engaging with a service system in the absence of a service employee. The technology-based full-service option (D) includes a service employee fully serving a customer using full-service technologies. The technology-based joint production option (E) includes the customer interacting with both a service employee and technology. The technology-based self-service option (F) involves customer-to-technology interaction without any contact employee (Dabholkar, 1994; Meuter and Bitner, 1998; Anitsal, Moon, and Anitsal, 2002a, 2002b).

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