Are you being served?

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Customers need to be able to ask questions as if they were in a shop and websites should be able to respond intuitively. When websites provide relevant, targeted information, customer satisfaction and, ultimately, sales, will improve.

Refining the search

With more sophisticated self-service features, websites can start to respond to customer demand more effectively. Roche believes that intelligent search capabilities can make a big difference. "The search is what drives the internet in terms of customers getting to websites. Once they get to the websites, it's vital that they find what they need. Keyword searches are very limited in terms of getting to the detail of what the customer wants," she said.

"People phrase questions in lots of different ways so companies need to integrate natural language searches into their websites so they can understand the exact meaning of the customer's question. When, for example, a customer types in 'I need to refinance my house in France,' the search engine should understand that it needs to return information on European mortgages. Customers are more likely to get the right answer if they're using a clever search engine with a self-organising knowledge base that learns from its past interactions with customers."

She added: "Web self-service solutions should also use information from the customer's search and their activity on the website to route them to the area of the business best able to help. This makes the whole process more efficient for both the customer and the company."

Roche suggests ten top tips companies should follow if they want to improve their customer service.

1) Customer interaction

Invest in services that allow companies to engage in a dialogue with online customers, and give customers more control over their customer service experience.

2) Instant gratification

Make information instantly accessible to customers so that they can find the answers to their questions quickly and intuitively.

3) Invest in search

Website self-service searches can improve service, increase sales and provide invaluable insights into what consumers want.

4) Make it easy to get more help

Any search for information on a website that does not yield a successful result should allow customers to transition seamlessly to further assistance, by email, phone or chat.

5) Let customers choose their channel

Web self-service, chat, blogs, user groups, rss feeds, text messaging, email and phone are all ways your customers may want to communicate - let customers interact through the channel they want.

6) Use customer service as an opportunity to increase sales

Offering easier access to customer service and sales staff does not push up service costs if web self-service is used to manage these interactions - as a first step for answering routine questions and then for filtering more complex enquiries to the appropriate staff.

7) Ad-serve through self-service

Web self-service interactions are a key source of additional sales. Use customers' questions to provide tailored additional information promoting related products or special offers.

8) Act on customer feedback

Analyse the questions your customers are asking to inform your business, improve web content and enhance customer service.

9) Monitor email replies

Make sure your emails properly answer your customers' questions. A natural language knowledgebase will help agents to draw on answers to questions while on a call or responding to email.

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