When are you app-ready? How big does your business need to be for an app to be appropriate? Well, as the world rapidly embraces the idea of being mobile first, apps are becoming increasingly important. Whether you’re contacting customers, managing employees or launching a new service, apps are increasingly vital — no matter how big your business is.
The app for customers
Consumers like apps. Of course they do. Apps are easy to use, provide all the information they need and are usually quicker to access too. But what does your enterprise have to gain from having one? Well, one major reason is customer loyalty. An app naturally gives you greater control over the whole customer experience. With access to not just the Internet but features of on the mobile device itself (e.g. microphone, camera, etc); an app can create a far more immersive and valuable user experience. In addition, unlike a web client, which is only able to collect a limited set of visitor details, an app can help your business develop a full picture of who has been using the app and how. This data can then be used in developing new products, services and improving the all-round customer experience.
The app for employees
And it is not just limited to apps focused on customer engagement. With task-specific apps, businesses can benefit from higher level of productivity with employees. Having all the tools, data and features they need in one place will lead to time and cost savings.
For both apps aimed at consumers and employees, the emergence of wearables is going to bring about some major changes. By being that bit more personal, wearable devices will bring new ways to interact with both customers and employees. For instance, sending notifications to a smartwatch can help increase sales or provide notifications when a product the customer has been viewing is on special offer. Enterprise app development needs to consider wearables now and begin developing cross device.
Developing a mobile app
So, if you are now starting to think about creating an app for your enterprise, what do you need to consider? Well, before engaging with an enterprise mobile app development team it is best to set specific requirements and needs for the app. Once that is done it is time to meet the experts. At Apexon we offer a full end-to-end solution. This means that once a process is begun with us, it stays with us until it is completed. We are the only point of contact.
As part of our process, we include mobile device testing and mobile application testing. As highlighted in a previous blog, a negative customer experience is hugely damaging to the success of an app. A few bad reviews and customer will start looking elsewhere, regardless of how good your offerings are. The problems of glitches or bugs are just as bad for apps aimed at employees. If an app crashes or is not well thought through it will actually lead to inefficiencies and increased operational spending.
As with any new development, it is often the biggest companies with the deepest pockets that lead the way. However, over time this filters down to all ambitious start-ups. Mobile apps have now reached that point. With the app now the medium of choice for customers to interact with brands, it is time to start considering your own app development process. Enterprise app development is no longer the exclusive club it once was.
Contact us to see how we can help kick-start your app development process.