How much time do you spend answering questions that already have specific answers? If you are like many HR professionals, you spend hours each week fielding questions you’ve already answered before. Repetitive questions are a drain on everyone’s productivity, but questions still need to be answered.

Luckily, there is a solution to this problem. Through utilizing employee self-service, you can increase productivity, reduce escalated customer service inquiries, and create a knowledgeable workforce that's ready to tackle any issue. Above all else, you'll get your time back so you can focus on answering the challenging customer service inquiries your team doesn't know the answer to.

What is employee self-service?

According to HR Payroll Systems, employee self-service “allows employees to take care of many different human resources-related and job-related tasks that would otherwise need to be completed by human resources personnel or management.” Employee self-service is here to help your employees be more self-sufficient. Instead of answering every simple question, you can point your employees to a database of helpful answers.

You’ve already created the answers

It’s time to be honest about the amount of time you spend answering questions you’ve already answered. Imagine how much time you could have back if your employees had a database of answers to their frequently asked questions? Instead of fielding escalated requests, your customer service reps could have access to the answers you have.

Think about it. According to data collected by Spoke, 49% of all HR requests are repetitive. That means that you are wasting everyone’s time by not using chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve your team. Think of the hours employees waste waiting for answers because HR managers can't get through emails quickly enough. Instead of getting work done right away or answering customer questions promptly, they are stuck hoping someone sees their urgent email immediately.

Consider the hours HR managers waste responding to repetitive emails. Your managers have access to tools like canned email responses, but those responses have their downside. Managers still need to read the email, find the correct canned answer, and update it to fit the specific situation. Chatbots and AI tools empower your employees. Instead of waiting and hoping, they can use technology to come up with answers to relevant questions. Chatbots are always available and ready to give information, plus it can scale with the employees you hire.

Increasing workplace adoptions of chatbots and AI

So, you know how vital chatbots and AI are to your employees, but how do you increase chatbot and AI adoption in the workplace? Here are a couple of easy ways to increase workplace adoption so that you can reduce questions and improve customer service.

Test the effectiveness of your chatbot and AI tools

If you want to cut down on support tickets and escalated claims, you need to make sure your chatbot and AI tools work for the day-to-day needs of your employees. Do controlled tests of the tools based on questions your employees get from customers frequently. Would your employees be able to get the answers they needed if they were on a call with a customer?

Make chatbot and AI tools a natural part of the customer/employee service experience

Does your chatbot feel like an extension of the customer/employee service process? If your customer service reps and employees don’t know the answer to the question, their next step should be to look to the chatbot or AI tools you offer them. If not, you’ll continue to see more escalations and tickets.

Train your employees to open up the tools you give them alongside the other tools they use every day. Add double monitors for your team to aid adoption. Dual monitors will give them more space to work, so the tools you give them are easily accessible every day.

Offer regular training opportunities for your employees on your chatbot or AI tools

Last but not least, offer regular training opportunities to increase employee knowledge and adoption. You should have a general training on using the tools at least once a month. Create specialized training opportunities frequently for people who want to get better at working with the programs, as well. If you want to save some time, you can record your training and offer it on-demand to new employees. Keep on top of your tools and update your employees when new features pop up.

Conclusion

Employee self-service is a simple strategy you can utilize in your business today to increase the effectiveness of your team. Your employees have the capabilities to do more on their own, but you have to equip them with the right tools to do so. Whether your employees are looking for information to help them or your customers, you should find ways for your employees to be more efficient.