App development pitfalls

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When you’re building an app, it’s much more important to know what not to do than it is to follow a step-by-step checklist that lays out the path to success.

There’s a good reason for this – every app’s path to success is different, and something that’s right for one app could be completely wrong for another. The number one rule to successful branding is to differentiate yourself, and apps are no different. If you’re doing the exact same thing as a competing app, there’s no reason for users to try out your own.

That’s why this blog isn’t going to focus on what to do, but rather what not to do when developing your app.

Development pitfalls

Here’s what you shouldn’t do when building your app:

Make on-boarding difficult

When a user opens up your app for the first time, you want to make a good impression. The home screen of your app should instantly display the value of the app to the user – this can be achieved through obvious symbology in your navigation bar, or a quick, quippy, and enticing sentence that sums up what the app does.

Always make on-boarding achievable in the least possible amount of steps – you want users interacting with your app’s actual features, not spending time setting up accounts. Speaking of accounts…

No alternate options for logging in

If your app requires users to sign in, give them multiple options to do so. Some users will prefer to sign in through a social account, as it’s usually quicker than setting up a native account through the app.

Other users, however, prefer to set up a native account through your app, for many different reasons – some of those being security-minded users that don’t want your app to access their social data, or users who don’t have social media accounts.

Those who sign in with social media and those who don’t are both significant groups, so you want to make sure everyone has access to the option they prefer. Also, make sure you have enough social media options to link to.

Asking for payment info too soon

If your app requires access to a bank account, credit card, or online payment service like Stripe, don’t ask your users to input that info immediately after opening your app. Only request this info right before a payment must be processed. If you give users a chance to navigate through your app and figure out its value and the services it offers before asking for personal payment information, they’re much more likely to stick with your app.

For more info about asking for payment info and the effects it has on user retention, check out our blog on the topic.

Not conducting market research

Remember: just because you like your idea, it doesn’t mean everyone else will. Just like any product, apps must be based on market research – if there’s no one interested in your app, there’s no market to grow into.

More specifically about market research…

Not finding a niche

Like we stated above, the number one rule to branding is to differentiate, and it’s no different for apps. To quote Marty Neumeier’s Brand Gap, “when they zig, you zag.”

Conducting market research to determine what type of app people would be interested in isn’t enough – plenty of people are interested in ridesharing – but there’s already plenty of apps that have saturated this market. Think about how Spotify differentiated itself from Pandora – it’s a music streaming service, but while Pandora brings the music to you based on one band, with Spotify, (at least originally) you find the music you want to listen to.

These differences in design appeal to different audiences, which is exactly what you want to do. Lyft didn’t try to take away satisfied Uber customers, they researched the segments of users that were dissatisfied with Uber’s service, and then found out what they wanted. Then they did that.

Find a niche, and cater your app to their needs and wants.

Copying competition

As Nick Jones, NS804 CEO says, “Do your one thing and do it well.”

While it’s extremely important to keep track of what your competition is up to and how they’re doing it, it’s so you can take what works and then mold it to your own brand. If you’re outright copying, users will notice, and they’ll ask themselves “why don’t I just use the original app?”

Know what your competition is doing so you can capitalize on their good ideas and then head in your own direction. Stick to your tribe.

Trying to accomplish everything

To reiterate the point from above – it’s always better to do one thing well than it is to do multiple things mediocrely. Find your niche’s pain point, and then focus on solving that, and nothing else. Figure out ways to streamline the solution you provide. Every feature your app utilizes should in some way provide a benefit to solving your niche’s pain point.

By allowing your app’s scope to creep past your original idea, you can spell the doom of your business – for each feature you add, you add to both your time and cost invested into your app. When first starting out, provide the minimum amount possible to truly solve your niche’s pain point, and nothing else. Once your app is gaining traction, then you can go back to the drawing board and figure out what to add (but make sure the features you add still revolve around the main purpose of your app.)

For more tips on avoiding scope creep, check out our blog on the topic.

Not considering the use case

It’s easy to say “I want to make an app that helps connect people,” but what’s difficult to imagine is the way they will actually use it. When you have a vision or a brainchild, it’s not only difficult to throughly communicate your idea to other people, it’s also challenging for them to use it exactly the way you imagined they would. Everyone’s a little different, and because of this, use things in different ways.

