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

    • Slow Performance on desk.zoho.com. 11/3/2025

      I’m not seeing any active service alerts for desk.zoho.com, but everyone on our account is currently experiencing very slow load times when opening or navigating tickets. We’ve already tried the standard troubleshooting steps — clearing cache and cookies,
    • Create View to See Tickets Closed within the last 3 days

      I'm trying to create a view in Zoho Desk that shows me "recently closed ticket," which I will define as tickets closed in the last 3 days. I want this view to update so that whenever I click to view it is recalculates and shows me tickets closed within
    • Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

      We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring
    • Send Whatsapp message from Whatsapp template with custom variables

      Hi, I'm trying to do some basic integration for sending WhatsApp messages from Zoho CRM using Zoho Desk whatsapp templates. When creating new whatsapp template in Zoho Desk we can choose ticket related fields as variables but it's not clear how to use
    • Recurring Events Not Appearing in "My Events" and therefore not syncing with Google Apps

      We use the Google Sync functionality for our events, and it appears to have been working fine except: I've created a set of recurring events that I noticed were missing from my Google Apps calendar. Upon further research, it appears this is occurring
    • Dissociate account from contact

      Hello, When I make the call through the API to "Dissociate account from contact" using, /api/v1/contacts/**integer**/accounts/**integer**/dissociate I get this response back, 422Unprocessable Entity (WebDAV) (RFC 4918) { "errorCode": "INVALID_DATA", "message":
    • Zoho Desk and Zoho People Integration - is it possible in order to alert whether an agent is available

      Hi, We use Zoho People for our employees to log absence (Paid Time Off etc). I was wondering if it was possible that this information can be shared in to Zoho Desk, so that when allocating a ticket to an agent, if they are on leave there is an onscreen
    • Add Save button to Expense form

      A save button would be very helpful on the expense form. Currently there is a Save and Close button. When we want to itemize an expense, this option would be very helpful. For example, if we have a hotel expense that also has room service, which is a
    • Change Currency symbol

      I would like to change the way our currency displays when printed on quotes, invoices and purchase orders. Currently, we have Australian Dollars AUD as our Home Currency. The only two symbol choices available for this currency are "AU $" or "AUD". I would
    • Call transcrition working for ringcentral?

      I don't see anything about what telephony providers can be used. The Zoho support person A said that RingCentral isn't supported. Zoho support person B said that it works, just make sure the call recording link works. Excellent instructions here: Call
    • How to Send Email from within a custom module (with or without an email template)

      It is possible to send an email from the Deals module. However, I can't find a way to send an email from any of our custom modules. I have tried adding an email field to the modules (even though we don't really want one or need it there). That doesn't
    • All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

      The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Managing addresses
    • Zoho Inventory - Managing Items With Multiple Suppliers

      Hi community, I'm working on a project at the moment for a car parts wholesale business. Each Item (part) has its own original manufacturer part number (sometimes more than one part number for the same item). When purchasing parts from 3rd party suppliers,
    • Kaizen #59 - Creating alerts and custom messages using Client Script

      Hello everyone! We are happy to resume our Zoho CRM Developer Community series - The Kaizen series! Welcome back to the new start of Kaizen! This post is about Client Script and its simple use cases involving ZDK Client functions. What is Client Script?
    • Retainer invoice in Zoho Finance modlue

      Hello, Is there a way of creating retainer invoices in the Zoho Finance module? If not can I request this is considered for future updates please.
    • How do I see the total leads during a certain period?

      I understand I can get the count of leads and potentials but the total number of leads in a certain period should be equal to Leads+potentials because when we convert a lead it gets moved to potentials and no longer exists there. is there a way i could
    • Function #46: Auto-Calculate Sales Margin on a Quote

      Welcome back everyone! Last week's function was about displaying the discount amount in words. This week, it's going to be about automatically calculating the sales margin for a particular quote, sales order or an invoice. Business scenario Where there is sales, there's also evaluation and competition between sales reps. A healthy rivalry helps to better motivate your employees to do smart work and close deals faster and more efficiently. But how does a sales rep get evaluated? 90% of the time, it's
    • Where is the Global Search field?

      I am looking for an alternative to SF.com. Zoho CRM seems to be work fine, and be customizable in terms of the fields and reports. But there's one big thing missing and it's going to prevent us from using it: there's no global search box at the top of
    • API 500 Error

      Hello amazing ZOHO Projects Community, I get this message. How can we solve this? { "error": { "status_code": "500", "method": "GET", "instance": "/api/v3/portal/2010147XXXX/projects/2679160000003XXXX/timesheet", "title": "INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR", "error_type":
    • In place field editing for candidates

      Wondering about any insight/best practices for efficiently updating candidate records while reviewing them in a Job Opening pipeline. We can do in-field editing (e.g. update job title or City) only when we have the full candidate record open, however
    • Default tax type for mileage?

