The Clear Road Forward to Customer Prosperity Part 4

In-App Messaging Is The Concierge Service That Will Set You Apart

If making your customers, or at least a select group of them, feel valued is a priority for your app, then In-App Messaging is a must-have feature. It’s that on-demand, at-your-fingertips navigation assistance that will get your business on the path to that deepest level of customer prosperity.

The benefits of this feature boil down to being able to resolve your user issues in a way that your customers perceive to be the least amount of effort for them with the highest reward. And while it does require significant resources to maintain the necessary level of quality to make messaging worthwhile monetarily, there are tricks and tools at your disposal to ensure that those resources are used as efficiently as possible.

Messaging doesn’t have to be instant.

Your customers are comfortable with platforms like iMessage or Whatsapp where they can see if their message has been delivered (and sometimes if it has been read), but there is no expectation of an immediate reply. When conversing with a friend, the expectation is that it may take a few minutes or hours to respond. That’s normal. But if days pass with no reply, that’s when patience can run thin.

Those expectations hold true for conversing with customer support. Immediate replies are nice, but not necessary. Your users don’t need to stay in the message ‘window’; they can continue using your app and going about their business as they would if they were messaging with anyone else. They’ll likewise receive a notification when they have received a response, meaning they don’t have to wait on hold or keep refreshing their email—the time and effort required on their end is minimal.

This indicates that a successful customer service platform doesn’t require the staff to support 24/7 “live chat” capabilities. That same level of customer satisfaction can be achieved with a lean, well-trained staff combined with In-App messaging.

You can get straight to the point.

If your user provides a comprehensible question and description about an issue, that might be the only information your team needs to be able to solve it. You don’t need to spend the customer’s valuable time asking for personal details like username and account number, because the Helpshift SDK can automatically collect this information since the user is most likely already logged into your app.

Additionally, the SDK can automatically collect technical details about the app version, device, and usage. There is so much information instantly available to diagnose a problem, which leads to speedier resolutions.

This not only streamlines the process for your team and the user, it also removes potential for user error. The average user might not know know specific device or app information, and pass along incorrect details that could throw the resolution process off-track.

It allows for show & tell.

When your users have an issue with your app, sometimes they might be at a loss for words. Or at least really appreciate a visual aid to showcase their problem. With In-App messaging, users can seamlessly insert screenshots and photos to show your support team exactly what they are dealing with. Similar to iMessage and Whatsapp, the ability to share images really cements that conversational feel that users are so accustomed to.

From that point, your team can help them troubleshoot throughout the conversation without fear of getting disconnected. Users can continuously show your team what they are seeing by exiting and reentering the conversation with updated screenshots. This really sets In-App messaging apart, because users can’t accidentally close the conversation (as opposed to a web browser), or have to start over if they lose their internet connection. A single, easy-to-follow conversation will continue until a resolution is reached, and your users will be so grateful for it.

Training your support team will be less of a headache.

Messaging has an informal feel to it, and while it’s important to maintain the company’s ‘voice’ through messaging, it’s a lot easier to train your team on key phrases that they can initially copy and paste, as opposed to having them memorize a script while simultaneously making it sound personable over the phone. The brevity and simplicity of conversing through messaging is appreciated by users, and requires less effort from your team. That, combined with the ‘non-instant’ expectation addressed above, translates to serious room for multi-tasking and answering multiple issues at a time.

The beauty of messaging is that it is so straight-forward and natural that it should barely leave an impression on the user. Your users won’t feel like they are working with customer support on an issue, and might even forget that they had to deal with customer support to begin with. Their positive customer journey will continue seamlessly, with less attention paid to the problems they may have experienced.

Ensure that your messaging is effective by utilizing user feedback.

The caveat is that if you do choose to implement In-App messaging, maintaining a high-quality standard is absolutely vital, and does demand dedicated resources. You need a well-trained team that can respond in a timely manner, with the knowledge base to effectively answer inquiries. Having this technical feature will set your business apart from competitors, but it needs to be done well.

Maintaining a seamless feedback loop is the way to ensure that it is executed flawlessly.

Following the resolution of an issue, it’s important to ask your users about their experience. Find out if they are satisfied with the level of customer support that they received, if their issues have been fully resolved, and if they have any comments about the process. This is so important to constantly improving your In-App messaging platform and app as a whole, and is a necessary component to achieve true customer prosperity.

Bottom-line, if your business has a high-quality support team in place, implementing In-App messaging through Helpshift’s easy-to-implement SDK (and keeping tabs on the process through ongoing feedback) will take care of the rest.