Customer Service Must Include the Mobile User
Customer Service Must Include the Mobile User by Michael F. Finneran
It is no secret that customers are becoming increasingly tied to their various mobile devices and they in turn are becoming the primary means by which people engage e-business. While organizations have developed methods of providing support for desktop and laptop customers, the same cannot be said for this growing population of mobile customers. This situation is particularly worrisome not only because it impacts one of the fastest growing sales channels, but because people are opting for these mobile devices primarily because they are more convenient and can support spur-of-the-moment purchases. Companies that fail to provide the requisite level of support for these consumers face the potential of driving those customers to competitors who can measure up.
Businesses need to develop new customer service capabilities to meet the expectations of these mobile customers and provide ways to serve them better and faster to form stronger and more lasting relationships. Many organizations have struggled to determine how best to use these new tools to their advantage, and provide their customers with a capability that works well and adds value. Gaining that advantage requires delivering the type of mobile experience users have come to expect from the apps, an experience that can take place from anywhere, at any time, and with a few taps.
The sad standard for customer support in a mobile application is to provide a toll free number for the contact center. Of course, calling that toll free number from a cell phone still uses wireless minutes. That model also assumes the customer is using a smartphone running the company’s app, however increasingly mobile transactions are originating from tablets which offer bigger screens and easier navigation, but lack a cell phone capability. So those customers will need to get access to a wired or wireless phone to place the call.
The customer service situation only degenerates from there. When the customer does reach an agent, they now have to describe laboriously what they were doing and how they were attempting to do it before they encountered the problem. The agent’s response is also slowed down because the description can be vague, the caller is annoyed, and will become even more so as the call drags on. Unfortunately, that is as far as most organizations have progressed in providing service to mobile customers.
Maybe It’s Time for a New Approach
The vast majority of customer service solutions were developed using a certain set of expectations, but unfortunately most of those expectations are not met in a mobile environment. The first set of challenges presented itself when users shifted from traditional bricks-and-mortar outlets to the web and those are changing even more dramatically with the move to the mobile web channel. They might not be at home. Access to a phone may be limited. They are trying to squeeze this transaction in between several other responsibilities or really don’t have the time to engage in an extended call with an agent.
The real leap forward can come with an app that interfaces directly with the contact center to provide a relationship-enhancing service experience. When a customer using the app encounters an issue, the app should be able to do more than simply display a toll free number to call. Rather, the app should automatically alert the contact center that the customer is experiencing an issue. Along with the alert, the app should provide the entire history of the customer’s session so the diagnosis can begin before the customer is even on the phone.
Unlike the traditional approach where the customer places a call and is dropped into a queue, the contact center can place the mobile service request in a “virtual queue” and send the customer a notice as to when an agent will call them. There are no wasted cell minutes, no wasted time on the part of the customer, and the customer can be given the option to change the time or number for the callback to a time that’s more convenient for them.
Knowing what the customer has gone through, what products or services they were looking at, and where the app failed before they even place the outbound call, the agent can begin working on the customer’s issue as soon as they answer. In essence, the agent is aware of the entire transaction context, and ready to work with the customer as soon as they pick up the call. The agent will know exactly who the customer is, their purchase history, and the transaction they were conducting so the issue can be resolved quickly and efficiently. And there is no need to rehash how the whole issue came about.
The key is that few organizations can deliver this type of mobile-aware customer service experience today, and the ability to deliver that level of customer service to busy mobile users can be the key to building stronger and longer lasting customer relationships.
The other question is, how do you build this type of application and what if you already have a mobile application? First the contact center platform must have the ability to support this type of mobile aware application. The solution should allow you to develop a customer service enabled app that will support at least iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, and do so with a minimum of effort. As you don’t want an app that is used exclusively for customer service, the development kit should allow your developers to provide other functions like placing orders, querying order status and the like. If your company already has an app that provides those functions and that the customers are familiar with, the contact center solution should have APIs available that allow developers to incorporate these new capabilities.
Finally, since not all customers have upgraded to smartphones as yet, those same capabilities should be available through your company’s Facebook page as well, so that all of the new customer touch points have access to the same level of service.
Conclusion
With all of the excitement surrounding mobile business, organizations are falling over themselves to get apps out to their customers. However, an app that delivers a bad customer experience is not going to win over customers and with the rush to deliver, there’s a good chance no one is looking at the customer service attributes of the app. At the end of the day the goal is to deliver a compelling customer experience and one that builds strong relationships regardless of how or from where the customer is reaching out to you. With good planning and a solid platform on which to build, you can deliver a mobile customer service experience that truly sets you apart.
Interactive Intelligence’s Interaction Mobilizer product is an app development tool designed to work with their Customer Interaction Center that will deliver the type of mobile-enabled customer service solution described here. The Interaction Mobilizer can be used to develop an app and also provides an API allowing your developers to integrate this capability with an existing iOS or Android application. For more information: https://www.inin.com/solutions/Pages/Mobile-Customer-Service.aspx
This paper is sponsored by Interactive Intelligence.