“Your website isn’t the center of your universe. Your Facebook page isn’t the center of your universe. Your mobile app isn’t the center of your universe. The customer is the center of your universe.”– Bruce Ernst
When developing apps, support is highly overlooked. Over HALF of mobile customers will delete and forget about an app if they are confused or experiencing technical issues.
You’re not the DMV! Your customers don’t want or deserve to have their time wasted.
Respond and take action to support emails and reviews. This is your most valuable business asset and is critical to building a successful company.
Previously unknown apps can gain popularity quickly. For example, it only took Instagram 3 months to hit 1 million users. As your user base grows, so does the volume of support tickets. You’ll get emails, phone calls, Tweets, and other messages from frustrated users.
How are you going to manage your support base?
It can be difficult for individuals and small teams to keep up. If you want to prevent this stuff from taking up all your time and still provide excellent customer service, support automation is key. These tips can help you focus on developing killer apps instead of resolving customer support tickets.
[sc name=”Position – 1 – Shortcode” ]
Provide in-app FAQs that answer common questions
FAQs help cut down on new user support tickets. Over 90% of consumers say that they would use a knowledge base before contacting customer support.
Check out Bluecloud’s Knowledge Base for an example. Here’s an overview of how it works:
1. Audit support emails and reviews for common issues
You can’t create helpful FAQ content without knowing what questions are most common from your support queue. Organization is key. List the most common questions and track how many people asked that particular question.
2. Create a template response to reply to users
If a question or issue is brought up more than once, create a teamplate response for it.
When writing your response, adopt a style that speaks clearly to your users. Provide clear, numbered steps written in a user-friendly tone. Don’t assume that your users will understand technical terms or seemingly basic tasks.
Keep in mind your responses can easily be shared with the world. Keep your cool. Don’t hurt your business by acting on negative and rude responses. Some people are eager to throw you under the bus with Social Network platforms like Facebook.
3. Upload template responses to Knowledge Base
This takes 3 seconds and saves hundreds of hours of work. It’s also a great SOP when scaling your business.
A wall of text is scary. Break the content into pieces and use plenty of subheadings for readability.
4. Skip out of work early and Hi-Five yourself
When you automate, you save time and money. Get ready to accumulate extra time and money for more important things like happy hours and lazy beach days.
Knowledge base content should be easy to navigate so users can quickly identify the problem and discover the solution. If information isn’t easy to find, expect a full support mailbox.
Don’t forget to review and update FAQ content regularly. Otherwise users will be confused by outdated or inconsistent information. Keeping content accurate and available will help reduce the number of new support tickets.
Find a reliable crash reporting tool
Even the most carefully coded apps are bound to crash from time to time. But an app that crashes frequently probably won’t be a 5-star app anytime soon. So, it’s important to know when and why crashes occur.
When it comes to troubleshooting, you need information like the OS version, device type, and application version. The more details the better. That way, you can turn a crash into an opportunity to improve your app.
At the same time, know your priorities. Don’t waste valuable time trying to implement an automated solution when other tasks are of higher importance. You have plenty of other things to focus on (like developing killer apps). That’s why it’s a good idea to leverage existing tools for crash reporting.
There are several reliable crash reporting tools for iOS. Crashlytics is used by well known companies like Path and Yammer. Crittercism has been adopted by companies like Netflix, Eventbrite, and LinkedIn. HockeyApp is pretty well known in the indie developer world (probably because it’s made by indie developers).
[sc name=”Position – 2 – Shortcode” ]
Get additional app support resources
Tools like AppbotX can offer additional automated customer support for your mobile apps. It provides a variety of features that can help you get better app reviews, better rankings, and more downloads. It’s used by big players like Twitter, Evernote, and Pocket.
Developers can use AppbotX to collect in-app feedback from users. If a user has a problem, the complaint will go directly to your inbox instead of the App Store. This gives you a chance to resolve customer issues and improve your app with fewer negative consequences.
AppbotX also makes it easy to put your knowledge base inside the app. Users also have access to a web support page that includes all your FAQs and feedback forms. It’s perfect for a support link in the App Store.
Check out our Resources page for more tools that will help change and automate your business.
Outsource Support
How much is your time worth?
Are you spending too many hours on support emails that could be easily done by someone else?
Don’t waste your valuable time with support if you are experiencing high volume support tickets when you can easily hire someone else to take care of it. How easy would it be to hire a VA to work 5 hours a week on support tickets?
We’ve all heard of Tim Ferris’s bestseller The Four Hour Workweek. Outsourcing is key to save time on other more important things. Check out these Top 10 Epic Books to improve yourself and your business.
33% of users will try to get in touch with customer support when experiencing issues with mobile apps – Call Center Times
Be prepared.
For more strategies and tips to how the best in the biz organize their business and life, read Carter’s Productivity Hacking post.
Have any juicy Customer Support stories? Share them in the comments section.