There’s a few things you can ask yourself to help figure out what your app’s use case will be:

  1. When will the user open the app?
  2. Where will the user be when engaging with the app?
  3. What solution will they expect?
  4. How much time will it take to complete a session in the app?
  5. What problems will they run into while using the app?
  6. What corners will they try to cut while engaging with the app?

The more specific and narrow you can get with these questions, the better. Figuring out the answers to these questions can be achieved by through testing.

Multi-platform launch

If you’re making a hybrid or progressive web app (which we don’t recommend), this won’t really matter – but if you’re investing the time and money into native development (which is the more substantial option for long-term app growth), it’s much better to focus on one platform. This is for a few reasons:

  1. Android and iOS apps are built using different coding languages
  2. Each platform requires its own dev team, as well as its own round of beta testing
  3. For every platform you release your app on, you increase your post-launch costs
  4. Each native app requires significant time to build

Choose one platform to focus on in the beginning – once you have a substantial user base, and have a steady stream of income, then think about venturing to the other platform.

Not considering different markets on different platforms

This is another reason natively-developed apps are better than hybrid – Android and iOS users expect and interact with apps in different ways. From style guides to user culture, Android and iOS apps are very different in their methodology and feel. The market research findings you make about iOS users will most likely be different than the insights you make when speaking with Android users – even when your app ultimately functions the same on both.

If you’re having trouble figuring out what platform would be best for your app to launch on, check out our blog about deciding which is best for you.

Insufficient beta testing

While testing adds more time and cost to your initial development cycle, it ultimately saves you time, money, and headaches in the long run. Testing should be conducted continuously throughout your development cycle – test your app after every new build and iteration.

Users are fickle and will abandon an app for almost any reason – you don’t want to end up dealing with low user retention because you skipped this important step.

For more information about conducting beta testing on your app, check out our blog about it.

Ignoring A/B testing

Yup, there’s more testing you should be doing! If you’re unfamiliar with what A/B testing means, it refers to switching out one piece of data with another to see how it performs with users. For example, what happens if you switch the color of interactive buttons from blue to green? What if you switch the icon of your app in the app store to a different one?

To successfully conduct a round of A/B testing, you need to have a firm grasp of your analytics both before and after the change – then compare the two values to figure out which version is more effective.

Speaking of…

Not checking analytics

There’s nothing glamorous about analyzing data, but if you’re not, it’s like driving a car, down a mountain, with no brakes all while blindfolded.

That might seem like a bit of a hyperbole, but analytics is more than your conversion rate – platforms like Kumulos provide information about errors and crashing, what types of devices and platforms users are accessing your app from, what time of day they’re engaging with your app, and even what country or state they live in.

Knowing how your app is functioning among it’s niche is crucial and necessary to its continued growth and retention.

Putting user acquisition over user retention

It’s easy to get excited over your download rate – after all, if users aren’t downloading your app, how will they interact with it? While acquisition is incredibly important, retention is even more so. It’s the same rule as in sales: it’s always cheaper to retain a client than it is to find a new one.

Your efforts should always focus on keeping your returning users happy – if they’re happy, they’ll provide your app with positive reviews and scores, which will boost its rank on the app store, which in turn will lead to a higher conversion rate. Remember – word of mouth is the most powerful and effective marketing tool.

When you make your current users happy, they’ll do your marketing for you.

Not interacting/engaging/updating

There’s nothing creepier than a ghost town, and your users will notice if your app becomes one. Regularly update your app – this shows your users that you care about their experience with you app, and it also serves as a reminder that your app exists, and there’s something new to check out.

If a user leaves a review, respond. People like being heard. Use push notifications and proximity marketing to add different channels of user engagement to your app’s repertoire.

No post development plan

App lifecycle management is crucial to your app’s growth and success. To properly manage your app’s lifecycle, you need to focus on:

  • Keeping track of your competition
  • Providing major updates to UI and security
  • Offering additional solutions through your app
  • Adapting to current trends

When it comes to anything that works on code, development is never truly over. For your app to stay relevant, you need to show your users you’re ready to adapt to our ever-changing world. Those who stay still get left behind.

Expecting immediate ROI

Your app won’t immediately start making money after it’s published to the app store. Plan in advance for this – the first phase after launch is implementing your ASO campaign. It’s when users are engaging with your app that you’ll begin to see a profit, and no earlier.

