Best Buy heightens focus on service with Geek Squad app
Best Buy?s strategy to focus on creating positive customer relationships through streamlined service is being fulfilled with its new Geek Squad application, which provides support and appointment booking.
Customers looking for service on Best Buy products can now connect with its service department, known as the Geek Squad, through a mobile app, which provides the ability to schedule appointments, connect with an agent and check on status. The new app follows Best Buy?s significant strides over the past two years in repair service, as detailed in the retailer's recent earnings call.
"Apps can be an extremely effective tool for supporting and engaging your most valuable customers," said Michael Becker, managing partner at mCordis. "Depending on how the app is built and maintained, it can provide your customers with the necessary information they need to engage and interact with your brand.
"I am excited to hear that Best Buy is developing an app for support," he said. "Mobile is an amazingly effective medium for support."
Buying best practices
Best Buy has been retooling its warranty and service departments over the past two years. After seeing positive results in these areas, the retailer launched its Geek Squad app to continue building opportunity there.
Mobile app users will now be able to easily check their warranty status on Best Buy products without having to search old documents or dig online through the app. A tab on the app will provide account information for each specific consumer and the products they have bought.
The landing page on the Geek Squad app allows users to choose from options such as connect with an agent, find a store, my coverage and check repair status. Users can easily rectify any issues with electronic devices by connecting with an agent though the app, which allows users to call, email or schedule an appointment.
For users who choose to simply call or email, agents can provide help through these platforms, eliminating the need for the customer to come into a store or an employee to come to the home. For bigger problems, which need an associate?s in-person, customers can schedule service directly within the app.
Another helpful option allows users to find nearby stores in their area and also provides them with directions. For items brought in for service, users can also stay updated with its status.
Customer service and mobile
Leveraging mobile for customers is big for brands in creating a secure customer bond.
For instance, Sprint was the premier telecommunications brand that leveraged Facebook Messenger as a new social care channel with which it can respond to inquiries and provide real-time chat solutions to customers (see more).
Also, new research from Twitter shows users who received personal responses from airlines on the social network were more willing to recommend the company and shell out extra money for a ticket in the future, underscoring the social application?s cachet among travelers (see more).
"The development of an app is a big commitment, nothing close to developing a web site," Mr. Becker said. "An app requires on going care a feeding, not just in terms of content but in terms of engineering and marketing.
"Before approaching the development of an app marketers must ask a number of critical questions, for example who is my app for, what problem is my app going to solving, which operating systems should I support, e.g. iOS, Android, Microsoft," he said. ?Unlike the Kevin Costner movie, marketers must accept that if you build it they may not necessarily come.
"InMobi recently reported that app developers found Marketing, not design, development, or distribution, to be the most challenging aspect of the app development process. Marketers must be committed to focussing on the marketing of their app and to ensure that the right people are made aware that it exists."