GO MOBILE

Go mobile

GO MOBILE does not mean your business should have ANY Mobile App. Instead, it means having a Mobile App that truly allows you to take benefit of mobile and new technologies, connect in unique and more effective ways with your customers and employees and create a highly fulfilling experience for users. Overall, the aim of GO MOBILE is to give your business a significant advantage over competitors and generate higher revenues and margins for your enterprise.

The Mobile Era has brought with it the privilege to think broader and differently. When considering new Mobile Apps for your business or enhancing existing ones, do not think of them as simply an alternate way for your customers to access your offerings or connect faster with you. Modern Mobile Apps that have already transformed most industries and consumer habits, have a lot more to offer now and will give substantial competitive advantages for those who embrace them faster.

 

Let us understand some of the key benefits of truly GOing MOBILE.

Increased Visibility for Better Personalisation

A well build Mobile App will give increased visibility to your business and product and service offering.

According to Ofcom Online Nation 2019 Report, an adult smart phone user in the United Kingdom spent 3 hours 15 minutes per day online on their smartphone.

Figure 1 shows the average time spent online , split by popular sites for September 2017 and September 2018 (time in hours:minutes).

acumenpartners
Figure 1

The data clearly shows the trend of increased mobile usage and a high percentage of one’s daily time being spent on the mobile.

Your business stands to grow faster if your Mobile App leverages latest technology, caters to the needs of users and exceeds customer expectations. Such Mobile Applications will be more extensively used and will provide user with a personalised experience. They will be able to track and observe user movement and offer recommendations, creating a highly personalised user experience.

Customer Value

How can a Mobile App create more value than a Website or other marketing channels? Depending on your industry, purchase channels and processes, a Mobile App can create new ways of customer engagement and allow to change business processes to make it friendlier and more attractive for your customers. More the customer interacts with your App, more are the chances of your business growing.

Let us take the example of Macy’s. Initially Macy’s got consumers to download their App by introducing Star Rewards account on the go so customers can take advantage of special offers, in-store savings and more. But the feature which caught everyone’s eye and created strong customer value was “STORE MODE”. In this mode, the customers did not have to wait in long queues to purchase the items. The feature helped the customer in several ways:

      •           Check out faster with Scan & Pay – just scan items in store, pay on the spot & go!
      •           Scan bar codes to check prices, read reviews and see more colours & sizes—even order online!
      •           Get easy access to weekly catalogues, your store’s directory & more!
Macys
Figure 2

Direct Marketing Channel

Your Mobile App gives your brand and your business a place in your customer’s mobile landscape. Your App icon itself is a mini advertisement of your brand and a continuous reminder of your presence and offering.

The Mobile App can then have a two way communication with your customer; one where you trigger the communication via reminders or interest based offerings and two the customer having a direct communication via the App with you to ask any product or support related query.

Your App brings your brand closer to the customer. The App speaks for your brand. You can experiment with branding styles for your App which could be different from the ‘core’ brand you promote regularly. This allows you to further test your ideas and keep improving to build the relationship.

app
Figure 3

Having your Mobile App on a user’s device will help to influence the user’s perception positively and subconsciously about your brand. This behaviour of the user is linked to Signal Detection Theory, suggesting that the user processes even those ads which the user may have been ignoring to some extent in his/her mind.

Connect Better

A Mobile App can offer better customer service and can be a game-changer.How? A Mobile App brings you closer to your customer and allows your customer to reach out to you on a press of a few buttons anytime, anywhere. It allows you to keep the customer informed and even seek feedback via simple messages to build stronger customer relationships. This also allows for reduced administration since the customer is regularly fed service status. The chance of receiving feedback via mobile is higher than most other channels which gives you valuable data to continuously improve customer service. Secondly, if you have an interface pre-designed to solve queries that do not require manual attendant; it is an added advantage for business.

The strength of the mobile experience is that it can build the feedback and support loop into the App, providing customers with an instant, easy and responsive way of contacting and interacting with your brand. The readily accessible and intuitive nature of Mobile Apps can significantly improve the customer experience. For example, having a messaging or help desk feature within your app can really make a difference in the way you communicate with your customers.

Customer satisfaction is directly proportional to sales. According to Salesforce, 70% of purchases are influenced by the customer’s experience alone. Mobile Apps offer a more reliable platform for your customers to get in touch and engage with your brand. Mobile Apps significantly improve your customer’s experience from simplifying online purchases to providing easy-to-access information.

A report from Compuware suggests that consumer preference is strongly in favour of Apps (85%) ahead of mobile sites. The most common reason for this is that Apps are seen to be more convenient (55%), faster (48%) and easier to browse (40%).

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Figure 4

The Bottom Line

Launching a Mobile App in addition to your responsive website, will boost sales while enhancing the customer experience. Those businesses that wish to compete in a highly competitive market must adapt to the change and stay ahead by adapting rapidly evolving mobile technologies. Building a Mobile App will help boost your brand, make your services more accessible to users and increase your bottomline.

 

It is time you GO MOBILE.

2 comments

  1. Saksham
    June 11, 2020 at 5:28 pm

    Will Hybrid Apps take over Native apps?

    1. Chitral Gupta
      June 18, 2020 at 5:50 pm

      Both Hybrid and Native apps have their pros and cons and both will continue to co-exist.

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