Making the case for a mobile app for your business

It's almost 2025; smartphones—as we know and see them today—have been around for close to two decades now and come unimaginably far from their inception. In fact, to call them phones would be an injustice, but since "computers with calling capabilities" is a mouthful, let's keep these facts and semantics aside and continue calling them smartphones. Fortunately, the Internet revolution has kept pace with the smartphone evolution, bringing us to the hyper-connected world we live in today.

Smartphones are incredible devices that help us do a lot with less—a capability that both businesses and customers appreciate. How can you, as a business, do more for your customers through these super-capable devices? The answer is simple: mobile apps.

Why mobile apps?

When we say mobile apps, we're not referring to just customer-facing ones; we're also talking about productivity-focused apps meant for employee use. There are several compelling reasons why having a mobile app is a necessity for businesses today. Let's look at a few of those here.

Convenience

The portability of smartphones is a good reason to commit to the mobile app journey. Their "anywhere, anytime" convenience helps both your customers and employees alike. Add to this the ability to integrate with third-party apps and tools, and you get one more avenue that helps you make life easier for your customers. What this ultimately means is that they can do a lot from a single place—your app—without having to switch between multiple other ones. Furthermore, since apps can be updated, you can work on continuously improving your app and keep introducing useful functionalities and capabilities in them.

Better self-service

Quickly accessible service is something that customers have always expected from businesses. Today, with the entry of more younger consumers into the overall customer base, this expectation is shifting more towards self-service capabilities as well.

A recent Gartner report shares two important insights:

• Mobile apps are associated with the highest self-service success rate.
• They're also associated with other positive outcomes, including overall customer satisfaction.

What this means is that a well-designed mobile app can help make self-service more available, accessible, and actionable for your customers.

Increased customer loyalty

Smartphones are everywhere, and your customers most likely carry them around. As a result, smartphones can influence each stage of the customer journey, and mobile apps, in particular, can influence loyalty and advocacy.

Mobile apps are a great place for special offers or discounts to customers. You can offer loyalty points when customers complete actions or purchases, which they can then redeem for rewards such as coupons or free gifts. Consider showing milestones so the customer knows how far they've come, motivating them to keep going.

Mobile apps also directly connect to social media platforms and the reviews sections in app stores. If your app is well-designed, you'll get positive reviews; if your app is buggy or inefficient, you'll get feedback for improvement. Either way, it's a win-win and a great way to track your customers' thoughts on your business/brand.

From improving convenience to helping ensure more loyalty and facilitating advocacy, there's a lot and more that a mobile app can do. That said, the right time to create a mobile app for your business was yesterday. But it's okay if you haven't started developing one; you can start today and get started on this valuable journey.

In this article, we explored why your business needs a mobile app. In the next, we'll look at how you can ensure a great user experience in the app you create.