A survey conducted by Radius Global Marketing Research revealed that users are more likely to delete an app if it’s lacking quality customer support. Majority of Americans, 81 percent, use mobile apps on a daily basis, either for checking out what’s going happening on their social media profiles, catching up with current events in the world and, of course, completing their work tasks. Helpshift, a customer support company based in San Francisco, has announced the results of the survey conducted among 2,170 adult Americans, to show that an average American consumer not only expects their apps to have solid support, but nearly 70% of them will go a step beyond and report problems to the developer. Nearly half of the participants in the survey explained that they are likely to delete an app if it’s malfunctioning or simply frustrating to use. To a lesser degree (24 percent of participants), mobile app users will leave a bad review or they’d bad-mouth it to their friends (19 percent). Only 18 percent of app users will publicly, via social media, talk about their bad experience with a mobile app.
This data should not come as a surprise, as typical user isn’t likely to go out of their way digging around Google or contacting the app’s developer over email. That is why it’s now important for the apps to have integrated communication with the customer support representatives. The survey has revealed more than half of Americans don’t believe email is a trustworthy form of communication with the developers and they would rather use messaging or, better yet, have live chat integrated into the app. Abinash Tripathy, Founder and CEO of Helpshift, explained that mobile apps with in-app customer support build loyalty to the brand as they allow the users to talk to support agents the way they communicate with their friends and family. More so, 89 percent of Americans said they would recommend an app if a potential problem was solved in-app instead of having to use other methods to contact customer support.
In the competitive environment such is the mobile app market, user experience now matters more than ever and Helpshift’s survey shows a rising trend among the mobile app users. The app makers will have to meet their users’ expectations if they wish to stay afloat and grow the user base. Nowadays, email support is simply not enough it seems.