Not considering hidden costs

Remember – publishing to the App Store and Google Play requires a publisher’s fee. The App Store’s fee recurs annually, and Google Play’s is a one time deal.

Hosting the backend of your app will have recurring costs (usually monthly) and your analytics platform will also be a recurring cost (usually monthly as well).

For more information about the hidden costs of developing an app, check out our blog on the topic.

Follow your own path

We hope you’ve found this list of what not to be helpful. But always remember one thing – if it works for your app, it works. Don’t worry about fitting the mold – be different, and be daring.

How to build a mobile app: App design

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What makes a well-designed app? Is it the colors? The layout? The icons? The flow?

It’s simultaneously none and all of these things combined – and a whole lot more. In this addition to How to Build a Mobile App: The Ultimate Guide, we’re going to go through – step-by-step – how to properly design an app from the ground up.

Step 1: Find the problem

This might be the hundredth time we’ve stated it in our blog, but knowing your users’ pain point will drive every facet of your app’s development – from the logic in the backend to your color scheme and logo.

This is the most important step to take, as it will dictate everything your app does. When searching for a pain point, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Is this problem specific to my niche?
  • What solution does my niche expect?
  • What steps do they need to take in order to solve the problem?
  • Where does my app fit in those steps?

For example, let’s pretend you want to make an app for gardeners. Great! Now, what niche of gardeners are you attempting to connect with? Gardeners is much too broad of an audience. What about community gardens? Those are pretty big right now. Still too broad. Okay, how about community garden managers? Now there’s an idea.

What kinds of problems do community garden managers face? Are community gardens often managed by one individual, or a team? Is that team made of employees or volunteers?

Narrow your scope as much as you can, and know as much as you can about your audience. Go to a community garden. Get your hands dirty. Figure out what it’s all about, and put yourself in the shoes of a community garden manager. Then, figure out how to make their life easier.

Step 2: Know the problem – and the steps to solve it

Let’s continue to pretend you’re making an app for community garden managers, and the problem you’re planning to solve isn’t (after your extensive research) necessarily gardening related, but rather gardening adjacent. You found that two big issues community food gardens strive to solve are food waste and food deserts – community gardens tend to reach out to, well, the community, in an effort to get them eating healthier, fresher, and more local produce.

The community garden you’ve reached out to specifically wants to have a system put in place that keeps track of their food production, and how much of the food produced is wasted – but their group of volunteers doesn’t have the time to reach out to fifteen, thirty, or one hundred people every week.

So, your plan is to make an app that gives the community garden manager the tools they need to keep track of food production and food waste. But how do you go about doing that?

They have a limited budget, and since they’re volunteers, limited time. Because of this, they need a system that gives them the necessary data to effectively run the garden in the shortest amount of time possible. This is also a two step process – the community garden manager needs to know what’s happening in their garden, as well as what’s happening at their members’ dining room tables.

Your app needs to allow the community manager to collect data from remote locations – the community garden members’ kitchens, as well as the garden itself. So, you now know this app will be designed with two types of users in mind:

  1. The community manager keeping track of the different plots in the garden
  2. and the members who self report on their food consumption

Notice that both of these categories of users are organized by the role they play in solving the main paint point – secondary pain points are solved (like how to share and analyze data remotely) in the process of solving the main pain point – giving the manager the tools they need to adapt with members’ tastes, and grow more food that will actually be eaten.

Everyone’s brains work differently, so we won’t tell you to specifically sketch out your ideas, make wireframes, or write a list of steps users would take. Do whatever works for you – but it’s necessary for you to know the expected steps the people using your app will take. These are called your use case scenarios, or user stories.

So let’s map out the main use case scenario for this app. From now on, for brevity’s sake, we’ll call this app “Growr”:

  1. The community garden manager adds in the current produce to a selectable list on Growr
  2. A community garden member selects the types (and amounts) of produce they brought home from the garden from that list
  3. The member then reports on the types and amounts of produce they actually ate
  4. The data is sent to the community garden manager, who then uses that data to optimize the amounts and types of food grown in the garden

Step 3 – Build your brand

Whether you’re doing it DIY or by partnering with a dev shop, this is the time to figure out what your app is going to look like. By this point, you know the audience you’re trying to connect with, the problem they face, and the steps your app will take to help them solve that problem.

An app’s brand is determined by your audience, and measured by how well it solves their problem – not by its icon in the App Store. But, it doesn’t hurt to make your solution look pretty. This is where you’ll figure out Growr’s color palette, fonts, logo, and icons.

