Have you been hearing a lot about digital micro apps? You are definitely not alone.
These days, customers expect a lot more from customer experience than they did twenty–or even five–years ago. Extensive consumer experience with ultra-efficient digital platforms like Google, Amazon, and Meta has significantly raised the bar on what consumers expect from a customer experience.
These escalating customer expectations are arguably the single biggest challenge that customer experience leaders face as they work to offer digital CX offerings that people welcome, use, and appreciate.
Getting CX right for today also demands a change in mindset. While many companies have historically gravitated to megaprojects like creating multi-functional mobile apps or online service portals, these tactics are increasingly ineffective in a world in which customers expect straightforward experiences to come to them.
As businesses strive to meet these high customer expectations, they are exploring innovative solutions to enhance customer service offerings. One such solution that is gaining significant traction is digital micro apps
What are Digital Micro Apps?
Digital micro apps are small, self-contained applications that perform specific tasks or functions. These bite-sized applications streamline complex processes into simple, intuitive interactions, making them ideal for customer service.
Here’s a summary of key traits for digital micro apps:
- Single-Purpose Focus: Each digital micro app is designed to perform one specific task or function exceptionally well.
- Streamlined Interface: A digital micro app user interface is simple, intuitive, and uncluttered, allowing for easy navigation and quick task completion.
- Lightweight and Fast: Digital micro apps are small in size and load quickly, minimizing wait times and maximizing efficiency.
- Mobile-First Design: Digital micro apps are often optimized for mobile devices, prioritizing a seamless experience on smartphones and tablets. However, they function equally well on PC screens because they are built with responsive design.
- Integration Capabilities: They can be easily integrated with your existing tech platforms, so you keep your tech stack intact.
- Data-Driven Insights: Micro apps often collect usage data, allowing businesses to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences.
With a digital micro app, all unnecessary information and steps are stripped away, giving the customer a dead simple path to follow and instant gratification.
How Do They Simplify Customer Tasks and Internal Processes?
Suppose a customer wants to check their account balance, update their personal information, or submit a support ticket. With a traditional customer service portal or mobile app, they might need to locate the right solution, launch it, navigate through multiple menus, fill out lengthy forms, and sometimes wait for a response.
Digital micro apps replace all this high-friction workflow with straightforward digital experiences expressly developed to solve problems quickly. A customer opens the relevant digital micro app, performs the desired action in a few taps, and receives instant feedback/success. This streamlined approach significantly improves the customer experience by reducing friction and frustration.
Digital micro apps can also automate the internal process steps and workflows required by your existing platforms and processes. Instead of manual steps, digital micro apps can instantly and automatically perform tasks like delivering information to multiple systems, sending alerts to reviewers and approvers, updating schedules and status, or any other process step.
Why Do Many Customers Prefer Micro Apps to Customer Portals and Full-Featured Mobile Apps?
Digital micro apps offer distinct advantages over traditional customer portals and full-featured mobile apps. Their streamlined design and focused functionality cater to the growing demand for quick, convenient solutions. Further, they require no software download to be used.
Micro apps are designed for single-purpose interactions. This allows users to quickly access the specific service they need without being overwhelmed by extraneous features or information. They are lightweight and load quickly, delivering a seamless experience.
Another advantage of micro apps is their contextuality. They can be accessed directly from messaging platforms or social media channels, eliminating the need to hunt for the right solution or switch between devices. This contextual integration allows users to address customer service issues without disrupting their existing workflow, providing a convenient and efficient solution.
Digital micro apps are typically spawned by link clicks or button presses in an IVR. With these actions, the user is redirected to a secure micro application to complete their task. One of the most common delivery methods is via text message. The user receives a text message containing the link and taps for immediate access. Here’s an example of a foundational digital micro app:
How Fast Can Customers Solve Problems with Digital Micro Apps?
Customers want effortless customer experiences that solve their problems as quickly as possible. To estimate average consumer completion time, we analyzed customer workflow durations across all of our clients and use cases. Callvu clients deliver millions of customer experiences each month with digital micro apps. While completion time varies based on the number of task elements, most digital micro apps take less than 2 minutes to complete. A more complex process, like an insurance application, might take a few more minutes. However, in all cases, they offer significant time and effort savings versus the methods they replace.
Further, because these experiences are architected for simplicity, consumers can almost always complete them without further assistance. For example, across Callvu’s network of hundreds of experiences across multiple industries, markets, and customer digital readiness levels, we see a 92.3% successful completion rate for digital micro apps.
Can They Replace PDF-Based Experiences?
Yes. This is one of the most common digital micro app use cases.
When Adobe introduced PDFs to the world in 1993, they were a revelation. Transmittable, formatted forms that could be shared with others quickly. Documents optimized for PC screens! But in the ensuing 29 years, technology and customer expectations have changed markedly:
- 55% of US Internet access is via small mobile screens.
- Pew Internet reported that 15% of US Households do not have home Internet access, relying entirely on smartphone connections and small-screen viewing.
- 19% of Millennials have smartphone-only personal Internet access.
- A 2019 study showed 38% of consumers lacked a home printer. That figure has surely increased as Millennials and Gen Z now account for 41M total households.
