# Automating Customer Experiences with Micro Apps

> A NachoTuesday interview — the C-Suite Insights series from NachoNacho, the B2B SaaS and AI
> marketplace. In conversation with Christopher Filly, VP of Marketing, Callvu.

- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday/video/Automating-Customer-Experiences-with-Micro-Apps
- **Guest:** Christopher Filly, VP of Marketing, Callvu
- **Guest on LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherfilly/
- **Recorded:** 2024-12-03
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTb08IJ7azw

## Summary

In this NachoTuesday webinar, Chris Filly from CallView introduces their platform for automating customer experience through the use of micro apps. These small, single-purpose web applications streamline specific customer processes, empowering self-service and improving resolution times, which is key to customer delight and loyalty in today's competitive market. The discussion covers various micro app use cases, their benefits in terms of agility and integration, and the exciting future where AI enhances personalization and enables proactive customer service. Key Talking Points: Micro Apps Automate Specific Customer Processes for Enhanced CX : CallView's micro apps are single-purpose web applications designed to automate individual customer service processes, leading to faster resolution times and improved customer experience. Agility and Integration are Key Benefits of Micro Apps : Unlike monolithic applications, micro apps offer flexibility to address specific needs and seamlessly integrate with existing CRM and other core systems, reducing development costs and time to market. AI Will Drive Advanced Personalization and Proactive Customer Service : The future of micro apps involves deeper AI integration to provide highly personalized experiences, like explaining bill increases, and enabling proactive customer service by anticipating and addressing customer needs before they arise.

