The Marriage Between Modern SDKs and In-App Customer Service

Are you struggling to keep your customers in-app at their most vulnerable moments? Modern mobile customer service starts and ends with the user — how you prioritize their time, how you deliver an unbeatable experience, and how you improve overall resolution efficiency so they can continue being loyal users.

The fact is that none of that can be accomplished when your customer support journey removes a user from the very place they are intended to be: in the app. When your customer service is only accessible through email, out-of-app chat, or phone, you’re doing yourself and your customers a disservice.

However, without the right developer tools, it becomes increasingly difficult to incorporate in-app customer service. While building customer support tools using legacy software development kits (SDK) is time-consuming for developers (not to mention ineffective for the modern app user), SDKs remain an integral component of every app.

User-friendly tools for your development, product, and customer support teams are crucial. Neurotags says this about the importance of SDKs (especially the right SDK):

“It is a fact that on average your app uses around 19 external SDKs, even more, if it’s a gaming application. Asking your developers to code every single tool from scratch is a waste of time and energy.”

Upgrading to a modern SDK allows more people to create and deploy tools that ultimately improve customer success and keep users in-app.

Are Legacy SDKs Holding You Back?

Software development kits (SDKs) are a package of development tools that can be used to develop a wide array of different applications and features. But how old SDKs and new SDKs operate is very different, and holding onto legacy SDKs for too long can hold you back. Let’s look at the key practical differences between the two:

Legacy SDKs

Legacy SDKs were developed when developer tools were fairly unintuitive (especially for users without a coding background). That creates a lot of barriers to entry, and those hurdles can stop you from making upgrades that improve your ability to respond to customer issues. Legacy SDKs are:

Code-Rich: Older SDKs need a lot of coding knowledge to use properly. They also rely on CSS throughout the development and deployment stages, which is time-intensive and opens your features up to bugs. The sheer amount of effort and expertise needed to make progress means key features will never be built.
Large: Legacy SDKs are bloated compared to modern tools. They demand a lot of storage space, which is bad news for apps that want to meet compact space requirements and run at lightning-fast speeds to appeal to users.
Time-Consuming to Use: The code-rich nature of older tools and other limitations in their capabilities mean developers have to spend more time on every task and feature. Not only does that cause a lot of delays that can frustrate end-users, it means some upgrades will have to fall off the project map. Even customers who are highly engaged with and loyal to your app will be frustrated when the functionalities on their wishlist keep getting pushed back.

Modern SDKs

Now let’s see how modern SDKs resolve those issues and offer a better experience for both your in-house teams and your customers. Modern SDKs are:

Simple and Intuitive: Without technical coding expertise as a barrier to entry, more of your team can hop on board with projects and feature development. Everyone can aid with deployment deadlines and gain insight into the process.
Smaller: Modern SDKs require less code, so they’re more compact. This efficiency can help your app and associated processes run smoothly.
Speedier: When you remove the time-intensive requirements of working with extensive coding, you can develop features faster. Faster patches, features, and upgrades to customer service ultimately lead to higher customer satisfaction.

SDKs and Customer Service

Consumers are turning to mobile app usage even more as we enter 2022 with the expectation of frictionless usage. While opportunity may be plentiful, that also puts added pressure on you to deliver a competitive customer experience with every engagement. When customers inevitably have problems, you need to make the resolution as seamless as possible.

That’s where modern SDKs come in.

These kits allow you and your team to customize your support features instead of sticking to standard out-of-the-box options. Those tools can work fairly well across most apps, but that’s not enough in today’s market where customer attention and experience are everything.

With modern SDKs, you can build features that:

Improve self-resolution: Modern app users don’t want to engage with super agents for every minor inconvenience they encounter. Instead, they want the ability to solve problems themselves and continue using the app. Modern SDKs allow your team to build tools that allow for automated self-resolution journeys using FAQs, self-help tutorials, and other knowledge base resources.
Keep live chat in-app: Rather than forcing users to submit ticket requests or inquiries via email, web chat, or phone, you can implement in-app chat resources that ensure your users stay where they are most comfortable.
Magnify the feedback process: Consumer feedback is a crucial aspect of customer service. However, when users can only provide feedback via email and pop-up surveys, they are less likely to give valuable feedback, if they respond at all. Using SDKs to implement in-app feedback improves response rates and helps you improve your product for your users.

Ultimately, even a single disruption that sends your user to a new platform can worsen their experience. It also creates resistance that stops them from returning to the app.

Make Your App Stronger With an SDK Solution From Helpshift

Modern SDKs are a better fit for both modern consumers and modern workplaces. At Helpshift, we develop cutting-edge solutions that are built to help your team deliver superior customer service experiences.When your team has access to a modern SDK like our SDK X solution, they have a better time creating user-centric solutions. Contact us today to learn more about our tools or to schedule a demo.