Developing a self-service portal for the customers

Abstract

This thesis seeks to identify and evaluate the key factors for developing an effective and user-friendly self-service portal to improve the customer experience for Company X’s laboratory equipment services division. As company X has significantly increased their operations through various acquisitions in recent years, serving customers with top efficiency has been a challenge. Thus a need for a centralized automated system has arisen.

This proposed self-service portal will give the benefit of independently accessing information for past service visits and will also work as a data bank for all their devices. Customers will also be able to get reports and requests for the next service visits through this portal.

A qualitative research methodology was used, reviewing the existing three literature on self-service technologies and portals. Especially focus was given to studies examining aspects that define customer utility and satisfaction. In addition, five years (2018-2022) of Net Promoter Score surveys were also discussed to peak into customers’ mindsets and pain points.

The findings show that among others some of the key factors behind customer satisfaction include strong usability, responsive performance and personalized features which utilize customer data. If properly utilized and deployed, this portal may act as an asset for Company X by minimizing operational costs and time through reduced support inquiries. Which will ultimately lead to better customer satisfaction.