## Full transcript

(00:07) Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to another Nacho Tuesday! Today, I’m joined by Chris from CallView. Without further ado, Chris, could you introduce yourself and tell us more about what CallView does? Sure! First of all, I’m Chris Philly, and I lead marketing for CallView. We’re a global organization—small but mighty—with clients in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. CallView is a platform designed to automate customer experiences. When I think about automation in the context of customer experience, it’s about processes where the customer is actively engaged. This requires a front-end interface for the customer to interact with, whether it’s a chat interface or a more traditional app with buttons, fields, and other interactive elements. Our platform enables businesses to build solutions tailored to specific customer processes. This empowers customers to get what they need, when they need it, in their preferred channel—anytime, anywhere. It’s a powerful way to provide self-service options and enhance the overall customer experience. (01:18) That’s a great point! As they say, "Time kills deals." If you’re not available to help the customer and create a frictionless experience, they’ll go elsewhere, and you’ll lose the opportunity. Absolutely! In marketing, we’ve talked about "customer delight" for years, and it really boils down to time—how much time customers need to invest to resolve their issues. At the end of the day, people want to get back to their lives. Customer service is crucial, but it’s nobody’s favorite activity. Brands that make the process as fast, easy, and frictionless as possible build loyalty and differentiate themselves. That’s how you keep customers from wondering if they’d be better off with a competitor. Speed of resolution is critical in customer service. Anyone who’s ever waited on hold for 20 minutes or struggled to navigate a knowledge base knows how painful and frustrating these experiences can be. Eliminating these pain points is essential to delivering a great customer experience. (03:04) Absolutely! With so many companies and software solutions available today, providing a superior customer experience is a key differentiator. You help businesses achieve this through micro apps, correct? Could you explain what those are and some examples of what you offer? Of course! Micro apps are more of a concept or approach to software development than a specific product. Traditionally, companies have built digital solutions like web portals, mobile apps, or chatbots as "monolithic applications"—meaning they’re designed to handle a wide range of functions in one place. For example, a mobile app might allow you to manage your account, book appointments, and view old invoices all within the same platform. Micro apps take a different approach. They focus on a single capability or process that you want to automate. Instead of one app that does everything, you have multiple smaller apps, each specializing in a specific customer need or workflow. As the name suggests, micro apps are small and single-purpose. They’re web-based, leveraging advancements in HTML to deliver functionality comparable to native apps. Because they’re streamlined and focused, we can use building blocks and templates to accelerate the development process—something every engineer dreams of! (05:29) That sounds like a developer’s dream! Exactly! This modular approach is not only more efficient for creating new capabilities, but it also simplifies managing your entire portfolio of customer solutions. Another key aspect of micro apps is their integration with existing technology stacks through APIs. All data management and process logic remain in core systems, such as your CRM or customer service platform. Micro apps simply pull data as needed to enable the specific workflow they’re designed to handle. When you combine all these factors, micro apps offer a more efficient and flexible way to deliver new capabilities to customers. They also encourage a shift in how companies think about building and managing their customer experience solutions. Instead of relying on one all-encompassing application, you can treat each function as a modular building block, providing greater agility and scalability. (06:10) Flexibility is key, especially as customer needs and technologies evolve. (06:47) A lot of your clients might have specific needs they want to address first, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. As you know, with conversion funnel optimization, companies often focus on solving one particular problem at a time. For example, they might want to book more demos, so they could use an app specifically for that purpose. What you allow businesses to do is fine-tune their conversion funnel one step at a time, optimizing one element at a time to improve the overall process. This way, they can increase the number of inbound leads and improve conversion rates. It’s much more effective than trying to solve everything with a one-size-fits-all solution, which doesn’t work as well these days. (07:14) Absolutely, you make some excellent points. Right now, the market has two general approaches to customer experience (CX) automation: custom development or off-the-shelf point solutions. You’re right that larger companies often have specific requirements, such as integrating with existing systems or following specific workflows. Micro apps aim to combine the best of both worlds: They provide the flexibility to customize and integrate with any necessary systems, while also offering the benefits of pre-built solutions, like templates and integrations. These building blocks leverage our extensive knowledge of what works in customer experience, offering the best of both worlds—customization with the convenience of off-the-shelf technology. (09:05) Integrations are key here. Every business wants to work the way they already do, and they don’t want to overhaul existing systems. Whatever new tools you bring in need to fit seamlessly with their established workflows. Could you give us some examples of micro apps that marketers might find useful today? (09:33) Sure! There’s a long list of possible use cases, so I’ll cover a few examples to bring this down to a more practical level. We primarily work with companies like telecom providers, utility companies, insurance firms, banks, and healthcare providers—companies with high customer service volumes and a wide range of customer needs. These industries often have complex customer service processes, and that’s where micro apps come in. For example, with an insurance company, we might look at automating the underwriting