Mistakes to Avoid in Your Business’ App
Your business can’t afford not to have an app. Not in the era of smartphones, when the vast majority of customers and would-be customers are toting around mobile devices that could work with your app. Not when mobile activity translates so directly into sales and profits. You need to have one, and it should be the right one.
Turning to top app development companies will ensure your mobile app does the work it was intended to do. Trying to build an app yourself or skimping out in the hopes of getting a professional app for less from a less proven team could result in an app that creates as many problems as it solves. Here are four mistakes to avoid in your business’ app. You can avoid them by turning to a proven and competent app development team.
It’s buggy
When we’re using a computer program that we absolutely need or a video game that we’re just dying to play, we get frustrated by bugs and crashes. We hate having to reboot the app or even our entire devices just to use things things we need and want.
It takes a lot of bugs to keep us from using a program that we need for work. It takes fewer to stop us from enjoying a game, though the reaction from die-hard fans can certainly be ugly in that industry. But it doesn’t take many bugs to shrug off some new app that we weren’t sure we needed anyway. So if your company’s app rolls out with bugs, odds are, it will simply be deleted.
It sends too many push notifications
Apps are powerful in part because they enable communication between companies and customers. Companies and organizations that have apps on their customers phones can communicate key things within the app, offering up help menus, campus maps, coupons, product announcements, calls to action, and more. And apps can even reach users when the apps aren’t open, thanks to push notifications.
But if you abuse that privilege and fill users’ lock screens and notification screens with more and more alerts, sales pitches, and requests for reviews, then you can expect more and more of those users to deny your app the permission it needs to send them such messages — if they don’t delete the app entirely, that is.
It asks too much information of customers
Customers want to use your app to make their lives easier. This can work out very, very well for your company. For instance, imagine that you are an ecommerce company. To buy something from your online store on a mobile device without an app, customers will have to go through their browser and type their credit card information and billing addresses into those tiny boxes and on those tiny smartphone touch keyboards.
Your mobile app should be a solution to this problem, not a continuation of it. Do you already allow customers to create accounts on your website? Then let them use those same accounts to log in on the app — and let them stay logged in, so that they don’t have re-enter that information every time they open it. If you need new billing information, think about single sign-on: allow them to import it from PayPal or use their mobile device’s billing system. Make life easier on your customers, and they’ll embrace your app and make your company money.
It serves no purpose
Businesses need apps in this day and age, but do customers?
They do if the app serves a real purpose and makes their life easier. So don’t turn to an app development team thinking solely of what you and your company want out of the app — think about what customers might want, too. Think of perks and features that you could include on the app, and think about streamlining the customer experience in ways like the example in our last section. When your customers have a reason to embrace your new app, everyone wins.
