A 'Hotline' to calm angry customers on your app

Hotline provides real-time in-app messaging for customer engagement within mobile apps, reports Tech in Asia

For businesses running on mobile apps, it’s a pain to force users to go outside the app for customer support on email or phone. Cloud-based customer support software maker Freshdesk has a new painkiller for it, called Hotline.

This latest product from Freshdesk provides real-time in-app messaging for customer engagement within mobile apps. It enables support staff to resolve issues then and there without having to go out of the app. Most queries relate to the last transaction of a user, so a quick resolution means a happy customer instead of a frustrated one.

“Phone and email are not ideal channels for mobile app users. Mobile-first businesses face a unique set of challenges that need specific solutions,” explains Girish Mathrubootham, founder and CEO of Freshdesk. “Support needs to be in-app, engagement should be real-time, context must be readily available, and the solution has to be massively scalable. We built Hotline with these in mind.”

Almost a year ago, Girish had told Tech in Asia that a transformation is under way in how businesses think of customer support. He said it’s going to be more “proactive” – in the sense that businesses will connect with customers through multiple channels without waiting for them to reach out with a problem.

The launch of Hotline comes two months after Freshdesk’s acquisition of Konotor, which provided a two-way chat interface
for mobile apps to engage better with users.

Freshdesk’s first acquisition – Bangalore-based 1Click, which made software that enables live video chat and co-browsing – was to enhance Freshdesk’s capacity for customer interactivity. Its fourth acquisition, Framebench, announced just a couple of days ago, adds collaboration to its list of weapons. 

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.