process for new policies. This could involve automating steps like filling out forms, submitting photos or documents (e.g., for a home or car), and digitally signing documents. By using a micro app to automate these steps, insurance companies can speed up the approval process, convert prospects to paying customers faster, and ultimately get to revenue more quickly. In the healthcare sector, we could enable patients to fill out their intake forms before arriving at the doctor’s office. This way, they don’t have to sit in a waiting room and fill out paper forms, which is especially valuable in today’s world. These are just a few examples, but I hope this helps provide context and shows how micro apps work in real-world scenarios. These solutions can be used in various industries to enhance customer service and streamline processes. (12:36) It sounds like a very agile system, which is key these days. Businesses need to be able to roll out solutions quickly without investing excessive engineering hours. And as you mentioned, saving time and creating a frictionless experience for customers—such as allowing them to easily submit information using pre-filled forms—is crucial for closing deals. (13:06) Absolutely, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Micro apps are designed to collect and present data, but they don’t store it themselves. One of the main benefits for CTOs is that micro apps don’t act as another data repository. They pull data from existing systems, helping maintain centralized and well-organized data. Because micro apps rely on APIs, they work on top of existing platforms rather than replacing them. This is a huge advantage for CTOs, as it avoids the complexity and disruption of "rip-and-replace" solutions. For example, companies can build new CX capabilities without overhauling their existing CRM or scheduling system—saving both time and resources. (14:18) That’s music to a CTO’s ears. Anytime you can avoid a massive system overhaul, you’re reducing complexity and costs. Micro apps offer a quicker way to implement CX use cases while integrating smoothly with existing systems. (14:59) With AI being such a hot topic, how do micro apps fit into AI-driven customer experience strategies? (15:48) Micro apps can play a significant role in AI-driven CX strategies. They serve as the underlying logic, rules, and integrations that automate downstream tasks based on a specific process. Whether interacting through a chat interface, voice interface, or more traditional app, micro apps can work with AI to handle those tasks seamlessly. AI can also be a great starting point for digital transformation. For example, we’ve seen that many AI-driven initiatives start small, often using AI to handle specific customer interactions before scaling. In a recent Forrester paper, one of their contributors, Max Ball, highlighted how taking a "crisis approach" to AI—starting with manageable, high-impact projects—can help businesses transition smoothly to AI-driven solutions. (16:27) Research from the onset of COVID found that digital transformation initiatives during the pandemic were more successful than those at other times. The crisis forced businesses to focus on specific challenges their customers were facing, addressing one problem at a time. Whether creating a micro app with buttons and fields or developing a chat interface, focusing on a single challenge and building a specialized solution dramatically improved success rates. This approach, particularly in AI, can help brands make progress more effectively than trying to create a single bot that can handle every customer need. (17:08) Exactly, it’s much better to avoid the "boil the ocean" mentality. Rather than trying to solve everything at once, focus on one thing and do it well. Many businesses still use general-purpose bots, and while these agents are powerful, they face challenges with managing complex workflows. The issue isn’t that they can't handle complex processes, but that it may not be the best way for customers to complete certain tasks. It's more of a productivity boost than a complete replacement feature. (19:05) For example, AI can help in certain tasks, like loan rate calculations. Companies like Upstart and Pagaya use AI to optimize this process. AI is also a key component of micro apps, enhancing their functionality. Currently, the primary use of AI in customer service is through voice or chatbot agents that understand customer intent based on natural language. These agents can provide relevant information, but the next step is where micro apps truly shine. For complex processes like mortgage applications, the bot can gather basic information, but customers often need to transition to a more traditional system to submit proof of income, property details, and complete other necessary steps. (20:19) Micro apps extend the capabilities of these AI agents by collecting information, creating new records, and even sending data for approval—integrating with back-end systems to get processes like loan applications approved and funded. (21:02) It’s remarkable how much AI has advanced in recent years. Just five or six years ago, it was considered a joke, but now it’s central to so many solutions. Of course, the media’s take on AI fluctuates—one day it’s seen as groundbreaking, and the next, it's criticized for not living up to expectations. However, anyone regularly using tools like Gemini, GPT, or ChatGPT can see that, despite some challenges, these systems are truly impressive. (21:37) I use ChatGPT all the time myself. So, with all this potential, what challenges do companies face when implementing micro apps? It seems like every business could benefit, but there must be some downsides too. How can they overcome these implementation challenges? (22:16) There are a few key challenges businesses encounter when implementing micro apps. First, micro apps are a relatively new concept, and not everyone understands their role within a broader strategy. Some businesses don’t yet see micro apps as a distinct and valuable solution. This gap in understanding can be addressed through increased education about how micro apps can provide high-quality solutions with less time and resource investment. (23:00) Another challenge is the divide between business and IT teams. The business side understands the customer’s problem and the desired outcome, while IT focuses on technology. These two groups must work together to create a solution that meets customer needs and aligns with the overall tech strategy. However, this collaboration can be difficult to manage and is often a point of failure. The more IT understands the specific customer challenges