Date Published September 24, 2019 - Last Updated December 17, 2019
Desktops and laptops have historically gotten all the love and attention when it comes to remote support. But mobile devices are here to stay and refuse to be ignored. Now is a great time to take a good, hard look at your support strategy and consider a mobile-first approach.
Why, exactly? Because most people spend about a third of their waking hours on their mobile devices. That’s an average of 5 hours a day spent on mobile. Our mobile devices are almost always within reach—on our desks or in our hands, pockets, or bags. And if it isn’t right there, we’re searching for it. We rely on that cellular miracle to get through our personal and work lives. Using our mobile devices is in our muscle memory, and many of us are even ditching our laptops and moving entirely to mobile.
It’s a fact that customers are already in a mobile mindset. Support teams need to get there, too. But it’s not as easy as extending traditional remote support to mobile users. Legacy remote support tools were built to service customers on desktops through channels like live chat that aren’t so readily available on mobile devices.
Customers are already in a mobile mindset. Support teams need to get there, too.
Instead of taking what you have and making it work for mobile, it’s going to serve you and your customers better to look at remote support from a mobile-first perspective. This way, you can offer a more consistent remote support experience across web and mobile, and you can streamline your workflow. With web and mobile support working together, all tickets can flow into the same queue; you can get diagnostic data for your customer’s device, operating system, and network; and you can achieve faster resolutions. You’ll also be shored up for the trend that’s not slowing down: mobile adoption.
When you’re ready to get started on your mobile-first support strategy, here are some important things to bear in mind:
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One Support Experience. Customers aren’t necessarily thinking in terms of platforms and channels. When they reach out for support, they simply expect the support experience to be the same regardless of how they access it—through your website, in your product, on mobile or web. But the inconsistency created when users get help via live chat on web but are limited to email or phone support on mobile causes friction and frustration. This can be avoided by unifying the support experience across mobile and web so that regardless of the device users are on, they have the right tools for fast resolution.
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Automated User Data. Customer profiles offer a wealth of information that helps the support agent assist the customer during a session. Agents can see user habits and equipment info that help accelerate the support process. Even better, user data can be collected automatically as they come in for support via web or mobile so that agents can see what device and operating system the user is running and their network stats, all next to existing user records. When all this diagnostic information is served up by the support tool, the agent won’t have to spend time going through the steps of asking the customer for this information, ultimately speeding up the session, decreasing the likelihood of frustration, and improving support accuracy. You’ll also end up with rich data around how and where users are reaching out to your support team for more robust analytics.
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Mobile-Ready Agent Tools. We’ve talked about bridging the support gap between users on web and mobile to give them a seamless experience. But what about your support agents? Support solutions that are purpose-built for both web and mobile support offer agents a seamless experience as they diagnose and repair issues and communicate with the customer, no matter the device they are on.
How will you serve the growing number of customers who rely heavily, if not fully, on mobile? Companies with service and support teams must strategize how to bring the best of web support to mobile devices to meet and even exceed customer expectations and to keep a leg up on the competition. Users want fast and frictionless support—even (and especially) on mobile devices where convenience has become a way of life. Your mobile-first support strategy is the key to making it happen.
Anand Rajaram is the Director of Products for LogMeIn’s Support Solutions. As Product Lead, he is responsible for the shaping the vision, product strategy, and overall direction for RescueAssist. Prior to LogMeIn, Anand served as the Director of Products at HubSpot, and co-founded OfficeDrop, a cloud storage solution for paper-intensive small and medium businesses.