Can you provide ability to send in-app chat messages outside customer support times?
I’m not always able to phone or send messages during your normal support hours. Being able to send a message in the evening which your support staff pick up the following day would be helpful.
Asynchronous chat is basically expected these days
I can pas this on. We are currently looking at all parts of the app and the service section will be high up the list.
Can I just ask what the difference is between this and sending an email?
Chat, at least as it is set up at the moment, is designed as synchronous (otherwise it is just a ticketing system, not a chat IMHO), but I guess it should be possible to leave a message as long as it is clear that you shouldn’t hold on for an answer.
Is there a system in use already by another site (not just fintech) that you think does this right?
(please remember we are a small organisation, and UK-only, so we can’t replicate Amazon et al, but that’s not to say that someone else hasn’t come up with a more creative solution already 
)
There’s much more metadata you can provide, such:
Estimated response time
Whether message has been read
Ability to add more info to the thread in one place
Phone notifications
Auto ID verification via the app
Notification for service issues (such as the faster payments hiccup this month)
Notification when ticket has closed
It’s sort of half way between an email and a phone call.
You can also start a call from chat with some verification, so your customers are not getting unexpected calls and you know they’re going to pick up.
Are you able to provide me with account specific information if I initiate a conversation by email?
I’ve always assumed if I want to discuss account specific stuff I should go via in-app chat or at least start conversation via in-app chat. Is this not needed?
For in-app chat, it seems to me support for asynchronous chat is not particularly unusual. Aside from Dozens, the last two apps I needed to send support requests to both support sending out of hours messages which are picked up the following day. They happen to be Fintechs - Zopa and Emma.
Having said all this, I actually dislike in-app chat in general. If I’m trying to contact a company during support hours I prefer to call if I am confident there won’t be long wait times. For getting support when I don’t need an immediate response I prefer email or (for financial institutions) secure online messaging as typically provided through bank websites.