After you’ve created these individual elements that comprise your visual brand, and with a map of your use case scenarios, you can start to layout your app. This is a step in the process where we will advise the use of wireframes – this is to help you get a feel for the flow of your app, and save both time and money.

The next step is to add in all the individual elements you made previously (like the logo, and button styles), and fill in the wireframe layouts with final versions. When that’s done, it’s time to move on to the prototyping phase.

Step 4 – Make it work

You don’t need to know Swift or JAVA – there are plenty of prototyping apps available to use. Before we begin coding, our lead designer will create a prototype of the app in InVision, and we’ll all sit down in our conference room to test the build against the pain point. We get the whole company together for these meetings – the more eyes on your prototype the better.

Doing this will allow you to iron out any bumps in your app’s flow, UX, and design all before writing a single line of code. It will also give you an idea of what your app will really look like when it’s complete – it’s the difference between looking at a photo and watching a video – prototyping your app, while adding another step into the design process, will always give you more information that screenshots of your app’s layout.

After this, your design phase is complete! It’s on to coding for you!

Some other prototyping tools you can use:

Platforms, themes, and user expectations

Major decisions about your app’s design will be made by which platform you build your app for – either Android or iOS. Both have different style guidelines, as well as over-arching layout themes. Android and iOS users expect the same functionality to be interacted with in very different ways; Android users, for instance, will look for a “hamburger” style navigation menu, while iOS users will look for a bottom navigation bar.

Android design principles

Create. Unify. Customize. These are the ideals of Android, and specifically, Material design. Material design focuses on typography, grids, space, scale, color, and imagery, and a meaningful, focused hierarchy that immerses users in the UX of the app.

Click here for the full list of Android core design principles.

iOS design principles

Clarity. Deference. Depth. These are the themes that separate iOS from other platforms. Some other words that pop up a lot in Apple’s iOS design guide are understand, familiar, subtle, and functionality. iOS guidelines dictate apps with an esthetic that fits the brand of the app, consistency of theme with iOS as a whole, and fluid manipulation and feedback.

Click here for the iOS style guide.

General app design principles

Whether it’s print, web, or mobile, good design is more than making something look pretty – design is understanding both the project and the problem – and knowing how to present that information in a pleasing way.

An important thing to keep in mind when designing your app is that any interaction should provide a user with some sort of feedback. Think of the difference between a website that features scrolling parallax versus one that doesn’t. Which one feels like the better, more responsive UX?

Smartphones are much more intimate than a desktop – they spend most of their time right next to us – and because of this, we expect our inputs when using them to have a sort of visual conversation with us.

You want your app to feel like it belongs on the users device, and for iOS and Android users, this will mean different things. While Android apps tend to be more customized than iOS apps, both feature libraries of visual elements available to all UI/UX designers. Don’t be afraid to use these – in fact, Apple encourages it. Your app should feel as native to the user as their native texting app.

This is why we believe native development is always the best choice in the long run – even if that means increasing the time and money spent in the development stage. While building multiple apps for different platforms can be more expensive in the beginning, having two native apps that perform better with users than a single hybrid app is a more sustainable and scalable business model. For more reasons why we believe native is the better choice, visit our blog on the topic.

Another thing to consider is not only the hierarchal flow of your app, but the visual flow as well. For example, when an iOS user sees a screen come in from the bottom of their device (known as a presentation), they intuitively expect a step that must be completed before moving back to the previous screen. If a screen comes in from the side (known as a push), they intuitively know they’ve moved on to the next step.

It’s choices like this that may be small on their own, but the summation of their parts as a whole create a consistent visual language and flow throughout your app – which is one of the main hallmarks of good design.

Nitpick the details

Details matter – an app should never have to come with a set of instructions in order for a user to know how to properly interact with it. It’s the small details that will provide your users with the hints and visual cues they need to navigate your app.

Subtly is key to mobile app design. Something as simple as a highlighted or muted color can imply a button’s functionality – if a button is a bright color, your users will expect it to accomplish something. If a button is a muted color, like grey, they will intuitively expect it to perform an action analog to a canceling function.

There’s a balance to these fine details, however. Keep your design as simple as possible – if the people you present your prototype to can’t figure out how to navigate your app in a few minutes (or ideally, 30 seconds), it’s time to go back to the drawing board and figure out how you can simplify things.

Understand the problem

That’s the most important part of mobile app design. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a designer yourself – knowing what your app needs to accomplish will dictate everything about it. It’s a quote I’ve used before, but I feel Frank Lloyd Wright’s words fit perfectly in reference to mobile design:

Form follows function – that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.

How to build a mobile app: Actionable apps

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Did you know that within the first three days of an app being downloaded, 77% of the users who downloaded it have already deleted it from their device?

It doesn’t get any better with time, either – after a month, 90% of users will have abandoned the app. There’s many reasons for this – ranging from the app taking up too much storage space, to unresolved bugs like crashes causing users frustration, enough of which leads to the users switching to another, more reliable app.

For a lot of app publishers however, the problem isn’t user acquisition – it’s user retention. Sometimes it’s for the reasons listed above, but unfortunately, it’s quite often due to the app not providing anything solid for its users to act upon.

Actions speak louder than words

There are many tools you can use to drive user engagement through action – too many to cover completely. And for a lot of apps, the pain points they solve are unique, and therefore use toolsets tailor-made to the particular problem they are designed to solve.

There are, however, general categories of CTAs you can use to drive your app’s user engagement:

  • Tools
  • Push notifications
  • Empowerment
  • Limited time offers and other classic CTAs

Actionable tools

Sometimes, the only thing you need to make an actionable app is a good idea. These can come in many forms – apps like Uber solve a particular pain point brilliantly, Instagram gives users the tools to make every photo look good, and games like long-gone Flappybird toe the line perfectly between simplistic, eye-catching, and just downright fun.

All of these apps listed above are million dollar ideas, or to be more accurate, multi-million (or even billion) dollar ideas. If you’ve come up with a truly ground breaking solution that effects a wide ranging audience before anyone else, or you solve a common pain point better than anyone else, your app fits into this category. After acquisition, you’ve got little to worry about – your app will drive it’s own user engagement.

Not every app built from a good idea will achieve this rockstar status, however – and shouldn’t be compared to giants like Uber. Taxis have been a widespread thing in even the smallest of towns for a long time – Uber just provided a smoother user experience. The whole ride share industry is booming due to its enormous demand – everyone needs some form of transportation, whether it’s a car, bike, or scooter.

Some good ideas focus on smaller market segments – and that’s not a bad thing. A smaller market segment means a close-knit tribe to engage with. Take, for example, Whystle. It’s an app that provides its users with alerts about product and safety recalls announced from government agencies like the FDA or FTC, and the industries they regulate.

While an app like that won’t appeal to as many people as an app like Instagram, Whystle solves a pain point facing many users – health and safety conscious consumers no longer have to scour a multitude of websites for news about recalls – they can just open up Whystle and scroll through a list in a matter of seconds.

Creating an inherently actionable app is the hardest type of actionable app to achieve; but the best way to go about this isn’t to search for a moment of inspiration – it’s all about doing market research, identifying a pain point that has yet to be solved by an app, and then figuring out how to make an app that provides the solution.

For more tips about app ideation, check out our blog on the topic.

On the other side of the coin, you can look at what apps are doing well, and then provide the same tools for a different segment of that market. Think of Uber vs. Lyft.

The equation behind any successful app that serves users as a tool is: pain point + solution + user experience + ASO = high user retention and acquisition.

Push notifications

Push notifications are a powerful CTA tool – they can increase user retention by up to 180%, and users that opt in to push notifications engage with apps 88% more than those who don’t.

The trick is to remember that a push notification will almost 100% of the time be seen as an interruption to your users – the only time it wouldn’t be is if the user is currently navigating to open up your app.

Due to their inherently disruptive nature, push notifications must always have at least one of the following traits (and optimally, both):

  • Provides an immediately tangible benefit
  • Is a personalized reminder or offer

Sending spammy or plain broadcasted push notifications to your users doesn’t have the same impact as personalized ones – broadcasted push notifications have an engagement rate of 15%, while personalized more than triple that with an engagement rate of 54%. Take the time to analyze your user data and craft personalized messages for push notifications – it will pay off.

Look at user metrics like the time of day they engage with your app, the countries they live in, the device they use, the products or content they click on, and then make messages specific to those interests. If you have a segment of users that live in Portugal, craft them messages in Portuguese. If they’ve looked at a specific product a few times and then left their session, send them a push notification with a 5% off code for that product.

The more personal the better. They can also be used to make the most out of a bad situation – for instance, if a user experiences a crash while using your app, send them a push notification apologizing for the issue, and that you’re working to fix it. This kind of personal engagement gives you a much better chance at retaining the user after a bad experience.

An easy way to keep track and make sense of personalized user data is with an analytics platform like Kumulos. Kumulos also gives you a platform to both send out and analyze the results of personalized push notifications.

Due to geofencing and location services, push notifications can now be more personalized and poignant than ever with proximity marketing. These can be used to engage users when they are near a physical location pertinent to your app; for example, if you ran an e-bike service, you could send a user a push notification when they are within two blocks from a bike station.

For more information about proximity marketing check out our guest blog on the topic by Kumulos Marketing Manager Caroline McClelland.

Empowerment

These are apps that somewhat fall into the tool category, but rather than providing a service or tool, give users encouragement to complete tasks. This can be achieved in many different ways; an exercise app can keep track of a users gains or times in order to demonstrate their accomplishments, or a sandwich shop can use an app to keep track of how many lunches a customer has had, and reward them for every tenth meal purchased.

Apps that empower their users like this will often see high engagement – they give users a goal to continuously strive towards – whether it’s losing weight or buying that tenth turkey club. In order to check their progress, users have to open up your app, which consequently leads to higher engagement.

Limited time offers and other classic CTAs

Most marketing and sales tactics are transferrable to apps, and the most common channel for these strategies is through push notifications. Let’s revisit that proximity marketing example – not only can you alert a user that your service is close to their current location, you can make the offer even more enticing by adding fear of loss into the mix: Hey, we noticed you’re close to one of our scooter stations, but there’s only 2 left! Hurry before they’re all gone!

These tactics don’t have to be applied to only push notifications, however. Other digital mediums like newsletters, social media, the app store, and any other channel you engage users through can be used to promote limited time offers.

Personalization and user benefit

Those two features are the bottom line to creating an actionable app. Create pertinent CTAs that provide users with an immediate benefit – whether it’s through the tools your app provides, push notifications, or encouraging the completion of goals. Remember to specifically tailor your CTAs to both your brand and the users you’re engaging with, and don’t be afraid to try new things, as long as you follow the golden rule of user engagement – engage users like friends, not like customers.

Improving your business operations and culture with an internal app

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Very rarely does a change in your business’ process relate to a boost throughout the entirety of your company’s systems and departments – and you’d be right to be wary of anyone claiming to be able to facilitate such sweeping reform.

But there is one change you can make that will increase your company’s efficiency, communication, collaboration, training, and employee retention, as well as inventory management, accounting, service, and sales – all of these facets of your business can be improved simultaneously by creating an internal mobile app for your employees and operations.

Most companies understand the power of reaching out to their audiences using a consumer-facing mobile app. Global mobile traffic hovers at around 50% of all internet usage, and 82% of all mobile users in the U.S. made at least one online purchase through their mobile device as of December 2017. Out of all that mobile traffic, 90% comes from time spent using apps.

Stats like these are compelling – and make for good figures to show to board rooms. But here’s another stat to consider: A study conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management found that large corporations (~100,000 employees) reported an average loss of $62.4 million per year due to miscommunication, and small companies (<100 employees) on average report a loss of $420,000 a year for the same reason.

Those are the direct opposite of insignificant figures. Let’s look into the various ways a mobile app can boost your business’ bottom line and employee culture at the same time.

Improve your employees’ communication consistency

Have you ever called an employee’s phone, and not gotten an answer? Of course you have. Does your team struggle to keep on top of emails from other team members? More than likely, at least sometimes.

With your own internal app, you can keep all communication under one roof – a good way to ensure employees with multiple emails or phone numbers are kept in the loop. This also helps keep past conversations organized, which makes referencing data supplied by co-workers a much faster process for employees working on a project or being trained, lessening the amount of interruption in workflow they face on a daily, hourly, or even minute-by-minute basis.

Workers switching between programs or even devices might not seem like the massive time sink that it actually is – but consider the decision of UPS to not make left turns; they invested in a software that mapped the United States (as well as most of the world), in order to nearly eradicate left turns from their parcel delivery truck routes. This decision ended up saving the company over 20 million gallons of fuel every year – those seconds it takes to make a left turn add up, and the same is for employees waiting for that one program that always takes so long to boot up.

Email is the left turn of inter-office communication. An app keeps everyone, at all times (at least during work hours), in real-time communication with each other – no delays or time spent finding someone.

Your internal app doesn’t have to be limited to the four walls of your office, either – we actually include our clients in their own specific channel in order to ensure clear and quick communication, as well as transparency in the development process. Our business developer regularly sends us photos of cool things happening in the city during his client meet ups – or a photo of his passenger seat laden with donuts on their way back to the office.

If you work in collaboration with any outside teams, agencies, or freelancers, or have a sales or service team in the field, a mobile app keeps them in constant communication as well.

Communication is the key to a strong & collaborative culture

Everyone likes being heard – and from reasons ranging from remote workers to introverted employees, it can be difficult for some of your employees’ voices to be recognized. According to a Gallup poll, 70% of the work force is disengaged – and reasons reported include:

  • Lack of feedback or direction from their manager
  • Lack of socialization with their team
  • Lack of understanding of their company’s mission and values
  • Lack of proper communication between them and their manager

All of these issues can easily be solved with an internal business app. For example, a few months ago, I experienced a death in my family; in the following weeks, the messages and encouragement I would receive from our CEO and my team members were enormously beneficial to my productivity, my well being, and my connection to NS804.

All of our communication is done through this channel. The connection it provides is the backbone of our culture – it’s surprising how empty even a small office can feel without some form of instant communication available.

Our CEO can randomly quiz us on our core principles, and give out rewards to the person who responds the fastest; non-punitive competitions like this help keep employees engaged with your core values, promote healthy, lighthearted conversations between managers and employees, and empower introverted team members that might not be comfortable shouting out “Humble, passionate, unified, grateful, service!” in the conference room.

It’s a level playing field for all types of communication, and keeps employees focused on your goals, and engaged with the work necessary to achieve them. Remember that figure of 70% of the work force being disengaged from their employer? They cost organizations $450 – $500 billion annually – with an internal business app, those organizations could re-engage with a portion of that 70%. Even an employee engagement rate increase of 10% would be equivalent to a $50 billion increase in revenue for those organizations.

That’s not a paltry sum.

Efficiency

An internal business app doesn’t just provide your employees with a new way to talk to each other – it gives them the knowledge and tools of your entire company – and it’s all just a few inputs away.

There’s one word that will make any retail or manufacturing company shiver: inventory.

Between your accounting, sales, and service departments, there’s bound to be a discrepancy in numbers eventually – or, for example, a service employee could grab a part from your stock for a customer in your store, but accounting isn’t made aware of it in time to warn your sales rep that they can only guarantee that new client of yours 49 parts instead of the 50 they were just promised.

An internal business app can stop those handshakes from happening. With an internal business app, your business developer will never again make promise your company can’t keep because you’re one part short from a full order – instead, they’ll impress their client with: “Oh, looks like we just had another sale from that lot. I can get you the partial order right now for a discounted price, or get that order to you in full tomorrow.”

When a client sees that your business developer is that in tune with your company, and that knowledgeable about your capabilities, they are subtly shown that your company will be the most attentive to their needs. Rather than saying, “We take care of our clients,” you can show them in real time.

Internal business apps give these systems (inventory management, accounting, service, and sales) the ability to work off of the same number sets, the same SKUs, and the same reports. If your service department accesses inventory, accounting, sales, and the inventory manager are made aware of the change instantly. With the growing on-demand economy, the ability to report accurate numbers in real time will be imperative to your growth and success.

Internal business apps boost your workflow, make you more adaptable, and improve your client and customer relations

Mobile apps have undoubtably had an enormous impact on the way customers and clients engage with businesses – the companies that migrated to mobile engagement are reaping the rewards right now. The same will be true for companies that utilize internal business apps – they will be more efficient, providing a better customer experience, and they’ll boost employee retention and culture.

A company that boasts high customer and employee satisfaction? That’s one that I’d bet on.

The end of the tech sector?

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Name an industry that hasn’t been changed by tech. I’ve been sitting here for the past twenty minutes trying to think of one, and I haven’t been able come up with anything. Even linguistics aren’t immune – the preface “smart” is even more pervasive than “HD” was in the late 00’s and early 10’s. Smartphones, smartwatches, smartTVs, smart locks, smart cars, Smart Water, smart homes…

The tech sector has never been stronger (when weighing its economic and cultural impact both) – and yet, the next few years may just be the end of it. Not because companies like Amazon are a trend that will fizzle out as predicted by economists in the early 00’s, but because companies like Amazon aren’t just online retailers anymore. Google isn’t just a search engine for the web – it’s a search engine for everything.

