Is a mobile app right for your business?
What is your strategy for building an app?
As with anything, first, you have to know what you want. You also have to know why you want it. Just wanting an app because that’s what everybody has without having a real purpose is just throwing away money. Do you want an app that just highlights what you do? Then you might be better off with a progressive web app or PWA. This just converts your present website into an app that they can have on their phone and browse off-line. Or do you want to create a custom app that lets you do such things as run all of your salespeople and lets them update and run the business completely from their phones? Or perhaps, something in between? So, stepping back from the fact that having an app for your business is very cool, really ask yourself what do you need. What will increase your business? Once you know that, then you can know what level of professionals you need to help you create what you need.
Check your competitors
If you are in the business where an app is valid and your competitors also have an app, as in any old-school business intelligence gathering, you need to know how their app works. If it’s something that you’re going to present to the customer side, you of course must make it better than theirs. Another thing to do is if they have an app, check what level of download it has from the app store and any ratings to see if it is actually something you want to do. If they have an app and their statistics have zero downloads, is that something you want to try and compete against? On the flip side of the coin, if they’re getting a ton of downloads, then you might be left behind so get cracking and get an app made.
Can you handle an app?
An app, like a website, does take upkeep. If people ask a question through the app, you need to be on top of the reply. This is just good customer service. If somebody walked into your store (assuming you have a brick-and-mortar) and asked a question to one of your salespeople, and the salesperson just ignored them and wandered around for five minutes before answering them, you would definitely not consider that good customer service and probably fire them. However, most people seem to have no problem with ignoring questions that come in from the app or the website, and when they do answer them it is days later. You need to have somebody, or yourself, with enough time to make sure that the app stays current and running well, and keeping the customer happy.
No brick-and-mortar
If you sell online only, an app might be a good match as you can do things that you cannot do necessarily with the website. You can do such things with a progressive app, but using a native applicant takes things so much further. It offers you a much smoother experience using a native app and you can offer a lot more bells and whistles. If it is important to you as to where they are, you can always track their location when they open the app as well. So, you can tell what to offer them in that area. It is also nice that the app has an icon on their phone which is a constant reminder of your business. If you are an online business, embrace all the possibilities.
Apps may not be for everyone, and not all businesses really require them. But if your business is one of those that can benefit from it, then they can be a godsend. Just make sure that you have them professionally written, or at least professionally tested, as there is nothing worse than a buggy app when you’re trying to present your best face forward for your business. Let us know if you have any ideas, and we can help guide you.
