Digital Engagement Blog

Imagine this phrase uttered in a bored tone by a cashier, and it might take you back to the last time you made a complex purchase in a brick-and-mortar store. Armed with product knowledge, you entered the store and found a sales person and explained what you wanted. If that person wasn’t helpful, you were referred to a manager, and you explained what you wanted all over again.

Although there are a variety of ways for shoppers to experience poor customer service (see our recent blog “The Worst Shopping Experience Ever”), it’s costing companies more than just lost revenues when it happens within their apps.

Are mobile shoppers abandoning their shopping carts on your app? If you’ve put time, money, and effort into your mobile app, it can be frustrating when shoppers begin using it, but then simply abandon the app without making any purchases.

That was a comment I received from Tobias Goebel, Director of Mobile Strategy at Aspect Software, on my recent Omnichannel is Dead blog post.

The other day I went shopping for shoes, and I had the worst shopping experience ever.   I’m not going to name the store, but it’s one that you would know.  I was virtually alone browsing the merchandise, looking at business casual work shoes to get me through the colder weather that will soon be upon us.

Retailers, banks, businesses large and small are pouring money into their mobile apps. However, there is one item they continue to forget: Customer care.

What would happen if you woke up tomorrow morning and realized you were spending millions of dollars trying to solve the wrong problem? 

Earlier this week, ridesharing innovator Uber announced that it has partnered with nearly a dozen companies to allow users to directly order rides from within their apps. If a user is in the parent app of any of Uber’s selected partners, including OpenTable, Starbucks, and United Airlines, they can directly order a ride without having to close the existing app and then open the Uber app. “Uber” brilliant idea, isn’t it?

Recently I was talking with a customer service executive who has run several large contact centers.  I asked him where mobile customer care fell on his priority list.