As A Mobile App Developer What Is Your Top Issue In Providing Tech Support?

ashconway · 01-09-2011, 04:18 PM

I know you’re very busy, but I really need your feedback: I'm building a free technical/customer support platform (SaaS) for mobile app developers, and I'd like your thoughts on what services would help you reduce support time and resources used to support users.

What are your top management issues that eat your time up in providing tech support, engaging your user base, or services you would like to see that would reduce the internal resources used to provide tech/cust support?

I am finalizing a set of core services to help mobile app developers manage their users' requests for help on app issues, crowd source app solutions when appropriate from your expert users, and identify and prioritize the most pressing bugs and feature requests. You thoughts on this would be very helpful.

If you would prefer to email instead of posting your thoughts publicly you can at: apphelpfeedback at gmail dot com.

Thanks for your help,
Ash Conway
AppHelp.com

bignoggins · 01-09-2011, 10:55 PM

Hmm to be honest customer service doesn't take up a whole lot of my time.

I've got hundreds of thousands of users and spend maybe 20 mins a week responding to emails and twitter.

Most apps cost less than a happy meal, so I don't think a lot of people are expecting a lot of customer support.

I think you may be a solution searching for a problem, but other devs may disagree. That's just my experience =)

MichaelE · 01-10-2011, 10:23 AM

Completely agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

Most apps cost less than a happy meal, so I don't think a lot of people are expecting a lot of customer support.

I think you may be a solution searching for a problem, but other devs may disagree. That's just my experience =)

**JasonR** · 01-10-2011, 10:57 AM

My app costs a lot more than a happy meal, and I still don't see a lot of support needs. In fact, most of my support emails are either about transferring apps to another device, or people who don't know about how things like the ring silence switch work. So my biggest need is an easy way to explain to people how iTunes and their devices work, and less about my app.

bignoggins · 01-10-2011, 11:08 AM

To put it another way: If your app is so confusing that it needs customer support, then you did a bad job writing the app in the first place =)

sgabello · 01-10-2011, 11:14 AM

Have you got a direct link to support inside your app? Because since I've added it, I get 10x the emails I was receiving before and I spend between 30 minutes to 1 hour a day to reply them all.
Thankfully they are pretty much all about the same issues... and most wouldn't be necessary if only users would read the description before downloading an App...

jptexas · 01-10-2011, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgabello

Have you got a direct link to support inside your app? Because since I've added it, I get 10x the emails I was receiving before and I spend between 30 minutes to 1 hour a day to reply them all.
Thankfully they are pretty much all about the same issues... and most wouldn't be necessary if only users would read the description before downloading an App...

+1
With just the default support email and even email address somewhere in the app, I was not getting anything. With a support form on the website, I receive a lot of questions, feedback, ideas for future updates... Good and bad stuff.
I am actually going to set up a forum soon, it should save me and my customers some time on common issues.

MichaelE · 01-10-2011, 12:14 PM

I had the same experience. The user could email me from within the app, but they rarely did so. Once I added a contact form to the website I regularly get contacted about bugs, suggestions or just to tell me they enjoy the app.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jptexas

+1
With just the default support email and even email address somewhere in the app, I was not getting anything. With a support form on the website, I receive a lot of questions, feedback, ideas for future updates... Good and bad stuff.
I am actually going to set up a forum soon, it should save me and my customers some time on common issues.

bluemonkey · 01-10-2011, 12:18 PM

Last year I think I got around 10 support emails with over 30,000 downloads across all my apps.

Although there is no support options in my apps, there is a link to the website where they can ask for support or contact me via iTunes.

SoftmasterG · 01-10-2011, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

To put it another way: If your app is so confusing that it needs customer support, then you did a bad job writing the app in the first place =)

IMO, as an application provides more functionality and offers more choices i.e. higher level of sophistication, it will require more customer support. I also believe age plays a role as well, the older the consumer the more questions they will usually have which will require more customer support.

ziocleto · 01-10-2011, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

To put it another way: If your app is so confusing that it needs customer support, then you did a bad job writing the app in the first place =)

It doesnt depend by the design of your app, or not entirely, it depends by what your app does.
If you have an app from you bank which is really simple and easy to use you'd still have to have a pretty damn good customer support. (Well, the bank has)

IE Sensible data, complex operations, privacy, security apps all require good customer support if you are serious about your business.

bignoggins · 01-10-2011, 04:31 PM

I used to put a mechanism to contact me from within the app, and yes i did get significantly more e-mails. But I actually took it out and put in an e-mail address instead.

I don't get as many pointless "awesome app" or "your app sucks" e-mails anymore. Now all my e-mails are legitimate problems people have that they actually take the effort to fire up a real e-mail editor to write me about.