and KPIs the business is aiming for, the better they can craft solutions. It also helps when the business team communicates that there's no need to overhaul existing systems. (24:20) Businesses need to reassure engineering teams that they won’t need to redo work they’ve already completed. Engineering teams, understandably, don’t want to waste time undoing previous efforts, especially when those tasks were initially requested by the business team. Clear communication about how micro apps can complement existing systems is key to overcoming this obstacle. (24:44) It really comes down to effective communication between the business team and the prospective customer. The business team needs to clearly communicate these benefits to the engineering team so that it doesn’t seem like a huge risk or waste of time for them. What we’re trying to enable for businesses is to address a common challenge customer experience leaders face: understanding where customers are struggling, having a vision for improving those interactions, but lacking the resources or a clear path to building a digital solution that fully addresses that friction. When we talk to the business side, they’re excited about the smaller investment and the speed at which they can get these new solutions to market. For the engineering team, we assure them that we’re not asking for a huge investment in development, and we won’t be asking them to rip and replace core systems. Everything we build sits on top of the existing tech stack, and it’s easy to update or even turn off if a better solution arises. This approach requires minimal effort to launch new products. On the business side, there’s excitement about the possibilities. CX leaders see a clear path to delivering digital innovation that can address the issues they’ve identified with customers. The best part is that they can start with just one feature, test if it makes a difference, and then expand to other micro apps or solve additional problems. By starting small with one big pain point and demonstrating the value and ROI, they can get buy-in to continue rolling out more micro apps to enhance the customer experience. (27:03) So, what kind of ROI should businesses expect when implementing these micro apps? There’s direct ROI from using micro apps compared to traditional software development. With micro apps, businesses can expect reduced development costs, faster time to market, and, ideally, higher customer satisfaction. All these factors contribute to the ROI of a micro app strategy. When you consider both new use cases and those looking to shift to a more holistic micro app architecture, managing multiple micro apps instead of a monolithic app will also reduce development and maintenance costs. For businesses considering building a micro app to address a specific customer pain, the ROI in automating that scenario is significant. Many use cases may not meet the threshold to be included in a native app, but with a micro app strategy, those processes can be automated. Without a micro app approach, businesses would likely continue with business-as-usual practices, which presents a huge missed opportunity for ROI. (29:05) If a process isn’t being automated through another method, that’s an additional factor to consider when thinking about ROI. (29:46) So, what’s next for micro apps? Where do you see the technology heading in the next few years? Like any technology, the next few years will be shaped by how AI is integrated into micro apps. Micro apps can be engaged with either through natural language or a more traditional interface, and we don’t have a preference. It’s all about what’s best for the customer. But I see an evolution happening where every micro app can be used with a natural language interface, and customers can even switch interfaces based on their preference. AI will increasingly drive the front-end experience of micro apps, particularly through chat or voice interfaces. (30:27) One of the big advancements brands are looking for is advanced personalization. While personalization itself is not new, it has typically been rule-based—like inserting a customer’s name or company name. Advanced personalization, however, involves more sophisticated reasoning. For example, one of our partners, CSG, developed a micro app to address billing issues, a major pain point for telecom companies. This app explains changes in your bill through a natural conversation. If your bill increases, you get a notification that explains why, based on AI analyzing past invoices. For example, the app might say, “Your child’s phone was on TikTok for 20 hours last weekend, which caused you to exceed your data limit.” This level of personalized, proactive communication is a perfect example of how AI is transforming customer experience. (31:55) It’s not only more convenient for customers—it also reduces the volume of customer service calls. Instead of customers calling to ask why their bill went up, the AI chatbot explains the situation right away. This proactive approach increases customer satisfaction and helps businesses resolve issues faster. (32:28) Transparency is another critical aspect of advanced personalization. For example, imagine signing up for a new cable plan and scrolling through a long list of terms and conditions. While they’re meant to be transparent, they’re often too complicated and lengthy to be easily understood. AI can help by summarizing the key points of these terms and answering common questions about them, such as, “Can I cancel my plan anytime?” This would be a major improvement in transparency and user experience. (33:46) These are exciting opportunities to enhance customer experience with AI and micro apps. The best customer experience is when a company proactively addresses a potential issue before the customer even realizes it’s a problem. For example, sending a notification explaining a bill increase before the customer has a chance to call. This proactive service, along with AI-powered insights and advanced personalization, will make a huge impact on customer satisfaction in the future. (36:11) If you want to learn more about CSG and their micro app solutions, visit callvu.com. You can also check out their platform on the Nacho Nacho marketplace, where we have an exclusive deal available. Additionally, they’ll be at the CX Innovation Summit in San Diego next week if you’re attending. Thanks again for joining us today, Chris. We’re excited about the Call Vu partnership here at Nacho Nacho and look forward to working together more in the future. (36:46) Thanks, and I’m looking forward to continuing our collaboration!

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