As your ecommerce business grows, you may need to expand customer service efforts—but hiring more staff isn’t always the best solution. A bigger team can increase costs, require time-consuming training, and may not yield the desired results. Plus, while your online store is open 24/7, your customer service team isn’t, creating downtime when customers can’t get answers from a support representative.
That’s where self-service resources come in. With self-service customer service, often shortened to “self customer service” or “customer self service,” your website visitors and customers can help themselves first. By creating a set of tools and resources that empower customers to handle simple issues and questions on their own, you’ll free up your customer service team for more complex inquiries.
What is customer self-service?
Customerself-service is the set of tools and resources that let customers find answers and solve problems on their own, without having to contact your support team. These options range from FAQ pages and knowledge bases to artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and video tutorials that guide customers through common questions and issues.
Many businesses use self-service tools in conjunction with human support to meet customer needs.
Customer self-service channels
A strong self-service knowledge center can handle basic questions about shipping, returns, and product features, while your team addresses more involved concerns through phone support, email, or text.
Here are some self-service channel ideas to consider:
- Policy documentation. A searchable repository of your store’s policies—from return windows to shipping rates to gift card redemption—helps answer common questions. Your content can expand with your business, developing gradually to encompass real customer issues.
- FAQ. Frequently asked question (FAQ) resources address what customers ask most often. You can publish them as standalone pages in your help center or append them to specific product or service pages. By answering common concerns from customers upfront, FAQ pages reduce the number of support tickets your team needs to field.
- Account management portal. Give customers control over their orders and preferences with features like order tracking, return initiation, and security settings. An account portal becomes their go-to spot for managing their relationship with your business.
- Product how-tos. Detailed guides help customers get the most from their purchases, whether it’s instructions for cleaning gold-plated jewelry or step-by-step brewing guides for the perfect cup of coffee.
- Community forums. Create online spaces—on your site or on platforms like Facebook Groups, Reddit, or Discord—where customers can share experiences, ask questions, and troubleshoot together.
- AI chatbots and agents. Chatbots handle basic questions with pre-programmed prompts, while AI agents use natural language processing technology to understand context and provide personalized support around the clock.
- Video library. Produce how-to videos on your site and optimize them for YouTube search, so customers can find visual guides on product usage, maintenance, or troubleshooting.
Best practices for ecommerce customer self-service
- Create an intuitive information architecture
- Maintain fresh and relevant content
- Implement smart automation
- Offer clear paths to human support
Building an effective self-service system requires thoughtful planning and continual updates. Your goal is to make self-service an appealing first stop for customers seeking answers. Understand what trips up your customers most often, then create user-friendly resources to address them. Here’s how:
Create an intuitive information architecture
One essential ingredient for great self-service is a clear, logical layout for help content. Prominently feature a search field with auto-suggestions based on frequently asked questions, and organize support topics by categories (e.g., “Billing,” “Account Settings,” “Troubleshooting”) to save customers time.
Fine jewelry brand Mejuri configures its Help page with three prominent visual cards targeting “Shipping & Fees,” “Returns,” and “Jewelry Care” right up top. Below, it offers nine category buttons followed by an expandable FAQ, making it simple for customers to quickly drill down to find what they need.
Maintain fresh and relevant content
Help content, like any other part of your store, needs routine upkeep. Set timed reminders to review help articles, FAQ answers, and product guides—especially when you introduce new products or policies. Track what customers are asking about in support tickets too; those questions can identify gaps in your self-service content.
Away offers a clean product information page with detailed guides for everything from its original luggage line to new items like diaper bags. The company organizes its help content into two categories: current guides (covering its full product line) and original guides (for discontinued products), making sure every customer can find care instructions for their luggage.
Implement smart automation
Smart automation can supercharge your self-service offerings without feeling impersonal. AI chatbots and AI agents can tackle routine queries, while automated order updates keep customers informed. Predictive search suggestions can also point people to the right answers as soon as they start typing. The trick is to make these tools feel like genuine human assistance, not robotic.
Loop Earplugs set up its chatbot to tackle common customer questions right on its homepage. For instance, it can smoothly handle a question about returns. This automated chat tool, powered by Ada, can jump in with instant answers about orders, products, and shipping without sounding robotic. Ada integrates with Shopify’s ecommerce platform, letting it see real order details to give customers the information they need, without having to bother the support team.
Offer clear paths to human support
Customer self-service can’t do everything—like addressing complex issues that require human judgment and empathy. Prominently place Contact Us buttons and live chat options so customers can reach someone on your team for answers when needed.
Boll & Branch, a luxury bedding and home goods brand, balances automated help with human support. Although it provides an AI chatbot ready to help in the bottom left corner of its website, the company also makes it easy to gain access to its team directly—whether through the Contact form, by phone during business hours, or via email—with a clear promise to respond within two business days.
Self customer service FAQ
What is self-service in customer service?
Self customer service, short for self-service customer service, is a set of tools that let customers find answers to issues, creating a smoother customer experience while reducing the demands on your support staff.
What are the types of customer self-service?
Self-serve returns, order tracking, customer accounts with order history, and FAQ pages are all types of customer self-service options. In combination, these options can help meet a wide array of customer needs.
Does Shopify offer tools for customer self-service?
Yes, Shopify comes with built-in features like customer accounts, order tracking, store policies, size charts, and self-serve returns so shoppers can resolve issues independently. Shopify Magic, an AI-powered assistant for merchants, suggests personalized FAQs, generates tailored responses in Shopify Inbox, crafts automated messages, and creates email subject lines and copy. Apps that integrate with Shopify, like Ada and Gorgias, can provide more advanced self customer service functionality.
