Businesses Say Customer Service is the #1 Priority for Mobile Apps

A new survey by FollowAnalytics of mid-size and large companies reports that for businesses building mobile apps, their #1 priority for doing so was to improve Customer Service. This might be a surprise to those who assume that a business would mainly get a mobile app just because it’s the “cool” thing to do these days…

38 percent of the survey’s 451 respondents said their primarily purpose in creating an app was improving customer service. Another 12 percent said it was to foster customer loyalty, and slightly more than a quarter wanted to extend their customer experiences beyond the Web.

“Customer service is the primary purpose of brands’ mobile presence,” said FollowAnalytics’ CEO Samir Addamine. “Especially in banking, insurance, retail, ecommerce, travel, hospitality, and automotive.”

Interestingly, less than a quarter of marketers viewed their app primarily as a means to increase revenue.

Read the full story right here…

Businesses who utilize their apps to enhance their customer service are making a smart move. They realize that they are now only a tap or two away from their customers at any given time.  That immediacy and efficiency is great – compared to the customer posting a negative review or comment on Twitter or Facebook – and it possibly going viral.

Many businesses go a step further and use their apps to collect data and communicate on a detailed level with their customers. For example, users of an Insurance app can report incidents, submit photos, and follow the progress of a claim. Or users of a Restaurant app can send a voice message to the Chef; or even a video testimonial if their service or meal was excellent.

Others are incorporating their mobile app data with their CRM’s to help ensure their customer records are as complete and accurate as possible. They can then utilize that for cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and for customer loyalty programs as well.

For those businesses on the sidelines regarding a mobile app, all objective measures indicate that now may be an excellent time to get in.  Whether you goal is to improve customer service, extend the experience from your website, build customer loyalty – it’s absolutely critical that you get a mobile app developer that understands your specific business needs and can effectively promote your app to your customers and your prospects.

What’s most interesting about the feat is that Snapchat has reached this milestone after clocking 2 billion video views per day in May this year and 3 billion just five weeks ago. The numbers clearly indicate the rapid growth of the company and its potential to help businesses reach more customers.

Implications for Businesses/Advertisers

There’s a bit of controversy however, regarding the 4 Billion daily views comparison with Facebook. Facebook counts a view when someone watches at least 3 seconds of autoplay in it’s News feed. Whereas Snapchat counts it upon click – and the experience is very different – with Snapchat grabbing the viewers attention by playing the video Full-screen, and for only 10 seconds. This makes for much stronger engagement with the viewer.

For businesses and advertisers, this validates that the views are likely real – something that they would pay more for (vs. Facebook). In addition, the ability to set a time limit allows you to create a unique call-to-action that creates true excitement.

The growing popularity of the app is motivating both Snapchat – and tech savvy businesses – to come up with creative ways to make the platform even more effective and engaging.

This incredible 4 Billion daily view achievement by Snapchat is catching the eye of all those businesses and entrepreneurs sitting on the sidelines thinking about or planning to develop a mobile app and capitalize on what could be just the beginning of another profitable run in the social messaging mobile app space.

Advice from mentors like Cuban and Richard Branson mean so much to so many, because they have “been in our shoes”. We can use their experiences as the ultimate sounding board for our own challenges and situations.

Here are 5 of the most important business lessons inspired by these billionaire mentors:

1. Build something that actually solves a problem.
2.Fail fast.
3.Build a great team and you’ll typically end up with a great product or service.
4.Build culture from the start.
5.Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries.

Read the full story Via entrepreneur.com

For an in-depth, behind-the-scenes profile on what it takes to achieve business success on a massive scale, take a look at “Mark Cuban: How I Became a Billionaire” from the Bloomberg Game Changers documentary series: