With the dominance of the internet going stronger every day, having a strong and robust online presence is very crucial for businesses aiming to stay ahead of the curve. New startups, SMEs, and even enterprise, everyone has felt this need one way or another.
One smart and efficient way of ensuring your consistent online presence is a mobile app tailored to meet the unique needs and requirements of your clientele.
A regular smartphone user spends approximately 3 hours of his day operating mobile apps. This clearly highlights the potential for businesses to interact and engage with their customers through custom mobile apps.
But how do you know if you truly need a mobile app for business?
Here are 9 clear signs that help you decide if your business needs a custom mobile app.
High Mobile Traffic
The first and most common sign for you to create a mobile app for business is the high mobile traffic you are getting on your website. High mobile traffic means a large portion of your target audience uses mobile phones to interact with your business. Creating a custom mobile app for them will enhance their user experience, helping you win them over.
Tip
Use analytical tools to analyze what percentage of your audience is using mobile phones to interact with your business. If the percentage is even above 55-60%, it’s a sign that you should create a mobile app for business.
Behind in the Competition
Competitors’ analysis is very crucial in business development. If your competitors have already developed their mobile apps, this can be a good sign that you should develop one too. Not only will this help you stay in the competition but if you can fill a significant market gap, it can be a huge success as well.
Tip
While performing a competitor’s analysis, try to find out significant areas they are missing. For instance, a food delivery business app may not have push notifications. Analyze the gaps and try to fill them in your own custom app to get better engagements and user interactions.
Poor Online Visibility
High search rankings on SERPs directly indicate your online visibility. If you aren’t doing well in that area, it may be a good time to consider some alternatives. An understandable reason why you are getting low traffic on your website is that people are shifting more towards apps now. And it’s a pretty good sign for you to develop a mobile app for business.
Tip
While developing your own custom app for business, make sure you offer all the features that are available on the website. If possible, add better ones to tell your customers that the app is a great way to interact.
Inefficient Manual Operations
The capacity of humans to store and collect data manually is limited. If your business is witnessing constant growth and is in need of automated data gathering and storage, but you don’t have a large team of employees to take care of that, having a custom app for your business can be a great idea. Whenever your customers engage with your business using a mobile app, it can automatically store their operational insights and help you improve your services and overall user experience.
For instance, suppose 100 of your customers visited one of your specific product pages and added it to their carts. Now, manually gathering all their data can be very exhausting, right? But when you have a mobile app, it will automatically store their activity, saving you both time and efforts.
Complex User Experience
Another significant sign that you need a mobile app for business can be the complex user experience of your business. If your business services and products require the customers to perform complex, or lengthy, processes, it can be very difficult, especially for mobile users.
For instance, if you are in the finance industry and your customers need to fill out long forms. One mistake can cost them money and they might not complete the checkout due to the complicated processes.
This can lead to poor engagement with the services, low conversion rates, and ultimately decreasing sales. To fix that, you need an easy-to-use mobile app that can carry out the operations smoothly, ensuring high conversion rates and higher sales.
Tip
Review user behavior on your website to know where you are going off. Conduct a usability test on mobile devices to know if your website works well on mobile devices.
Need for Enhanced Personalization
If you are a startup business and need higher engagement from your audience, personalization is a proven way. Customers loved personalized offers, services, and products that aligned with their requirements, preferences, and location. In such a time, developing a custom mobile tailored specifically to the needs of your customers is a great idea.
Tip
Conduct surveys, ask for feedback, and identify your customer persona to know what your audience likes and needs. Customer support is an underrated way to do this.
Specific Feature Requirements
The use of features like offline access and push notifications in apps has significantly increased over time. Whether you are a food delivery business or offer car rental services, push notifications can help you persuade your users to take action that will benefit your business. Similarly, offering offline access to your customers means more screen time, and higher engagement, leading to customer satisfaction.
For instance, we worked on a mobile app development project with a client that focused on enhancing data privacy for their customers by providing data-storing features in their app. One of the key requirements of the development project was to provide offline access to the customers so they could store important documents in case of an emergency. We implemented secure local storage and ensured that no outsider app or party could access the offline storage except the person with the device, ensuring higher security and trust.
By developing a mobile app for business, you can achieve all this and stabilize and grow your customer base.
Poor Customer Communication
In order to ensure a stable and growing business, constant communication with customers becomes a must-to-do for businesses. Whether it is to share a report with your customers or to inform them about a future launch, traditional communication channels have become much less efficient. In such a case, a mobile app works perfectly. Not only does it solve internal communication within your business team, it helps you establish strong communication with your customers too, leading to a better user experience.
Poor Brand Image
Last but not least, developing a mobile app for business becomes a critical choice if your business is lacking or facing a poor brand image. Brand image means the way customers will look at your business and either say, “oh, this is a great one”, or, “nah, it’s in the wrong place”. As a business, you need to make sure customers choose the first option for your business. To do so, you need a robust mobile app that can solve their needs, keep them engaged, and help you create a strong brand image.
Want to Develop a Mobile App for Your Business?
The 9 signs mentioned in the article demonstrate perfectly the need for a mobile app for businesses. Not only is it a great way to solve the needs of your customers, it helps you establish yourself as a business leader. With a strategically developed mobile app for business, you can achieve higher customer engagement, conversion rates, and ultimately increased sales.
We, at Rollout Technologies, are a top-rated IT company in Edmonton, Canada, offering superior custom mobile app development services to our clients. With more than 12 years of experience developing apps for both Android and iOS using different programming languages, we know the drill perfectly well. Our team ensures that you get a strategically planned mobile app that aligns perfectly with your customer’s needs and preferences without expanding your budget much.
FAQs
Along with other factors, these three are the most crucial factors to consider while developing a custom app for business.
- Research your development partner. Is it a credible partner? Does it have enough experience?
- The requirements of your mobile app. What exactly do you want your app to do?
- The target audience. Be clear about who is going to use your mobile app.
A mobile app is a software application that can be installed on mobile devices. It provides higher performance and better features as compared to web apps.
On the other hand, web apps are internet-based apps that can only be used via the internet. While they offer broader accessibility, they come with limited features and limited scalability.
Yes. A mobile user spends 90% of their mobile time using apps, surpassing website use significantly. Additionally, mobile apps are considered to provide higher conversation rates and better customer engagement as well.