Sales and ratings/reviews have not suffered one bit as a result. It just proves my theory that app customers don't really care about getting customer support for $1-$5 apps.

Of course YMMV depending on the type of app you have. I still stand by my statement though. If your app is THAT complicated that it literally requires customer support just to use, it's too complicated. Apps are supposed to be simple and intuitive. If it's not, you're doing a poor job.

Bertrand21 · 01-10-2011, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

I used to put a mechanism to contact me from within the app, and yes i did get significantly more e-mails. But I actually took it out and put in an e-mail address instead.

I don't get as many pointless "awesome app" or "your app sucks" e-mails anymore. Now all my e-mails are legitimate problems people have that they actually take the effort to fire up a real e-mail editor to write me about.

Sales and ratings/reviews have not suffered one bit as a result. It just proves my theory that app customers don't really care about getting customer support for $1-$5 apps.

Of course YMMV depending on the type of app you have. I still stand by my statement though. If your app is THAT complicated that it literally requires customer support just to use, it's too complicated. Apps are supposed to be simple and intuitive. If it's not, you're doing a poor job.

I have in app email support buttons. I get TONS of these
"Sent from my iPhone" With NOTHING written in it. It is really annoying! Haha

bignoggins · 01-10-2011, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bertrand21

I have in app email support buttons. I get TONS of these
"Sent from my iPhone" With NOTHING written in it. It is really annoying! Haha

Yeah those are the worst. Don't people know how to cancel out? haha.

TunaNugget · 01-10-2011, 05:05 PM

If I think an app is getting complicated enough to require much customer support, I think of it as a design problem, not a support problem.

It's a phone.

Edit: what mightybao said :-P

foany · 01-10-2011, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

Yeah those are the worst. Don't people know how to cancel out? haha.

You obviously made it too complicated

sgabello · 01-10-2011, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bertrand21

I have in app email support buttons. I get TONS of these
"Sent from my iPhone" With NOTHING written in it. It is really annoying! Haha

Same thing here... around 40/50 a day!

jptexas · 01-10-2011, 06:20 PM

I am happy now that I get more feedback from the users.

There are a ton of posts here on:
- How do I reply to reviews
- Beta testers needed
- Marketing, whether it is to understand customer needs, market research, promotion...
- How do I improve rankings/reviews with updates...
- ...

Well, I find having all those feedback emails not only help a lot addressing some of those questions directly, but also provides with a customer mailing list when you need to make direct announcements.

Not to count the few contacts I got for people interested in contract work.

There are a ton of ways of being successful, and not having a strong feedback system in place won't prevent many from selling huge amount of apps. But for some, it will be an important piece of the puzzle.

egaal · 01-10-2011, 06:53 PM

My biggest issue is perhaps more common to all tech support: not a lot of people seem to know what type of phone they have or what iOS they're running.

The confusion that caused the biggest headache is people who have an iPhone 3G but think they have an iPhone 3Gs. We've had to go as far as them sending us their exact model number and ID from the back of their phone and then for us to look up those numbers on the Internet to figure out what phone model we were dealing with. And of course when they report a problem they never include that info by default.

bignoggins · 01-10-2011, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foany

You obviously made it too complicated

That's why I got rid of it =)

bignoggins · 01-10-2011, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jptexas

There are a ton of ways of being successful, and not having a strong feedback system in place won't prevent many from selling huge amount of apps. But for some, it will be an important piece of the puzzle.

Absolutely. I find twitter the best for this. I have a built in UIView that shows my twitter posts and the advantage of this is that questions people have (and consequently my answers) are broadcast to everyone. So you don't have 100 people e-mailing you about the same thing.

Twitter, imo, is the best way to do customer support for iphone apps.

jptexas · 01-10-2011, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

I have a built in UIView that shows my twitter posts

Nice

MichaelE · 01-11-2011, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

Absolutely. I find twitter the best for this. I have a built in UIView that shows my twitter posts and the advantage of this is that questions people have (and consequently my answers) are broadcast to everyone. So you don't have 100 people e-mailing you about the same thing.

Twitter, imo, is the best way to do customer support for iphone apps.

They have the option to log into twitter and ask a question from within your app?

bignoggins · 01-11-2011, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harkonian

They have the option to log into twitter and ask a question from within your app?

Yeah they do. It's just a UIWebView that shows the mobile twitter site. Very easy to implement.

MichaelE · 01-11-2011, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightybao

Yeah they do. It's just a UIWebView that shows the mobile twitter site. Very easy to implement.

I guess I always over-engineer things. I immediately started thinking about how the OAuth or xAuth to twitter would work in a case like yours (where twitter is a trianary feature), what sort of error handling would be reasonable and if it was worth it to implement. LOL.