Survey: Mobile Apps Could Improve Customer Care Woes (April 1, 2014)
Mobile-based customer care is failing to meet the needs of users, who still suffer from many of the same old issues, along with some new problems that have cropped up more recently. Those are among the main takeaways of survey results released last week by Contact Solutions, a Reston, Va.-based provider of cloud-based and mobile customer self-service tools.
Conducted in late 2013, the survey polled 1,200 consumers, with the goal of examining customer satisfaction and adoption rates of mobile customer service tools. Among the most prevalent customer complaints with existing mobile customer service were: taking too long to solve problems; having to repeat the same information multiple times; and having to make multiple attempts to solve a problem due to the inconvenience of call-based customer service. Along with those long-lingering issues, the poll uncovered two new common complaints: Customers felt they couldn’t solve problems on the go; and were not able to switch conversation methods with customer service agents, or start and stop those interactions at their own convenience.
Those problems all boil down to one main issue, the report noted—the “fractured experience” caused by companies failing to capitalize on the multichannel communication options offered by customer care mobile apps. While shopping and communication have changed drastically with the advent of such apps, customer care has not kept up, remaining mostly phone call-based, according to the company. To improve the experience, the report advises adopting an approach that incorporates multiple communication channels—including text, videos, pictures and scanned barcodes—into an integrated mobile app. “Doing these things not only improves the overall experience, but improves the brand experience across the entire life cycle of the customer from purchase through care and throughout the ongoing relationship,” the report notes.
For more on customer service best practices, see our special report in the Fall issue of Pay Magazine.
