Narrative 8: Intelligent in-app support that's instantly available anytime and anywhere

Narrative 8: Intelligent in-app support that's instantly available anytime and anywhere

Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system - BTS Series

Narrative 8: Intelligent in-app support that's instantly available anytime and anywhere


The App Support Across Platforms (ASAP) add-on for Zoho Desk is an independent application that integrates help center capabilities directly into your product to offer in-app self-service options for your users. Customers can use the ASAP widget to access help articles, connect with customer service representatives, and engage with other users without leaving the page they are on.

Help customers help themselves

We're excited to announce that we have improved our ASAP help widget for customers. The new ASAP widget is now available for both web and mobile platforms with a single configuration. It's easy to customize your self-service channels and branding elements to provide a seamless customer experience.

You can showcase the same help widget across all pages of your website or implement a unique add-on for each page. This method provides contextual support tailored to your customers, enhancing the customer service experience by offering immediate assistance without placing additional burdens on support agents. 

With our new ASAP feature, businesses can integrate a 24/7 help center service into their website or app interface. This allows end-users to access customer support without needing to navigate multiple windows, allowing them to find solutions more quickly and efficiently find solutions—all without leaving the application.

Fit your brand's style

Extend your brand identity to the ASAP help widget. You can exercise complete control over everything from support functionalities to themes, icons, logos, font styles, and more.

Benefits of adding a help widget to self-service apps

Glide through the following tips for a smooth and cohesive experience throughout your support journey.

Enhanced user experience

A help widget provides immediate assistance, reducing user frustration and improving satisfaction. It allows users to access help without leaving the app.

Reduced support costs

By offering self-help resources (e.g., FAQs, guides, or chatbots), the widget can resolve common issues without requiring human intervention. This reduces the volume of support tickets and lowers operational costs.

Increased user retention

Users are more likely to continue using an app if they can quickly resolve issues or find answers to their questions. A help widget reduces the likelihood of users abandoning the app due to confusion or frustration.

Proactive support

Help widgets can proactively offer assistance based on user behavior, such as suggesting relevant articles or tutorials when a user seems stuck. This can prevent issues before they escalate.

Accessibility and convenience

A help widget is always accessible, providing users with instant support whenever they need it. It also eliminates the need for them to search for external help resources or contact support through other channels.

Data-driven insights

Help widgets can track user interactions, providing valuable data on common pain points or frequently asked questions. This information can be used to improve the app, update help content, or prioritize feature development.

Brand trust and credibility

Offering readily available support demonstrates a commitment to user success, building trust and credibility. Users are more likely to perceive the app as reliable and user-friendly.

Multichannel support integration

Many help widgets integrate with live chat, email, or phone support, offering users multiple ways to get help. This ensures that users can escalate issues if they can't meet their needs with self-help options.

Improved onboarding

A help widget can guide new users through the app’s features and functionalities to improve onboarding and reduce the learning curve.

Competitive advantage

Apps with built-in help widgets stand out from competitors by offering a more supportive and user-centric experience. By incorporating a help widget, self-service apps can empower users, streamline support processes, and create a more positive overall experience.

Support customers on the channel of their choice

Supporting customers on the channel of their choice is essential for fostering strong relationships, enhancing satisfaction, and ensuring effective communication. Here’s a more detailed look at what this entails: Customers today prefer different channels for communication, including phone, email, live chat, social media, and in-person interactions. Understanding which channels your customers favor can help you improve their experience significantly.

Providing help center services via widget delivers instant assistance to your customers  

The ASAP software development kit (SDK) for Android and iOS provides easy access to help your mobile app's end users. Using this SDK, you can create and customise a help widget within your app, providing end-users with easy access to the help centre services.

Truly mobile  

Enable mobile app users to find solutions in their knowledge base quickly and community with in-app search and text-to-speech capabilities. Enhance the experience by placing help buttons right where your customers need them.

Conclusion

Customer expectations are evolving fast, and our team highly recommends using the ASAP help widget to enhance your customer service.

Please stay tuned for more Desk behind-the-scenes series.


Regards,


Kavya Rao

The Zoho Desk Team

Idea

Also, read:

Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system (BTS Series)


Further reading:

The Wheels of Ticketing Series

    • Recent Topics

    • Duplicate Leads Concerns with Round Robin and Lead Approval Process

      It is great to have the Duplicate Lead Approval Process,  there are a few issues with the process that I would greatly appreciate taken consideration in enhancing. It appears that A Lead comes in Lead owner assigned by the Round Robin Check for Duplicate, If the lead is a Duplicate the Lead owner gets an email of a duplicate needs approval email assign to the approval process      This causes problems, The duplicate approval process is done by a different level person, they do not get the email notification

    • Dashboard target enhancements

      Often individuals in IT are creating dashboards for their sales team. The ability to create a single dashboard that can be used by multiple people is key. A components for a dashboard have the ability to filter by logged in user which is great. However

