Customer impersonation: 5 reasons why you should have a "log in" as feature in your app

When it comes to customer-facing apps, one of the most important metrics is undoubtedly customer satisfaction. However much you work on your app, though, there’s always going to be some issues that customers can run into, whether it’s a simple bug that gets them stuck, or a feature that doesn’t work as intended.

In order to troubleshoot these situations safely and without compromising data privacy and security, apps often have a feature that allows their managers to take a peek into what their customers see, and be able to identify the problem more easily. This feature is often called “impersonate” or “log in as”. Today, we’ll take a look at the top 5 reasons why you should have such a feature in your own app.

1. All-around better customer satisfaction

Identifying issues can be a lengthy process — not only for you, but for the customers involved as well. By seeing through your customer’s eyes, you can locate the problems they’re referring to without having to ask for a detailed explanation, and get it resolved in a much shorter time frame. Needless to say, a happy customer is always worth the extra effort, so if you want to make sure they have the best support experience possible, consider investing into a feature like this.

2. Performing tests on your app

While we all put in the maximum possible effort into our apps and their features, and do our best to test them before we go live with them, things can still go sideways at times. While you’re exploring the new feature you just implemented, it’s always best to be able to see it from the viewpoint of a customer as well, rather than just your own — after all, with their specific permissions and setup, this could lead to you noticing something about the user experience or functions that you hadn’t before.

3. Streamlining your support pipeline

Having dedicated, reliable, and swift support is key to any app’s success — so making things as easy as possible for your own support team should be one of your top priorities. By streamlining your support pipeline and giving your support agents the ability to impersonate customers rather than have to go through a lengthy ticket process, you can not only save them some much appreciated time, but also make sure they are able to provide the best support possible (and probably save them a few headaches).

4. Supporting team members remotely

The ‘log in as’ feature is usually associated with customer support, but it can be just as well used in assisting sales representatives, marketing specialists, and other team members working from home. In some cases, you may also need to make changes urgently on behalf of a team member who is on vacation or sick leave — having a readily available view that lets you do so in an instant can be a lifesaver in a tough situation, and your team will thank you for it somewhere along the line.

5. GDPR and other security compliances

We live in an age of digital data, and with that, comes a huge focus on digital privacy and security. With some common ways of performing customer support, such as screen sharing, there is a high risk of breaking some of the most important security and data privacy compliance regulations that companies try to abide by, such as GRPD. Through an impersonation feature, you don’t have to worry about customers accidentally exposing their own data, and can make sure the support they receive is as compliant to all security guidelines as possible.

+1: You can have one in your favorite internal tool, too

Since you can work with customers and a wide variety of partners when using Forest Admin, it’s only natural to need something like this within it as well. Luckily, we’ve got you covered — check out our documentation for an example (including code) on how to get started with the impersonate feature on our platform.

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