In just a few short years, mobile devices have overtaken desktop computers to become the dominant tool of choice for shopping, searching, and connecting. Along the way, mobile has altered consumer’s expectations of the companies they do business with, turning the marketplace into a vast community of instant gratification seekers. People want to connect with companies whenever the whim strikes them. Issues and questions, no matter how trivial, demand an instant response and solution. With a single click or tap on a smartphone, consumers expect the companies that they choose to do business with to make the situation right again.

The rise of mobile devices has presented new challenges as well as opportunities for companies to improve the quality of their customer service efforts. Mobile apps can help you deliver an effective and highly responsive 24-7 experience that will meet or exceed the expectations of even your most demanding customers.

Why Mobile Apps are Critical to Your Customer Service Delivery

• Mobile apps deliver an instant response. Routine questions and issues can be addressed in seconds with an app residing on your customer’s mobile device.
• Some customer service issues may not require a live agent interaction. Mobile apps that can provide a quick resolution to customer queries and issues saves you the expense of live agent time while delivering a fast and effective solution to customer problems.
• Mobile apps typically deliver a high quality customer experience. A customer service app that’s integrated into your customer’s mobile device provides a seamless method of delivering highly responsive solutions to common issues and queries.

Use Mobile Apps to Provide Customers with More Self-Serve Options
When given a choice, many consumers will select a self-service option. While this represents an easy and cost-effective solution for many companies, customers should be offered the option to connect with a live agent or request a call-back to facilitate the transaction.

Use Mobile Apps to Enhance Your Social Media Efforts
Social media and customer service go hand-in-hand. Consumers increasingly use their mobile devices to interact on social media networks, and your company needs to take full advantage of this trend. A mobile app can help your company monitor and stay engaged with customers through their medium of choice as well as facilitate purchases through shopping features embedded directly on social media sites.

Use Mobile Apps to Provide In-App Customer Service
A strong mobile presence is directly tied to the quality of in-app customer service. According to a study conducted by Contact Solutions, 25 percent of all shoppers who had to exit an app to resolve an issue were unlikely to purchase from that company. Over 80 percent of respondents reported needing help while engaging with apps, with 50 percent registering a strong dislike to leaving an app to receive help.

Popular Customer Service App Solutions
Nina Mobile offers a high-quality voice control customer service solution that enables customers to submit requests and receive a response via their choice of voice or text message.
Kayako combines a help desk with real-time customer support that provides full ticket management and time tracking support.

Desk.com is a customer relationship management platform designed for small businesses that allows you to engage with customers across multiple support channels including Facebook, Twitter, phone, email or chat.

Freshdesk automatically converts Facebook comments, Twitter mentions, and incoming emails into support tickets that can be viewed and responded to on your own mobile device.