    • How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

      Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan

    • Finding rhythm through poetry

      Poetry has long been a powerful form of expression, discovery, and reflection. For many, it is a way to pen down their thoughts and experiences. The "poetic license" allows writers to shape their words with rhythm and flow. This year, on World Poetry

    • Bring your own credentials (BYOC) for connections in Zoho Creator

      Hello everyone, We're excited to announce an important step forward in how integrations and authentications work in Zoho Creator. Zoho Creator is a versatile platform for integrations, enabling you to connect with thousands of third-party services using

    • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

      Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

    • Project Management Bulletin: March, 2026

      We are passionate about equipping our users with efficient solutions that help them run their businesses successfully. Our collective efforts over the past 2 years have culminated in the launch of Sprints 3.0— built with reliable features, impactful integrations,

    • Composite items inside of composite items; bill of materials needed

      Hi Zoho and Everyone, I am evaluating whether Zoho Inventory will work for my small business. I grow and harvest herbs and spices but also get from wholesalers. I use all these items to make herbal teas, but also sell them as individual items on my Shopify store and Etsy. I discovered the composite item bundling and am wondering if I could get some assistance since there is no bill of materials: Our herbal company's best selling tea is a sleepytime tea. Sleepytime Tea can be purchased in three weights

    • Automation Series: Sync Task Status with Zoho Desk Tickets

      In Zoho Projects, you can automatically close and reopen an associated Zoho Desk ticket when the status of a task is changed. This syncs the current state of the task with the support ticket without manual updates. For instance, a support team handling

    • Auto-Generate Line Numbers in Item Table Using HTML & CSS Counters (Zoho Books & Zoho Inventory Custom Templates)

      <div> <style> /* Start counter from 0 inside tbody */ tbody#lineitem { counter-reset: rowNumber; } /* Increment counter for each row */ tbody#lineitem tr { counter-increment: rowNumber; } /* Show counter value in first column */ tbody#lineitem tr td:first-child::before

    • Does zoho inventory need Enterprise or Premium subsrciption to make Widgets.

      We have Zoho One Enterprise and yet we can't create widgets on inventory.

    • Introducing Radio Buttons and Numeric Range Sliders in Zoho CRM

      Release update: Currently out for CN, JP, AU and CA DCs (Free and standard editions). For other DCs, this will be released by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to share with you that Zoho CRM's Layout Editor now includes two new field formats—

    • New UI for Writer - Disappointed

      I've been enjoying Zoho Writer as a new user for about 6 months, and I really like it. One of my favorite things about it is the menu bar, which you can hide or leave out while still seeing most of your page because it is off to the left. I think this

    • Zoho CAMPAIGNS working hours

      Hi I use Campaigns Automation workflows to automate follow-ups to my Leads. I discovered this weekend that emails are being sent out on Sundays. How do I limit my Campaigns outgoing emails to business working hours? This is very important! Thanks, D

    • Depositing funds to account

      Hello, I have been using Quickbooks for many years but am considering moving to Zoho Books so I am currently running through various workflows and am working on the Invoicing aspect. In QB, the process is to create an invoice, receive payment and then

    • Create Receipt of a Donation (not a sale)

      We are a non-profit organization that receives general donations. How do I create a receipt of payment for the donor and categorize the payment as a Gift? I tried the method of creating an invoice; however that automatically created a "Sales" transaction

    • Function #2: Create a Deal in Zoho CRM when an Estimate is created in Zoho Books

      For those who use Zoho CRM integrated with Zoho Books, here's a nifty function that helps you optimize your sales process by adding a Deal in Zoho CRM whenever an estimate is created in Zoho Books. Custom Function: To create the custom function, go to

    • New Custom View -Sorting the Custom fields

      While creating a New Custom View in invoice , Customers, Bills ,expense etc , the sorting of custom fields are not available , a query function "order by / sort by  " may also be included in  Define new criteria module  which will be more beneficial to

    • Grouping Undeposited Funds to Move to other accounts

      In the bank option it would be nice to check what transactions in undeposited funds I want to move to other accounts. Then while checking this it can accumulate totals and created whats essentially a deposit slip. Once the transaction is moved it should

    • Sync your CRM Tasks with Zoho Projects

      Zoho Projects integration with Zoho CRM helps you manage your tasks more efficiently. You can create all project related activities right inside your CRM using this integration. Create new portal or associate an existing portal, add projects to the portal,

    • Zoho CRM strips whitespace in text fields

      When editing field text with multiple spaces: CRM - both UI and API trim / compress the whitespace to a single space when saving: Is this known / expected / documented behaviour?