These trends make PDFs less of a convenience and more of a trying experience that users must endure. Of course, using the word “must” in this context is incorrect because customers likely have many options for working with companies that don’t require these poor customer interactions.
Replacing PDF-based processes with digital micro apps offers numerous advantages that streamline customer experiences and boost efficiency:
- Enhanced User Experience: Micro apps provide a more intuitive and user-friendly interface than cumbersome PDFs, reducing friction and frustration.
- Improved Data Accuracy: Micro apps can validate data in real time, minimizing errors and ensuring accurate information collection.
- Increased Automation: Automated data capture and pre-filled fields save time for both customers and employees.
- Streamlined Workflows: Micro apps integrate seamlessly with existing systems, eliminating manual data entry and reducing processing time.
- Mobile Optimization: Micro apps are designed for mobile devices, allowing customers to complete tasks on the go.
- Data-Driven Insights: Micro apps enable businesses to collect valuable data on customer behavior and preferences, informing better decision-making.
In sum, digital micro apps offer a more efficient, accurate, and customer-centric approach.
How are Digital Micro Apps Created/Developed?
New tech platforms make developing digital micro apps incredibly easy for CX teams. For example, Callvu’s No-Code Studio revolutionizes how brands create digital micro apps, offering a streamlined alternative to lengthy custom development processes. This innovative platform empowers businesses to design and deploy digital micro apps within hours, significantly reducing time-to-market and associated production costs.
Callvu’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows users to build micro apps without coding knowledge. The platform offers a rich library of pre-built components and templates, enabling users to quickly assemble and customize micro apps to meet their specific needs. Additionally, Callvu’s visual workflow builder simplifies the creation of complex interactions and logic flows, further accelerating the development process.
With Callvu, brands can create micro apps that seamlessly integrate with their existing websites and mobile applications, providing a cohesive customer experience. The platform also supports various channels, including web, mobile, and messaging platforms, ensuring broad accessibility for users.
Gamechanger: Callvu AI Elements
Additionally, Callvu has recently introduced Callvu AI Elements–drag-and-drop modules that make it easy to incorporate powerful AI capabilities into digital micro apps without coding.
With Callvu AI Elements, any company or developer can incorporate the ease and simplicity of generative AI at any point in their digital customer service flows. Further, Callvu AI Elements incorporate enterprise-grade capabilities like data security, trusted data sources, and pre-built platform integrations.
Callvu’s pay-for-use pricing model allows brands to avoid large upfront investments and only pay for the actual usage of their digital micro apps. This means that businesses are not locked into expensive contracts or forced to pay for features they don’t need. Instead, they can scale their usage up or down as needed, paying only for the value they receive. This flexible approach is particularly beneficial for companies interested in trying digital micro apps without making an enormous upfront commitment.
A Perfect Fit for Service Industries
Digital micro apps are a game-changer for service companies, offering a range of benefits that streamline operations and enhance customer experience. By automating repetitive tasks, these apps liberate customer service agents from mundane inquiries, allowing them to dedicate their expertise to more complex issues that require a human touch. This translates to increased efficiency and cost reduction as incoming requests decrease and resources can be allocated more strategically.
Beyond operational advantages, digital micro apps provide invaluable data insights into customer behavior and preferences. By analyzing interactions within these apps, companies can glean valuable information about customer pain points, product usage patterns, and overall satisfaction levels. With this data-driven understanding, businesses can make informed decisions to refine their offerings and tailor experiences that resonate with their target audience.
Most importantly, digital micro apps play a crucial role in elevating customer satisfaction. By delivering a seamless, intuitive, and personalized experience, these apps empower customers to resolve their issues quickly and efficiently. This fosters a sense of autonomy and control, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty. In today’s competitive landscape, where customer experience is paramount, micro apps emerge as a powerful tool for service companies to differentiate themselves and build lasting customer relationships.
With digital micro apps, you can eliminate most of the friction in that process. Here are some of the most popular types of digital micro apps for top industries:
- Personal Finance: Apply for a new account, onboard customers, check balances, transfer funds, pay bills, request credit limit increases, and set up alerts.
- Insurance: Apply for a policy, e-sign documents, add coverages, submit claims, track policy details, pay the premium, change beneficiary, and add or remove children from the policy.
- Telecom: Sign up, e-sign contracts, onboard customers, manage plans, troubleshoot connection issues, top-up data, and pay bills.
- Healthcare: Create patient histories, schedule appointments, refill prescriptions, view medical records, and e-sign consent forms.
Companies can improve customer satisfaction, increase engagement, and drive loyalty by giving customers easy access to these essential functions through customer service micro apps. They can also reduce support costs because consumers use these simple processes instead of relying on high-cost support channels like call centers.
The Future of Customer Service
Digital micro apps are poised to play a pivotal role in the future of customer service. By providing a streamlined, intuitive, and personalized approach, these applications empower customers and drive operational efficiency for businesses. They help companies keep up with constantly rising customer expectations while reducing support costs.
As technology evolves, we can expect to see even more innovative digital micro-app use cases emerge, further transforming how companies interact with their customers.
If you’d like more information on digital micro apps and the Callvu No-Code Platform, get in touch.
