We develop mobile applications. However, we sometimes have to talk clients out of it.
For instance, there are situations when we understand that the customer simply doesn’t need it. And clients are not always able to realize it at the beginning of the work. They confidently start the project, pay for the work, and then either at the development stage or after the release understand that the application doesn’t solve their needs. Or the client releases the app, but soon drops it: no money is allocated for promotion, the app is not downloaded, no one actually needs it.

We invest in the creation of every app, so we want it to be bring value, to live and grow, to help the business thrive. When we’re not sure it will, we say so explicitly. If the customer doesn’t develop and improve the app, it ends up on the back burner of the stores, which is no fun at all. It’s much better to make something that you can then proudly show to your peers or your mum. A million installations is an ambitious goal for a good developer and a reasonable customer.

Rustam Muhamedyanov, CEO of WINFOX

Here are seven questions. By answering them honestly, you will understand whether you need your own application or it is better to postpone development for the time being.

1. Is the app likely to help automate processes?

If you’re eager to boost the productivity of your employees, establish workflow in departments or increase profits, make a mobile app that automates business processes. Mobile is actively developing in this direction, allowing to complete more and more complex and diverse tasks — from repetitive daily operations and document management to sophisticated decision making and work with personnel.

2. Is your site accessed from cell phones?

Does Yandex.Metrika or Google Analytics show that your site is being accessed from smartphones and tablets? Provide users with a more convenient tool to interact with the brand than the mobile version. Users have a tendency to spend 20 times more time on the mobile app than on a mobile-adapted site. The longer a customer is with you, the more likely you are to engage them, learn about their habits, and eventually give them what they’re looking for.

Conversion rates in apps are more than 3 times higher than in mobile browsers.

Apps generate 47% of all mobile sales for retailers who have both a mobile site and an app.

3. Do you have repeat sales?

The app helps to retain those who are used to buying from you. Making a decision to run a promotion for loyal customers? Send them a push notification with a call to action. Planning a New Year’s Eve sale? Give users a promo code that will offer them a discount on the items in their cart. The more attractive the offer at the right time, the more likely a person will buy it.

In the app, the client is already yours. You only need to get them used to buying there.

4. Can the app solve customers’ problems?

Think about customers’ pain points and how the application can solve them. For example, a customer in a wholesale warehouse needs to send data on a new shipment to the warehouse. To get this data, they have to manually gather information from different sources and organize it on their computer. Or you can use an application: the client scans the barcodes on the packages, the data are automatically summarized and sent to the warehouse employee.

5. Do you have a loyalty system?

If you offer customers a profitable loyalty system, the app will allow you to do away with plastic cards once and for all. You won’t have to spend money on design and issuance, and customers won’t have to carry the plastic with them. Integrate your loyalty program into a mobile app and share useful promotions, discounts and bonuses electronically.

Unlike a plastic card, the app communicates with customers. It accumulates knowledge about each customer that you can use to personalize your sales.

6. Will the app allow you to do what the website can’t?

Ask yourself a question, what new business opportunities the app will provide. For example, you are an interior designer. In the mobile version, it is not very convenient to look at large photos from the portfolio, and you cannot use the latest trends in mobile. But in the app, with the help of augmented reality technology, clients will be able to guess what the apartment will look like after the repair according to your design project. If you understand that an app opens up new points of contact with the audience and makes the user experience more successful, it is worth considering developing an app.

7. Do your competitors have apps?

It’s important to understand what competitors are doing, whether they have mobile apps, what they can do, and whether they’re really that useful to the customer. Look at the stats on the App Store and Google Play. The number of downloads and reviews will tell you how customers are using competitors’ apps. If their services are so convenient and necessary, you’ll be left behind by not making an app with the same or better functionality.

Briefly

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions, it’s time to go mobile. In the next article, we’ll tell you what areas of business this is especially relevant for.