    • WorkDrive API returning empty response even after placing file in Team Folder

      Hi everyone, I am trying to fetch a file from Zoho WorkDrive using a Deluge standalone function in Zoho People. The API call executes successfully using a configured connection, but the response is coming back empty. I have verified the following: The

    • Custom Button makes scroll bar go down in report

      I have a report with a Custom button called Completed. A colleague mentionned to me that when he pressed this custom button it scrolled down the page which is annoying since he want to stay at the same space on the repoort. There is no reload linked to

    • Quickbooks Integrations Stopped Working

      All of our Quickbooks integrations have stopped working. I am checking in to see if: a) this is a known issue b) if anyone else is having this issue. As usual, Zoho support is unavailable.

    • sync two zoho crm

      Hello everyone. Is it possible to sync 2 zoho crm? what would be the easiest way? I am thinking of Flow. I have a Custom Module that I would like to share with my client. We both use zoho crm. Regards.

    • CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

      Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

    • Incorrect Functioning of Time Logs API (Version 3)

      We need to fetch the list of time logs for each task for our company internal usage. We are trying to achieve it by using the next endpoint: https://projects.zoho.com/api-docs#bulk-time-logs#get-all-project-time-logs Firstly, in the documentation the

    • Zoho CRM Queries Now Support Databases and Cloud Data Sources

      Hello everyone! We're thrilled to announce a major enhancement to the Queries feature in Zoho CRM! Queries now support a broader range of external data sources, allowing you to fetch live data and combine it with CRM records, all using a unified query

    • Salesforceに添付ファイルを格納したい

      お世話になっております。 Salesforceに添付ファイルを格納したく、カスタムオブジェクトに連携し、 「ファイルのアップロード」項目を設けました。 実際、エラーもなく送信出来たのですが、実際生成されたカスタムオブジェクトのレコードを見ると、どこにも添付ファイルがありません。仕様として、この添付ファイルはSalesforceのどこに格納されるのでしょうか？ 今回作りたいフォームは、複数の書類を添付するため、Zohoformのファイルアップロード項目「本人確認書類」「源泉徴収票」などの項目を、Salesforce側にも設けた「本人確認書類」「源泉徴収票」という各項目にURLリンクとして紐づけたいと思っておりました。

    • Dynamic image in form works in the app but not on the customer portal.

      img = frm_Fichas[ID == input.Nombre].Foto; imgno = Nophoto[ID2 = 1].Image; if(len(img) > 1) { img = img.replaceAll("/sharedBy/appLinkName/",zoho.appuri); img = img.replaceAll("viewLinkName","Fichas_de_personal_public"); img = img.replaceAll("fieldName","Foto");

    • Is it possible to retrieve function (Deluge) code from Zoho CRM externally?

      Hi Everyone, Is it possible to fetch or retrieve the Deluge function code from Zoho CRM using an external method (API or any other approach)? I would like to know if there is any way to access or extract the function script outside of Zoho CRM, or if

    • Uplifted homepage experience

      Editions: All editions. Availability update: 17th February 2026: All editions in the CA and SA DC | JP DC (Free, Standard and Professional editions) 23 February 2026: JP (All Editions) | AU, CN (Free, Standard, Professional editions) 27 February 2026:

    • Darshan Hiranandani : How many participants can join a Zoho Meeting at once?

      Hi everyone, I'm Darshan Hiranandani, trying to find out the maximum number of participants that can join a Zoho Meeting at once. Has anyone here used Zoho Meeting for larger groups and can share their experience or knowledge about the participant limit?

    • Where is the scheduled report in New UI?

      Hi Team, Seems there is not such a field in New UI, hence I have to switch to old UI to handle request..

    • Approval Workflow for Purchase Orders Abrir

      The requirement is , that all purchase orders greater than or equal to 5000 go through an approval process from certain people, but within books I only see that the approvers can be by levels or any approver but we cannot enter a rule like these. Can

    • WeTravel + Zoho CRM Integration - Has Anyone Built a Connector or Extension?

      Hi all, I'm exploring options for integrating Zoho CRM with WeTravel (booking & payment platform for tour operators). Zapier seems to be the common method but seems limited. I'm wondering if anyone in the community has developed a more comprehensive solution,

    • Option in pipeline deal to select which hotel or branch or store if client has more than one local store

      Hi, I would like to know if there is an option in the deal pipeline to select which hotel, branch, or store a deal is related to—if the company has more than one location. For example, I have a client that owns several hotels under the same company, and

    • Undo article like/dislike

      It seems to be not possible to undo your like/dislike for an article. Would be great if you can. Kind regards, Helen

    • Nested notebooks

      Dear Sir/Madam, I would like to know if it is possible to nest notebooks. It would be very helpful when there are too many, as it would improve organization. Thank you for your response. Best regards.

    • Tax in Quote

      Each row item in a quote has a tax value. At the total numbers at the bottom, there is also a Tax entry. If you select tax in both of the (line item, and the total), the tax doubles. My assumption is that the Tax total should be totalling the tax from

    • Next Page