With the world becoming a more mobile place for everyone through the use of smartphones, tablets and laptop computers, the need to accommodate your customers with support in the changing environment has never been greater.
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The soon to be rolled out wireless charging stations for mobile devices across popular public areas is imminent and will cause our already busy and mobile driven world to be even more so. There are exciting times ahead for sure, however certain things need to be adopted sooner rather than later.
How are customers going to do business with you in and amongst their increasingly busy and mobile lives?
The internet fits into the pocket of anyone who now carries a smartphone. Mobile websites and responsive website design are great ways to ensure your business is seen in good light when people browse your online presence and this has many inbound marketing benefits also, however we are still a long way off having customer environments optimized for common business processes.
Due to the lack of physical resources on most consumer mobile devices such as:
- Less primary memory
- Smaller screen resolutions
- Lower disk space and
- Lower processing speeds
Customers browsing mobile websites may a lot of the time exhaust their patience before achieving what they otherwise would on a desktop or laptop computer.
Business mobile application development can seriously reduce the headache of performing common processes within a business. Aside from the credibility a company or business gets from having an 'app' available for download on their Android or iPhone / iPad device the ability to:
- Customise layouts
- Optimise UX (User Experience)
- Streamline processes
- Eliminate clicks
- Customise analytics
- Increase conversions and
- Carry branding throughout process lifecycles
Become possible with mobile applications, be this internally for staff and externally for customers..
Large e-commerce outfits can increase conversions, reduce processing times for customers and provide better real time support for customers on the move through mobile apps. Internal processes like stock taking and fulfilling customer orders have the ability to be completed through the user friendly and therefore commonly used operating systems of today's mobile devices.
How is this different from a mobile website?
A mobile or responsively designed website will allow for customers to see your publicly available information just like they can on a desktop / laptop. However, if businesses require the processing of information provided by the customer, even a mobile website can cause issues and increase the time it takes to process that information. The difference between a process which takes 30 seconds to complete and a minute to complete can bring thousands of dollars of additional revenue to a business.
Mobile applications have the ability to load only information which is readily available and required for carrying out the desired processes. Layouts and minified functionality can be introduced in a mobile application which on a mobile website may not be possible. This will therefore become a faster loading and more user friendly approach to being able to complete the processes required.
Mobile applications allow businesses to provide better and more targeted delivery of marketing materials and customers a far better experience in general.