      Where we are, mileage includes a government tax. Is there any way to set a default tax for the Personal Car Mileage category of expense? (Or any other way?)
    • Analytics Portal

      I have the "standard plan" and want to explore the portal option; I activated the 15-day trial but do not see the pricing for the add-on. How can I get the price under "Upgrade add-ons." Thanks Rudy
    • The Social Wall: October 2025

      Hello everyone, As we head toward the end of the year, we’re bringing you a few updates to help give your social media efforts a strong finish. This month, we’re rolling out new enhancements across both the web and mobile app. Post Preview Have you ever
    • Show price book list price

      When using price books, once you add products to the price book in the Products related list you can display the Unit price which is the default list price; however, there is no option to show the price book list price. To see the price book list price
    • Cliq File Upload

      While uploading large file like 500MB, it takes time, that fines. But if you resize window or move window in other screen, that uploading disappears. After upload complete & sent it will be visible
    • Resizing a Record Template Background Inage

      Hi everyone, I have an issue which I can't seem to resolve: Basically, I'm designing a record template in certificate form. I've specified A5 landscape. I've set my background image the same dimensions with total pixels at 443,520. Whatever I try, when
    • Zia Actions: AI-powered Workflow Automation for Faster and Smarter Execution

      Hello everyone, Workflows got a notch better with AI-based actions. Actions such as field extraction, prediction, auto reply, and content generation facilitate quick execution with improved speed and accuracy. Zia can intercept useful details in newly
    • Constant color of a legend value

      It would be nice if we can set a constant color/pattern to a value when creating a chart. We would often use the same value in different graph options and I always have to copy the color that we've set to a certain value from a previous graph to make
    • What's New in Zoho POS - October 2025

      Hello everyone, Welcome to Zoho POS's monthly updates, where we share our latest feature updates, releases, changes, and more. Let’s take a look at how October went. Process returns for refunds, exchanges, or offer store credit Returns and exchanges can
    • Loan and purchase

      My husband is lending me mobey to buy a vehicle intersst free ... I need to know how to record the cash receipt and how I pay it back... the money is for a vehicle do I just post the invoice for that as I normally would usung the loan money to pay for
    • Zoho Connect Module in Zoho Trident

      Hi I really like where Zoho Trident is going. Having Mail and Cliq in one place is especially powerful. However, Zoho Connect really needs to be included to make this a true communication and collaboration hub. I would like to request that Zoho Connect
    • Zoho FSM API Delete Record

      Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,
    • File Field Validation

      Hello all, We are tracking our customer NDA agreements in our CRM and have created 2 fields to do so, an execution date field and a file upload field. I want to create a validation rule to ensure that when the execution date field is populated that the
    • 100 record view limitation

      I have just migrated from another CRM and am starting in ZOHOcrm with over 5000 contacts. It seems that my searches and sorts are limited to 100 live records....or am I missing something. This seems to be very limiting...in a lot of scenarios (mass email,
    • ZUG Meet-ups are back - Across India (December 2025)

      The Zoho User Group (ZUG) meet-ups are back, and this time, we’re travelling across India to reconnect with our amazing community! From Chennai to Delhi, Bengaluru to Mumbai, we can’t wait to meet you all in person and talk everything Zoho SalesIQ, automation,
    • Categorise Attachments

      We take ID, proof of address, right to work documentation and more.  I can upload a single file in to field, but we often receive multiple files for each category e.g. someone may send a separate file for the front and back of their national ID card.  My team don't have time to manipulate the files in order to upload them as a single file. The options, as far as I can tell, would be to create additional fields on attachments in order to categorise what the file is, or to be able to upload single
    • Scheduling a meeting for just a 1:1 phone call

      My business is B2C and many of my customer's don't want to engage in an online meeting for what can be handled in a regular phone call. I am trying to create a new meeting invitation, but there is no venue optoin for "phone call". How are other's handling
    • Need more details on API Usage Dashboard

      Hi Team, We have implemented Zoho Expense for a client and has done some integrations with well known third party ERP via api. Recently we have noticed a huge spike in the API consumption. But we couldn't get the root cause for the same. I accept there
    • Power of Automation:: Automating SLA Timelines for First Response & Resolution for Issues module.

      Hello Everyone, Ever wished SLAs could update automatically based on issue severity i.e no manual tracking, no missed timelines? That is exactly what one of our customers, Alex, wanted to achieve in the Issues module. So, we have setup a simple automation
    • Finding missing records

      I have a challenge and I am not really sure where to start with it. I can't find any similar threads on here, can anyone help: I have two forms, FormA and FormB. Both forms have records that contain a field called Job_Number. What I am trying to achieve
    • Next Page