Comparing the Customer Support Delivered in Mobile Payment Applications

Boston, MA – April 09, 2014 – A new research report from Mercator Advisory Group, Comparing the Customer Support Delivered in Mobile Payment Applications, explores the ways in which mobile applications for payments products address customer service through native, in-application approaches. Strengths and weaknesses of leading applications are evaluated and current market trends and future opportunities identified in the categories of closed-loop networks, mobile wallets, prepaid providers, and banking mobile applications.

Mobile application customer service is increasingly essential for brand management. Besides still widely utilized traditional touch points including phone support, website links, and extensive FAQs, innovative trends in mobile payment products include native, in-application customer service support that allows the end users to navigate within the app to find answers to questions or problems instead of being redirected outside the app via phone or online.

The report ranks selected mobile apps by number of customer service touch points, indicating which category and which particular apps are the most advanced and which are most innovative. Conversely, it points out which categories are underdeveloped and have space for products to differentiate themselves through strong mobile presence and in-app customer service.

The report highlights aspects of mobile support that the applications surveyed lacked that can be expected in the future. Moving toward in-application diagnostic abilities and real-time chat support, mobile app customer service will focus on minimizing the time burden of manual input of information by gathering the system and application data and communicating this information to customer service representatives.
Mercator Advisory Group expects large growth in the usage and efficacy of mobile applications in all spheres and plans to track this progress annually.

This report is 27 pages long and contains 11 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this report include: Amazon, American Express, Apple ,Bank of America, Contact Solutions, Dunkin’ Donuts, GoBank, Google, Green Dot Mobile, Helpshift, H&R Block, NetSpend, PayPal, RushCard, Simple, Square, Subway, US Bank, Zendesk, Starbucks

Members of Mercator Advisory Group's Prepaid Advisory Service have access to this report as well as the upcoming research for the year ahead, presentations, analyst access, and other membership benefits.