better_apps

With food delivery apps installed on a smartphone, why leave the comfort of home? Fine-dining or fast food, Mexican or Italian, you can get almost any cuisine imaginable with mere swipes of your fingertips.

Cravings and hunger pangs are conveniently satisfied. Then… you tap make payment and the app freezes.

You wait in anticipation, but nothing happens. What now? Refresh, reload, re-enter your order all over again? We’ve all been there.

In fact, 55 per cent of consumers admit that problems with digital services affect them more or for longer than they would like, and confess to becoming irritable towards others, even throwing their devices in a fit of rage.

From work to play

Apps are a dominant presence in every part of our lives. First thing in the morning, we reach for phones to turn off alarms and respond to texts. Checking emails automatically follows, as does reading the news and hailing a ride to work. As the day progresses, different apps are opened, closed and reopened without a second thought.

As consumers shift more parts of their lives online, it is only natural that they increasingly interact with businesses digitally. Digital services have become so intrinsic in daily life that 71 per cent of the consumers surveyed in the 2019 edition of AppDynamics’ App Attention Index don’t realize just how much they rely on apps.

As a result, many have started to attach equal or even greater importance to digital experiences than face-to-face interactions.

With the global pandemic forcing entire countries into lockdown and online, consumer reliance on apps has never been higher than now. Singapore too has implemented ‘circuit breaker’ measures that restrict travel and limit physical interactions.

Also read: 8 things to consider when choosing a mobile app development platform

Even before the current situation, Singaporeans had already shown significant reliance on apps with an average of 115 installed apps coupled with high app use. No wonder then that from shopping to banking and everything in between, apps have naturally stepped up to fill in the gaps.

Video conferencing apps like Webex allow businesses to continue functioning while Grab and Lazada meet food delivery and e-commerce needs.

For businesses, this is a chance for growth, but it comes with great risk. Disruptions to app services may result in severe repercussions, namely unforgiving, lost customers.

Apps today are not just a complementary element but a key differentiating factor. Consumers are no longer loyal to brands, but instead to apps, and businesses must prioritise elevated consumer expectations and ensure smooth experiences to grow their customer bases.

How then should businesses ensure apps are competitive and boost revenue in the business of apps?

Focus on the customer experience

While product offerings can be easily matched by competitors, the customer experience is not easily replicable. Customer journeys in every channel of interaction, be it through an app, a webpage, or even in brick-and-mortar are critical, even more so than metrics such as a product’s price. Singaporeans rated companies with good digital experiences higher than their competitors in KPMG’s 2019 Customer Experience Excellence Report, proving that each interaction, including digital ones have the potential to create long-lasting impressions.

Critically, as personalisation is also a key facet of customer experience, brands that utilise data with the right algorithms will be able to obtain precious insights and tailor product offerings – creating the best possible digital experience according to individual needs and preferences.

First impressions are made online and – particularly evident during the height of the pandemic – entire transactions are completed without physical visits. From research to comparison to purchase, a seamless digital experience can make all the difference. While brands understand the importance of physical interactions and service, the same can’t be said for their digital customer experience.

Interruptions and issues with apps can lead to negative emotions of stress and anger. And akin to a rude retail assistant or faulty POS system, poor digital experiences can have far-reaching consequences that extend beyond one lost sale, with 66% of consumers claiming they would avoid a brand known for providing poor digital experiences.

Push ahead with digital transformation

Digital transformation is not a new phenomenon and its importance will only increase as yet more consumers move online. Businesses should embrace going digital to enjoy benefits that are not limited to just improving organisational efficiency.

Tools like apps present businesses with opportunities to reach new customers, while also reinforcing relationships with existing ones.

Apart from being a platform on which to make products available, digital tools and apps are valuable channels for customer engagement.

Also read: How do you optimise the customer experience during a festive rush?

The omni-channel customer experience is in vogue, and businesses must adapt. When buying a product, Singaporeans call retail outlets, check out the brand’s web store, and then proceed to search for deals on Shopee, Lazada and maybe Qoo10 – and brands are expected to have a presence on many different platforms.

With the multitude of new channels available to consumers, brands must go where the eyeballs go in order to reach out to their target audiences – digital.

Ensure that data and insights are acted on

Because consumers depend heavily on and use applications in daily life, companies cannot treat digital experiences as separate to the business. Going digital also means that businesses have access to huge amounts of data and should utilise it.

By correlating different aspects of an app interface to goals such as customer acquisition, or analysing usage patterns, brands can improve and incorporate effective changes to the digital experiences they provide.

Brands that will stand out from the competition and secure growth will be those that can align digital performance to business outcomes.

In response to these changing digital habits, maintaining visibility of the entire tech stack, monitoring performance and resolving digital problems should be a priority for all businesses. This begs the question – is it possible for IT teams to reduce mean time to detect (MTTD), and mean time to resolution (MTTR) if errors occur, and can they prevent such problems to begin with?

APM solutions such as AppDynamics are capable of using AI to identify where gaps in performance occur in real-time, and potentially resolve these errors.

Businesses should not underestimate the impact of digital experiences on business outcomes. Customer satisfaction is evidently integral to revenue and loyalty and it is clear that every aspect in the customer journey including app performance must be consistently smooth and seamless.

As consumers become more demanding and less forgiving, brands must respond accordingly to meet and exceed their expectations – after all, customer satisfaction can and will directly affect the bottom line.

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Image credit: Rob Hampson on Unsplash

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