It's all about the customer experience. Few businesses survive that don't work for the customer. New terminology in the world of customer service revolves around CX, the "customer experience," and it has become critically important in consumer purchasing decisions. A consumer purchase is often based on the quality of the customer's experience while searching for product information and support. Many times, customers use mobile devices to research and purchase products, which brings us to our discussion today - integrating customer support in mobile applications to improve the customer experience.

Here are a handful of reasons to do this, and ways to do it well:

1.    Integrate with existing SDKs to create a seamless chat experience for customers.

What is an SDK? An SDK is a software development kit that helps applications run better on software devices. SDKs are part of a software spectrum intended to make apps and other digital platforms more dynamic with less work and headaches for the company controlling them. "It provides elements that might not be directly native to the app," says Rachel Welber, Senior Customer Success Manager at Appboy. "They're not necessarily required, but they give your app that additional boost."

Integrating the existing SDKs that use live chat features to help improve the overall functionality of the app, enhances the customer experience. The end goal should be to integrate chat features into mobile applications in a way that better helps your customers.

Studies suggest that 75% of people ages 25-44 seek customer support via mobile more than once a month. These numbers become even more staggering with the below-25 age group. In total, 24% of the U.S. population seeks customer support through mobile applications at least a few times a week. These numbers show the need to improve application quality to help engage customers.

2.    Use native mobile apps to provide better all-around support.

Since today's customers use global mobile applications to obtain support, it's almost mandatory for companies to ensure they can communicate with customers using unique native mobile apps for each operating system's platform.

Native mobile applications have several benefits:

• Increased security and reliability:  web apps rely on a variety of browsers and underlying technologies, like JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS. There are likely to be more security and performance holes using web apps due to their non-standard nature; while native apps benefit from the more proactive security and performance upgrades of the platform itself.
• Ease of adding new and exciting features: native apps, with all their associated APIs, can result in greater creativity - even new APIs can be created!
• Delivering UI and UX that customers expect: web apps are made to look like native apps, but don't perform like them. Instead, they show as a single, generic UI across all platforms. This rarely matches the UX customers have come to expect. Customers will avoid using an app that feels awkward or strange, but a native app makes it easier to satisfy a customer's UI and UX expectations.

3.    Develop a mobile-friendly website to utilize the live chat app better.

Despite all the talk about live chat applications on mobile, there are times when users may not be interested in downloading a native app. For this reason, it's essential to provide the customer with a second option:  make sure your company's website is mobile-friendly.

A company's website is important.  It takes a lot of money to keep it active, running, and looking good. Therefore, you need to make sure that it works as smoothly from mobile as it does from a desktop, and that additional features, like live chat, are easily accessible in both formats.

4.    Engage customers through multiple channels.

There are many ways to ensure your customers are happy, and engaging them via multiple channels of communication is just one way. Here are a few examples:

a.    Co-Browsing: Co-Browsing solutions enable agents and customers to be on the same page - literally. Agents can instantly view and interact with customers' web browsers with the simple click of a button.

b.    Screen Sharing: Screen sharing is the answer for when agents want to show customers something outside the browser. It allows agents to show their screen or view and control the customer's screen.

c.    Video Chat: Live video chats help customers receive support and technical help and are an excellent means of engagement.

Conclusion

These are just a few ways to ensure that your customers are engaged, happy, and satisfied with their experience. You should never leave them wanting more, and giving them more in the first place helps. The power to use the latest, enhanced features, like chat apps, live video chat, co-browsing and screen sharing, will only enhance the customer experience. When managed strategically, using the latest tools and technology help your team deliver more memorable and satisfying customer experiences.