Making savings with Self-Service

We use self-service in so many aspects of our app-filled lives to solve our own problems without needing to take up anyone’s time.

Whether you want to implement your own or a vendor’s self-service system, how do you know if the promises of increased efficiency and engagement will be realised?

Finding the service sweet spot

Self-service is not a solution in itself. It’s but one of a suite of live and automated channels you can use to connect or engage with your customers, staff or even suppliers and the rest of your business ecosystem.

Research from industry analyst Gartner based on more than 8,000 customer journeys found that 70 percent of customers are using self-service channels at some point in their interaction – although only 9 percent of customer service journeys exist entirely in self-service channels.

Undiscovered savings and benefits

At a basic level, self-service reduces the staff hours required to resolve users’ issues, which saves the organisation money. It also reduces the number of times information is handled and the potential for errors to be introduced, and eliminates paperwork.

When Aurion empowered the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s (GBRMPA) 230-strong mobile workforce with online self-service to access their people and payroll details anywhere, anytime in real-time, a GBRMPA employee commented, “Our employees love that Self Service can be accessed on their mobile devices when on the road. We deliberately did not provide any instructions to see how easy it was for employees to navigate around and the feedback has been very positive”.

However, the value of self-service as part of an overall customer or staff engagement strategy isn’t just about saving dollars on service staff, the decisions you make will directly affect customer or staff satisfaction and thus loyalty.

A key benefit of self-service is that it removes much of the repetitive interaction with users by aggregating commonly asked questions and their answers in a single, easy-to-update location. Self-service users only need to refer directly to staff with their more complex issues, which makes the staffs’ job easier and frees then up for more involved tasks. In the same way self-service also decreases the number of support tickets raised.

The value of data

More benefits flow from optimising self-service solution with reporting and analytics. For instance, in only four months, Aurion automated Greater Shepparton City Council’s performance review processes via Employee Self Service with customisable workflow and alerts. As a result, Greater Shepparton City Council were able to improve their employee experience and performance review engagement rates.

Karen Liversidge, Manager People and Development for Greater Shepparton City Council said: “The completion rate for employees increased from an average of 69 percent in previous years to 93 percent. The feedback we received from both employees and reviewing officers was the new system was easy to use, contained more relevant information and provided a better avenue to have constructive conversations.”

This kind of reporting and analytics will identify gaps in self-service content and as a bonus, a properly configured self-service portal full of unique, question-answering content will boost search engine optimisation for your key topics.

Employee Self Service is a standard inclusion for all Aurion Cloud Software and Aurion Payroll Services. Find out how our best-practice payroll & HR solutions will make managing your People & Payroll simple – let’s get started.

For Aurion users

If you’re an Aurion Self Service user with a problem, you can assess our Self Service Online Help via Aurion or the Support portal, or check out this short guide to resolving your Self Service issues quickly and easily.