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.

It’s Official! For the first time, people are spending more time using their mobile apps than watching television. According to the latest study from Flurry Analytics, U.S. consumers spent 198 minutes per day using mobile apps vs. 168 minutes watching TV. These numbers are up from 2014 – and do not include time spent using mobile browsers.

The report also notes it’s difficult to quantify how much of that time spent on apps overlaps with time spent on TV, since lots of people use their phones while watching TV. And while apps are making headway, TV usage isn’t decreasing.

Read the full story from Mashable.com

So after surpassing Desktop web usage, consumers love for mobile apps has yet to look back – and is now the top media channel in the U.S.

Are you surprised at this historic, cultural shift? We’re not!

There’s no denying that technology has made a definitive impact in our lives. In looking back over the last 10 years at the world of Advertising specifically – those of us in the business have witnessed the way that it has forever changed the how, what, when, where, and why of effectively communicating with our targeted audience.

Lizzie Wedhelm, Pandora’s senior vice president of ad product and strategy, shares her perspective on the the Top 10 major changes in advertising over the last 10 years :

I’ve witnessed many dramatic shifts in the past decade, both in our company’s evolution and in the advertising industry. I’ve compiled my own list of the 10 significant things that have changed in advertising throughout this period of time.

1. Mobile Mania
2. Data-Driven
3. Quality Matters
4. Bite-Sized Content
5. Multi-Layered Media: The Attention Economy Is Here
6. Internet of Things
7. Keep It Simple
8. Connected Kids with Real Money
9. Offline ROI in Fewer Than Three Clicks
10. Consumers are the New Spokespeople

Check out the full story here

…And just think, we’re only getting started.  If you’re not prepared, it’s enough to put you at your wits end.

So as technology continues to evolve at lightening speed – so will the consumer – and the way that we engage and interact with them will radically change.

Often day-to-day. And in Real-Time.

On the eve of Apple announcing it’s latest slate of devices and upgrades – Localytics has just released a special report stating that the most popular iPhone model on the market is the iPhone 6. Here is a breakout of the iPhone models and their percentage of the iPhone market:

• iPhone 6: 30.1%
• iPhone 6 Plus: 9.1%
• iPhone 5s: 23.7%
• iPhone 5c: 8.5%
• iPhone 4s: 8.8%

Read more via Adweek.com:

In addition, the report showed the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were adopted at a faster rate than their predecessors, the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. Specifically, at the one year mark for the iPhone 5s, that device was still in second place to the original iPhone 5.

In terms of app usage, larger screen sizes seem to translate into more app launches, with users of both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launching apps more than 15 times per month. This number decreases with each device generation, with the iPhone 5s having 14 app launches per month, for instance, and the iPhone 5 having 12.9 app launches per month. Localytics said this data also likely heavily correlates with the fact that adopters of newer iPhones tend to open apps more often.

If history is any indicator, these data points will change very quickly with the release of the new iPhone models, the deluge of new and upgraded mobile apps, and the growing excitement from consumers and the media. We’ll keep you posted on the developments.

The full report from Localytics can viewed here.

Image courtesy of endermasali / Shutterstock.com.

If you’re a typical mobile user, you know the drill: (1) Find that cool, awesome new app in the app store. (2) Download it. (3) Use it once or twice. (4) Find another shiny new object in the app store that looks even cooler.

If you develop mobile apps, this is exactly what you don’t want to face.  Read more Via recode.net

“As if getting a mobile app developed and installed isn’t hard enough, keeping users engaged with it may be the biggest challenge of all,” Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst for Adobe Digital Index told Re/code. “It’s a very crowded space and brands are vying for consumers that are becoming increasingly more selective.”

Fighting the stark reality of the ‘6 Month Half Life’ of mobile apps – and getting users to open and use the apps they have already downloaded is an on-going challenge for every mobile app developer.

Some solutions include re-targeting ads to get people to use the apps that they already have – instead of downloading the newest ‘shiny objects’ from the app store.

Building user loyalty is a critical issue in the world of mobile app development and we will continue to explore this and offer valuable tips and solutions to help you succeed in this area.