Two years ago, think3D was founded in Hyderabad, India. Within their short existence so far, they’ve gone on to become the biggest 3D printing service bureau and reseller in the country, and they’ve accomplished a lot not only for themselves as a company, but for the benefit of others as well, through initiatives like 3D printing educational models for the blind and 3D printed art exhibits for young students. Their emphasis on education and outreach hasn’t detracted at all from their corporate success, however, as they continue to attract clients as big as Microsoft and GE. Now the company has added another tool that should increase the satisfaction of their existing customer base as well as attracting new customers: a mobile app.
While other 3D printing platforms like Thingiverse and 3Dprintler have introduced apps and chat bots to make their services more instantly and conveniently accessible, the think3D mobile app is a first among 3D printing companies in India. It’s currently available for Android devices, and can be downloaded here. In the near future, think3D also intends to release a version for iOS devices.
“It all started when think3D’s existing customers requested for real time support channel as the 3D printer is placed at a distance from workstation in most customer locations,” states think3D. “think3D decided to come up with mobile based live chat (somewhat similar to Whatsapp) to solve the customer problem and that idea culminated into full fledged 3D printing mobile app. Moreover, mobile has become the highest priority device for information seeking in India with more than 50% of traffic to think3D website coming from mobile. So, going the app route seemed logical to the company.”
The app is broken down into four main functions that the company has dubbed 4S: Seek, Shop, Service and Support. “Seek” is not yet included, but will be in the next version of the app, and it has the potential to be the most interesting; it will function as a news feed of sorts, providing case studies, news, and educational information about 3D printing directly to users through the app.
“Shop” is pretty self-explanatory; users can browse through the many printers, scanners and materials offered by think3D, read reviews and request quotes. “Services” is dedicated to the 3D printing, designing and scanning services the company provides, and gives users an easy way to contact the company’s various departments about what they can provide. With “Support,” users can register their think3D purchases and get quick, real time support from the think3D team through a live chat function. Users can simply take a picture of their problematic devices and send them to the support team, who will offer feedback and advice as to whether the problem can be solved at home or needs professional attention.
According to think3D, testing showed that the live chat feature was able to provide solutions to issues in about 15 minutes, a dramatic decrease in turnaround time, which was at about 24 hours before the app was designed.
Right now it seems as though there really is an app for just about anything, so that whatever we may need is no further than our pockets, and 3D printing is no exception. I expect that we’ll see a lot more companies following suit with their own apps before long. Is this an app that interests you? Discuss further over in the think3D forum at 3DPB.com.