Soon (given the current rate of innovation), the tech sector will cease to exist because it won’t just be a sector, but rather the economy itself.

The user experience

The melding of the tech sector with other industries has been both sudden and violent, and yet intrinsic to the success of the current leaders of the economy today. Just as other industries benefit from the inclusion of tech, so to does tech benefit from partnering with those industries; it’s the natural avenue of progression for tech’s growth.

Surface features, like refrigerators and mirrors enhanced with LCD screens that tell you the weather is an obvious inclusion of tech – but these changes are superficial. The screen on your refrigerator isn’t the end game – it’s part of a system that’s been in the making for the past decade.

The overarching theme in any user-facing software is to provide good UX by focusing on solving a pain point with an easy to use tool that takes the stress out of solving the user’s problem. No one was ever asking to check stocks in the bathroom mirror – but they were showing companies (by the products they purchase) that they like universal services.

When smartphones went from something everyone wanted to something everyone had, mobile traffic very rapidly took over half the share of internet usage, and is now the leading source of all internet traffic.

This wasn’t because there was a new device with a screen on it, it’s because people wanted to use the internet everywhere, and all of a sudden, they could. We just happen to spend a lot of our day not in front of a desktop, laptop or tablet – and when you’re standing in front of the mirror combing your hair, or opening the fridge to grab a snack, your hands are usually occupied. No one appreciates a weather-telling refrigerator, but they do appreciate one that gives them the ability to continue taking in visual information while interacting with their Google Assistant, or Alexa, or HomePod, or whatever name Facebook will come up with, when their hands are otherwise occupied.

There’s a comforting feeling you get (at least I do) when using tech to solve problems, due to the user experience that’s been baked in since the dawn of the internet.

Yesterday, when chatting with a Grubhub customer service representative, I noticed something; I didn’t feel the usual anxiety of talking over a phone. If they didn’t have a chat feature, I probably wouldn’t have even communicated the issue I had with their service – I wasn’t as much dissatisfied as I was confused, and the interaction over the phone wouldn’t have been worth the emotional investment – but the interaction I had with Grubhub through the chat feature ended up increasing my brand loyalty by providing customer service through a channel I preferred.

Companies are always looking for new ways to communicate with their customers – especially those that provide a service. Tech has the added benefit (and upper hand) of it’s main point of interaction remaining with the customer at all times.

This is why Amazon can afford to open up physical book stores and buy out Whole Foods. Why Google is entering the video game industry with the Stadia – because they’re better built to work within the still emerging digital economy, and like water, economic growth will seek the path of least resistance – and for tech, that direction is towards home services and beyond.

The new vertical integration

Tesla might be a car company – but they don’t just make cars. They write auto-pilot software, build batteries and energy storage facilities, and supply the charging stations that keep their cars running. But this is the usual, time-honored vertical integration we all know.

Google and Amazon are competing to provide both customers and companies with fully integrated customer acquisition funnels. Customers can use their Alexa or Google Home to find a company that provides a service, while companies can use ad platforms provided by Google and Amazon to reach the customers. Google and Amazon provide the cloud storage the other companies use to host their website and app, provide the analytics of their platforms’ user acquisition, and provide companies with customers’ data.

Amazon buys food, sells that food in a physical location and through a digital platform, handles the transportation of the food (from either factory-to-store, or store-to-customer), and uses the data from what the customer bought to sell to advertisers and create more pertinent targeted ads.

Google will give users the ability to control almost every aspect of their home; through Google Home, you’ll be able to find and book, for example, a furnace repair service, without worrying if you’ll even be there. Your Google Home could use the porch camera to verify the technician was their at the scheduled time, open the smart locks, and record the entire visit.

Tech has evolved

It isn’t web dev or apps or blockchain or VR – tech is rapidly becoming the way we want to interact with everything. The words “user” and “customer” have almost become synonymous, and as such, brands are expected to provide a user experience that is unique, searchable, and unified within the system that is the internet of things. Companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple all stand to benefit greatly from the coming customer acquisition revolution.