Crafting a Mobile App That's a True Extension of Your Business

Having your own mobile apps allows you to directly engage your customers, streamline operations, and cultivate mindshare with your target audience. 

A mobile app extends the reach of your business, offering users a seamless anytime/anywhere experience, faster access to information, and the ability to incorporate device-specific features like camera, GPS, and push notifications. It expands your opportunities for personalization, data collection, targeted offers, and frictionless sales. 

Mobile apps can even improve operational efficiency by integrating with business systems and processes, streamlining orders and fulfillment, reducing manual tasks, and improving communication.

Why Do You Need a Mobile App for Your Business?

Before you invest in developing a mobile app for your company, it’s important to get clear about why you want an app in the first place.  Here are some top considerations:

• An enhanced mobile customer experience enables customers to explore your products and services, no matter where they are. They can place orders, check status, update their personal details, or get answers to their questions. Mobile apps enable frictionless customer interactions.
• Loyalty programs afford you the opportunity to know your customer at a deeper level, differentiate your brand with rewards-based incentives, and cultivate long-term customer commitment. A good loyalty program can give you a wealth of information about your customers’ buying behavior and preferences as well. That can feed your customer analytics to provide valuable insights for data-driven business decisions.
• Targeted marketing takes advantage of a mobile app’s ability to gather user information and track a customer’s location. Location-based offers and push notices, personalized recommendations, and gamified advertising present unique opportunities that other platforms simply cannot do as well, or can’t do at all.

Are You Prepared for a Mobile App?

Developing your own mobile app isn’t a one-and-done proposition, of course. It will require care and feeding long after the initial project is complete. 

As you embrace this new platform, you’ll be compelled to deal with some new challenges. What happens, for example, when a user has login issues?  What about the security of customer data and credit card transactions? When a customer switches to a new phone, will the app and all of its data migrate successfully?  What if it doesn’t?

Do you have a support team capable of handling these kinds of issues and questions when they come up? Rest assured, they will.

Operationally, you may space some new challenges as well. What will happen to your transaction volumes? Do your order fulfillment processes require intensive human involvement, or are they almost fully automated? Will transactions that originate on a mobile app require special handling? If so, how much additional time and effort will that consume?

Will Consumers Even Care About Your Mobile App?

In order for your mobile app to achieve the desired results, you have to answer the WIIFM question: “What’s in it for me?” In other words, why would a customer want to log into your app to begin with?

Before you invest, do some research. Analyze your web traffic to gauge potential interest in the mobile platform. Survey your existing customers to find out which features might appeal to them. Ask how often they might anticipate using a mobile app from your company, if you should decide to offer one.

Experiment a bit by offering “mobile-like” services from your main website. If you’re thinking about offering electronic coupons through an app, try it first online. If a customer is truly interested, chances are they’ll access that kind of functionality from their mobile phone’s browser when they’re on the go.

A Phased Approach to Developing Your Mobile App 

Once you have made your decision to move forward, it’s time to put together a budget, draw up a project plan, and assemble your team.

For projects of this kind, it’s usually advisable to follow a phased approach, starting with a “phase 1” minimum viable product (MVP), adding features as you proceed to phase 2, and eventually reaching phase 3, where you fully realize the benefits of a mobile app for your company.

You’ll need to assemble a project team, assigning people to each of the following roles:

• The business analyst is responsible for collecting and documenting functional requirements, always mindful of the end goal, software that benefits the company and the customers using the app.
• The project manager is responsible for keeping the initiative on track, both in terms of timeline and budget/resources.
• UX and UI designers ensure that the resulting mobile app is easy to understand and navigate, and is pleasing to the eye. Usually, these two roles are filled by different people. It’s possible to find a person who can do both, but relatively rare.
• The Development Team is made up of people who will actually build the application, following the blueprints handed down to them by the business analyst and UX/UI designers.

It’s best to have your business analyst and development team located in the same time zone, as they will need to work very closely together. Any barriers to communication are likely to lead to longer hours, potential re-work, and delays. 

Step 1: Requirements & Mock-Up

The first step, of course, is to collect and document requirements. 

In addition to functional specifications, be sure to consider security and compliance. Numerous regulatory bodies are zeroing in on data security and privacy.  Nearly every business in North America is subject to multiple standards and regulations, including GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, CCPA and GLBA, just to name a few.  State, local and industry requirements often apply as well. Most of these call for encryption for data at rest and transit.

To ensure compliance with potential audits, think ahead. Make sure you spend ample time discussing activity logging, for example. Develop a plan for activity monitoring and reporting as well.

With your requirements in hand, ask your UX designer to develop a mock-up based on this initial vision.  A talented UX/UI team will tailor their designs to fit your most common usage scenarios.  If your mobile app will primarily be used outdoors, for example, or during high-pressure emergency situations, then the buttons should be larger than they otherwise might be. If you expect that it will be used by urban commuters, a good designer will place key navigation buttons on the left, leaving the user’s right hand free to hold a subway handle or bus strap.

Step 2: Architectural Design

With your mock-up in hand and requirements collection complete, you can start working with your developers on architectural design. Typically, the development team proposes an architecture that best serves the requirements and fits well with the various applications already in place at your company. 

It is highly recommended that you adopt a platform agnostic and technology agnostic approach.  That will insulate you from future dependency on specific platforms. Consider, for example, that just a few years ago, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle were the dominant databases.  Today, there are numerous other options, many of which offer distinct advantages over traditional databases.  Don’t commit yourself heavily to any single vendor.

In the case of larger, more complex projects, you may want to bring in a third-party consultant to ask challenging questions about the proposed architecture. This will help to flush out any issues or concerns by compelling the dev team to justify their architectural decisions. 

You will need to decide early on in this process whether you intend to build your mobile app as an extension of your current CRM system, or as a standalone application that is CRM-agnostic. The former approach tends to be less expensive, but may offer less flexibility from a functional perspective. A standalone app offers ultimate flexibility, but costs more to develop and maintain.

Step 3: Test, Release, and Iterate

As development proceeds, you’ll need to lay out a plan for testing your mobile app. That should include functional tests, load testing, and peer-to-peer testing.  Ideally, these should be conducted concurrently. 

Your short-term goal should be to release a stable MVP that introduces your mobile app to your customers. 

Provide some kind of feedback mechanism that enables users to quickly and easily propose changes.  Offer rewards to incentivize this kind of input.  In a sense, this kind of input represents free (or almost free) labor.  Your customers are designing new features for you.  The volume of requests for each new feature is a good indication of priority.  Don’t try to implement everything, but take it all in and develop a plan for iterative improvement.

As you develop your next version, consider adopting a “least change” approach. If there’s a feature that adds significant value for you or your customers, then do it.  Otherwise, follow the old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Naturally, you’ll also need to offer support.  Build that into the application wherever possible. Your business analyst, UX, and UI designers will understand how best to embed these kinds of support capabilities into your app.  Users are unlikely to call a support hotline; they need to be able to access self-service options directly within the mobile app.

Crafting a mobile app that serves as a true extension of your business is not just about embracing modern technology; it's about strategically enhancing your connection with customers, optimizing your operations, and setting your brand apart in a competitive market. 

The journey from conceptualization to launch requires a thorough understanding of your goals, audience needs, and the challenges you might face along the way. By adopting a phased approach, paying close attention to user experience, and being prepared to iterate based on feedback, your mobile app can become a pivotal element of your business strategy, deliver value to your customers, deepen brand loyalty, and drive business growth in ways that resonate in today's digital-first world.