In today's fast-paced business landscape, having a mobile app isn't just about boosting sales. It's a strategic move that can revolutionize your company's success in multiple ways. Mobile apps offer many opportunities to propel your business forward, from enhancing customer engagement to streamlining internal processes. Let's explore all the benefits your company can unlock by embracing mobile apps.
We'll break it down using the App ROI Framework (explained below) and illustrate its application with real-world examples. This framework is your roadmap to understanding the full spectrum of advantages of having a mobile app and how to maximize them effectively. Whether you're a C-suite executive or a product owner, mastering these tactics will position your company as a leader in harnessing the power of mobile apps.
Unlocking Digital Potential: Applying the App ROI Framework
All business endeavors seek to optimize Revenue Generation or Cost Optimization—perhaps, in some cases, both. However, achieving these objectives encompasses various strategies and approaches. For instance, businesses may implement loyalty programs to boost transaction frequency and value or optimize customer service costs while ensuring top-notch partner support.
We've discovered that discussing tactics specific to the app space can greatly enhance our partner's success in aligning their digital presence with overall business objectives. For example, which app features should be prioritized when aiming to reduce customer service expenses? How do these features complement each other, and how do they contribute to the overall value proposition of the app? These tactics are crucial elements in the recipe for product-led innovation, helping businesses unlock their full potential in the digital realm.
To put these things together and tangibly work with them, we apply the App ROI framework, which consists of three levels:
- Purpose: What is the root effect that you are trying to achieve
- Initiative: What concept will get you there
- Tactic: How do you apply it and work with it?
Below, you’ll find a visual representation of the framework, however non-exhaustive.
Growing Revenue and Cutting Costs: Applying the App ROI Framework
The framework can be read in two different ways:
- As a business manager, you aim to boost revenue or cut costs. What strategies and tactics can you use to achieve these gains?
- As a product owner, you aim to ensure your digital product drives revenue growth or cost savings. How do the features in your roadmap align with these goals, and do they support your envisioned initiatives?
Below, you’ll get examples of how we utilize the framework.
Example 1: Seeking to increase revenue for a subscription business
Imagine you're a business manager aiming to boost revenue for a company operating on a subscription-based model. Unlike traditional sales approaches, which focus on individual transaction amounts, subscription models emphasize Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – essentially, how much revenue a customer generates over their engagement with your business.
In this scenario, your goal is to maximize each customer's revenue over time. While normally, you'd also consider the Total Cost of Acquisition (TCA) for a comprehensive business case, we'll focus solely on CLV here for simplicity. There are some keywords to take from this when working with the initiatives and the following tactics applied such as;
- Engagement
- Lifetime
- Value
For this, it would make sense to look at initiatives such as Loyalty and cross-selling. Then, we focus on the tactics. Which features can boost engagement, prevent churn, extend customer lifetime, and enhance the monthly value of subscriptions?
Disclaimer: While the following is not an exhaustive list, it gives an overview of the approach and how to work with the framework.
Unlocking Loyalty: The Power of Personalisation
Think about personalization as the key to loyalty. When people feel seen and remembered in their settings and also in their preferences, they stay around. If you want to build a close relationship with your users you've got to meet their needs.
Beyond Play: Exploring the Versatility of Gamification
Gamification is a trend that’s been around for a while in the digital world. But even though it might seem overused, it's still incredibly powerful. You might think of it as just games, but it's actually a lot more versatile. It's about using challenges, points, and streaks to make things more interesting. And when you make things more interesting, people keep coming back, forming habits around using your product.
Navigating the Pitfalls and Promises of Push Notifications
Let's talk about push notifications, they're one of the unique features that male mobile apps different from websites. Unlike web notifications, push notifications can reach beyond the app and show up on your phone's screen, getting up close and personal with users. This can be extremely powerful, but it also comes with risks. While push notifications can remind users about abandoned carts or encourage them with "we miss you" messages, they can also annoy people if they're too frequent or pushy.
Boosting Brand Reach: The Influence of Share/Recommend Features in Mobile Apps
The share/recommend feature is a real powerhouse when it comes to mobile apps. The smooth connection between wanting to share something and the messaging options on mobile, plus the habit of casually reaching out to people this way, creates a perfect mix of simplicity and social acceptance. This combo makes it super easy for users to share and recommend products and services to others.
Example 2: Reducing cost in a B2C organization with +100.000 customers
Imagine you're the app product owner in a large organization with over 100,000 customers. Management has decided to cut costs, and every digital product needs to help out. So, what can you do? Well, think about the large amount of customer service requests with so many customers. Shifting customer service to a channel that's both great for users and inexpensive for the company could be highly beneficial. But what features can make this happen? It depends on the kind of service that the customer is requiring, which could be broken down into three categories:
- Low complexity
- Medium complexity
- High complexity
Low complexity requests could be a feature such as a chatbot. This will help the users get a swift response to trivial questions. This saves a customer service employee having to do it manually, taking some of the volume from the call centre.
Medium complexity requests might require human dialogue, as their nature can be hard to standardise and automate. However, in order to soften out spikes in the calls, a callback function would be able to help you optimise your channel. That way you ensure that your customer service ressources are always active, however, never overloaded, getting the most efficient utilisation of your ressources.
Highly complex requests will often require you to have some sort of physical interaction with whatever product or service you are supplying. This has typically been costly as it either requires that the organization accommodates for an employee to go to the customers location or the product to go to the organization. All requires time, effort, and adds to the cost. Implementing a feature such as video calls can reduce these.
All of the above is a demonstration of how to work with the framework. Please keep in mind that there is a longer list of features as well as themes that can be covered. If you want to know more or research what an app can contribute to you and your business, don’t hesitate to contact us at curious@bontouch.com.