Your company’s app can be a source of great cooperation and communication between your business and its customers. By focusing on how to provide customer service directly through the app itself, you can save time, money, and frustration for everyone.
What customer services should you include when designing an interactive app? Here are five key ingredients.
- Ticket Tracking
If you provide services or repairs, your app should help customers understand the progress and outcomes of those services. Give them the ability to request a service within the app and then follow its progress on their own — right through the app and without a call to your staff.
Help ticket tracking might include confirmations of the order, regular updates by team members working on the service or repairs, shipping confirmations, and package or location tracking information. You may also want to use tracking to communicate directly with customers so that they feel more personally attended to.
- Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs, are self-help aids where people can find answers to common concerns and directions for doing common activities. FAQ sections in apps reduce the need for customers to call or email your staff, saving time and money. They also save the customer frustration from not knowing how to answer a simple question that should take a minute or two to learn.
Work with staff, customer service representatives, and actual customers to determine what to include in your FAQ list. Generally, it would include directions for using the app or portal, company policies, product specifics, and return or replacement information.
Avoid making it too long, but tweak it regularly as new issues arise and others become less important. And if possible, make it easily searchable to serve as a knowledge base.
- Direct Messaging
Help customers direct inquiries to your company easily and quickly with some kind of in-app messaging capability. When they have questions, requiring customers to log into their email or pick up a phone to call you will increase stress and annoyance — setting up your company for failure.
A great answer is to add one, two, or three methods to contact company personnel right then and there. Along with phone numbers and email addresses prominently displayed, include live chat that prompts users to simply reach out with their questions. And empower your staff manning these chats to do what they can to resolve customer concerns quickly and seamlessly.
- Log-In Accounts
Having customers log in as early in their app experience as possible helps boost customer service. Their own order or account information will come up right away, leaving them less stranded in finding what they want to see. And if they contact your staff through built-in methods, you’ll have more information about them and their needs, which will lead to less guesswork and less repetition of information.
Customers should also be able to initiate changes or returns through their own accounts.
- Community Connections
Direct customers to your larger community. Place social media links prominently and repeatedly, directing them to places they can learn more about your services and find others to talk to about your products.
Social media is a powerful tool to help avoid larger customer grievances, so pay attention to it and be responsive. By freely directing customers to your own social networks, you are proactive about their customer experience.
Make your app a great customer service tool by focusing on how you can help them to help themselves as well as connect them with your live customer service avenues. At jācapps, we specialize in designing the best app experience for you and your customers. Call today to make an appointment to learn more.
Originally published by Jacobs Media
