Empowering Users Through Self-Service: An Automation Revolution
Determining when and how to deploy self-service is deceptively simple. Customers expect experiences that seamlessly follow them wherever they go, but not all moments in the journey are created equal—for the customer or for the business. While some touchpoints are best automated, others benefit from human connection. Some moments need to be effortless, and others offer opportunities to deepen trust and engagement.
Knowing which interactions hold which opportunities is critical to designing omnichannel experiences that allow service teams to focus where they add the most value. The key is strategic, targeted friction.
Customer Self-Service at Farfetch
Business Challenge:
Peak retail periods placed sustained pressure on Farfetch’s service ecosystem. As contact volumes increased, many customer issues stemmed from simple, repeatable tasks—such as order changes, address updates, or status checks—that customers expected to resolve quickly and independently. However, in the absence of a scalable self-service foundation, these interactions required human intervention, increasing operational strain and slowing response times across the broader service organization.
The challenge was to introduce self-service in a way that reduced unnecessary contact without eroding trust or diminishing the brand’s high-touch service standards.
Outcome Overview:
This work laid the foundation for Farfetch’s broader self-service and automation strategy, reducing operational strain while increasing customer trust at scale.
Research:
Our existing data at the time was based primarily on contact volumes from the workforce management team. While volume was a useful indicator of where customers needed service, it did not provide enough insight into where self-service opportunities should be introduced within the on-site shopping journey.
We took the research a step further by analyzing root causes across contact center categories and reviewing the content of those interactions to assess customer sentiment. This allowed us to identify which contact reasons were creating unnecessary, frustrating friction from a customer point of view.
Prioritization & Planning:
Self-Service Program
The Voice of the Customer & UX Research research gave us a solid starting point to identify the best journey for self-service. Cross-referencing our root cause and Net Emotional Value data, we identified the higest-leverage journey moments and build a strategic plan for building and implementing the changes.
Working in step with Product Management & Engineering, we sized the work and built a roadmap of priorities, ranked by customer impact. Considering the back-end systems had not been originally designed for self-service and most of the initiatives also impacted supply chain logistics, none of the solutions were simple. This high effort meant business cases needed to exhibit clear impact and financial value to support negotiations for roadmap trade-offs.
Designing Feature One:
Order Cancellation made the top of the list as a prime candidate for self-service. Volumes were high and anxiety was low. The UX research indicated a clear expectation and drive to cancel orders when needed. We set to work on the design of the feature.
“It’s not possible to cancel on the website, but I guarantee it’s possible if I call the company. The customer is always right! If they don’t help, I’ll just charge it back and never shop with you again.”
Order Cancellation
Consistency Challenge:
The first hurdle we ran into was consistency. Without a way to consistently deliver the feature, we could not proceed. That meant that the rules of the feature needed to align with what backend logistics teams and systems could perform - and since the majority were run by partners, that meant aligning 1,200 global merchant partners to new fulfillment criteria.
Global merchant partners to align around order cancellation processing.
Success rate target for cancellation processing across merchants.
Outcome:
We set our target at 80%. Anything less was a no-go due to negative impacts to the customer experience. After testing several models and consulting with partners to help them overcome their constraints. After running several models and scenarios, we hit the goal. We set new operational criteria, updated the partner contracts, and forged ahead.
Testing Feature One:
Order Cancellation
Challenge:
As soon as we had the technical and operational systems up and running, testing began. One of the biggest fears of offering self-serve cancellations to the site was a negative impact to trade. We ran early experiments across key global regions to test financial impacts and observe customer behaviors. It was critical to monitor metrics across both Product and Operations to understand the total impact
Outcomes:
In a 3 month A/B test, we observed that the total rate of cancelled orders remained stable, the organic adoption of the button was trending at 70% and material cost-savings to Customer Service.
With a green light from our trade committee and a little patience waiting for a window between Q4 development freezes, we launched on web just in time for peak season 2019.
“I assume it’s because Farfetch is trying to be extremely responsive to the customer, getting the orders out as quickly as possible. I think it’s a very reasonable policy. Some places don’t let you cancel at all. It’s a perk! Unexpected perk!”
Feature results:
Testing showed a stable cancellation rate, with no negative consequence to conversion or GMV.
of customers repurchased at an equal or greater order value after cancellation.
Organic customer adoption of the new feature in the first 3 months.
Reduction in Contacts per Order in the cancellation-by-customer category.
Select Program Results:
The Cancellation feature set the pace for the remainder of the self-service program, with 14 initiatives launched across 12 markets, positively impacting sales and operational cost-savings metrics, for example, cost to serve, returns logistics, etc. Product feature adoption metrics remained high, contributing to improved customer sentiment overall as speed and ease improved with customer autonomy.
77% Customer adoption on average across all self-service features launched across global markets.
18% of transactional contacts avoided across all managed customer service channels.
15% Increase in sales through Customer Service channels with new focus on high-value interactions.
$3M in operational cost savings per year with total program benefit realization.