So, you have a great app that’s going to take the world by storm? The competition’s stiff, with over 3.5 million apps available in the Google Play store alone. It’s slightly easier to break into the Apple Store market, but you still have to compete with over 1.6 million apps.
Overcoming that initial challenge means that app development is no longer a set-and-forget game. Today, you need to offer a better experience to differentiate yourself. For this article, we interviewed the team at SupportYourApp. the live chat outsourcing experts, to learn why proactive support is the key to better success in a crowded market.
Understand Your Users
You should’ve done copious amounts of research to define your target audience and understand their needs, preferences, and pain points. If you haven’t done the work, start now and make sure you understand your customer’s expectations.
Onboarding Assistance
What happens when someone downloads your app? Do you have clear instructions on what to do next? Do you offer them a helpful navigation guide and tooltips? If not, they might miss vital features and move across to a competitor’s app.
In-App Messaging
Use in-app messaging or push notifications to communicate important updates, new features, or tips on how to use your app effectively. However, there is a caveat here, don’t bombard your users several times a day. Keep communications to a minimum to avoid irritating your users.
Automated Email Campaigns
Offer users the opportunity to opt into a mailing list. You can then send them useful information and resources via email. Again, stick to content the user is interested in and keep marketing to a minimum.
It’s better to have a dedicated base that opens every email than customers who ignore your messages. You’ll achieve more sales with the latter, even if you only send out a tenth of the marketing blasts.
User Guides and Tutorials
Set up a good knowledge base that customers can search easily. Include user guides, FAQs, tutorials, and video demonstrations that explain how to use your app’s features. Create a link to this help page within the app itself.
Proactive Issue Detection
Also, look at what you can do from your side to detect issues in real-time. There are several monitoring tools that can help you monitor app crashes or slow performance times. Set up alerts to deal with these issues immediately, preferably before your customers notice them.
User Analytics
Also, monitor user analytics to identify common points of frustration or abandonment. You can then consider reaching out to clients for feedback on why they acted the way they did. Use this data to improve your app.
Feedback Collection
It’s also critical to give your users a way to submit feedback or report issues within the app. The easier you make this, the greater the chance of them sharing their feedback or concerns.
This is one of the best ways to critically review and improve your app.
Personalization
Use user data to personalize the user experience. Recommend relevant content or features based on a user’s past interactions with your app.
Proactive Support Bots
Chatbots are becoming an important support tool. They’re relatively easy to implement and can reduce support tickets. Your bots can answer repetitive questions quickly and effectively, freeing your team up for more important support issues.
Furthermore, a chatbot offers 24/7 support no matter where you are globally. However, there’s a slight catch. Bots can’t offer the same level of support that humans can, so you will need to have a backup for more complex queries.
Monitor Satisfaction
In addition to making it easy for users to provide feedback, also send out surveys on a regular basis. Learn whether or not customers are happy with the app and what they’d like you to change. You may need to incentivize users to participate, but this can provide valuable insights.
Bug Reporting and Tracking
It’s virtually impossible to catch all the bugs in an app before its release. Your users understand that and will be willing to help you by reporting these anomalies. That is, they will if it’s easy to do so. Include a feature to report issues in the app and follow up with a bug-tracking system.
Implementing a help desk ticketing system can efficiently manage and track user-reported issues, ensuring prompt responses and resolution. Additionally, it can serve as a centralized platform for your support team to collaborate and prioritize tasks effectively.
Community Building
Build up the hype about your app by fostering a community. You can do this through forums, social media, or a dedicated online platform. Look at rewarding users who actively help others or participate in the community and encourage everyone to share their experiences.
Quality Assurance
Conduct thorough testing and quality assurance before releasing updates or new versions to minimize the risk of introducing new issues. Be especially sure that you’ve addressed issues that arose in previous releases.
Send Regular Updates
Made some improvements or critical changes? Let your customers know before they have issues with it. Keep your users up to date with helpful release notes and through your user community.
Train Your Team
You ned a proactive team who excels at problem-solving and dealing with all types of customers. If you’re running on a skeleton staff, it may prove useful to outsource your technical support to instantly gain the skills you lack.
Doing so can also have the ancillary benefit of providing you with a team who can proactively reach out to customers. These contact sessions can be to discuss the client’s experience, check if they’re enjoying the product, or improving their understanding of it. Such proactive contact can improve customer satisfaction by dealing with issues before they frustrate the client.
Create Clear Escalation Paths
Set up clear escalation paths in place for handling more complex issues. Every member of your support team should understand the process to avoid sending the customer from pillar to post.
Close the Feedback Loop
Close the feedback loop by acknowledging user feedback, sharing your solutions, and thanking users for their input.
Wrapping Things Up
Proactive customer support can significantly enhance user satisfaction, reduce churn, and contribute to the long-term success of your app. By continuously striving to improve the user experience and anticipating their needs, you can build a loyal base and stay competitive in the app market.
With over a decade in the tech field, Bogdan blends technical expertise with insights on business innovation in technology.
A regular contributor to TMS Outsource's blog, where you'll find sharp analyses on software development, tech business strategies, and global tech dynamics.
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