Is Your App Annoying?

Are users uninstalling your app at a scary rate? Consider this.

You got your app made or are considering one? Great. But getting the app in the market would essentially be just the beginning. The next big thing would be getting download numbers and most importantly getting people to use the app.
Most apps don’t survive a dawn. App uninstall is easier than install in most cases. App uninstall is worse than app not installed at all. It takes away a user who would most certainly never return, gives bad reviews, bad publicity and a low ranking on the stores. So if you have an app or are launching one in the market, here's a list of top reasons that put off app users. An essential list of ‘App Don’ts’:

Bad UI/UX

A badly designed app will never do well. Look at the apps that work. You will see a clean, clutter free design with a smooth, hassle-free navigation. The better the user interface and user experience, better the customer engagement. And on the flip side, if the user interface and experience is crappy, users will not think twice before pressing uninstall.

Forced Login

Users are smarter than what most marketers think. Users know that a registration page or a social login is a means to get personal information on the user and most people are not comfortable sharing their personal details over the Internet. Moreover incentivising user to like their page to keep the app running puts people off, a lot of people. Result? Obvious uninstall.

Excessive Permissions

Some permissions are needed to run the app. But be honest. Does your app really need all those permissions? For most users granting permissions to access personal data even for basic utility apps such as camera or torch can be pretty intimidating. Do away with stuff that can hint users of being vulnerable to personal information robbery.

Too many intrusive ads

Completely understood that ‘ads’ is your app’s revenue model. But again that does not mean that the ad would interrupt the functioning of the app to show an ad. There can be subtle non-intrusive ads too. And even these ads are clicked upon if the ads are presented well. Read ‘Effective Advertising Techniques’ for better understanding the concept.

Annoying notifications

Notifications are one of the reasons app are so successful. Notifications help retailers connect directly with their customers. But these notifications need to be well timed and focused on the message otherwise it would be seen as an intrusion of privacy. Make notifications carry messages that are absolutely useful for the users. Do not indulge in greetings and courtesies because too much of messaging would be a put off for users.

Bugs

If your app crashes often, takes too much time to upload and freezes often, it most definitely has bugs. Fix the bugs on urgently and do it on a regular basis. Sometimes a bug free app can get bugs over time and as usage increases.

No Customer Support

This one is primarily true for shopping apps. Most of the times while shopping a people tend to get stuck with the app or maybe need a little help with the colors, sizes and variety available. If they find no help, the app won’t be as useful for them.

Push Notifications

All you need to know about Push Notifications; why are they better, how to use Push Notifications to enhance customer interaction

With apps becoming increasingly popular with retailers and customers alike, push notifications have become common parlance like text messages. But in reality push notifications are a world apart from text messages and cannot be treated the same. Here’s a brief to update you about push notifications and how these can become real-time marketing and customer engagement tools for the brand.

Push Notifications are beyond apps

Push notifications cannot be limited to mobile devices or apps alone. Push notifications can actually be a powerful tool to get in touch with customers on any connected device. For instance the popular travel service provider has come up with an innovative way to connect with its customers. Priceline has tied up with General Motors wherein GM will factory install the Priceline app on navigation screen of select Chrevolet cars enabling people to make travel bookings from their cars. The Priceline app taps the customers’ whereabouts through geofencing. This is a clever example of being there, right when your customer needs you.

Connecting the digital and physical worlds

Many companies are using iBeacon technology connected to mobile apps to give an enriched shopping experience to their customers. For instance if a customer has created a shopping list on the retailer’s app or linked an existing shopping list to the app, when the customer is shopping in-store, iBeacons can get linked to the shopping list on the app and the customer can get real time reminders, updates and offers as she walks across the aisles. This also gives the retailer invaluable information on customer behavior that adds to the customer profile to further enrich future interactions.

The ability to collect and connect customer data

When a customer downloads a retailer’s app, not only is she giving the retailer that much coveted space on her mobile phone but she is also giving the retailer her time, attention and above all an access to her personal data; likes, spending habits, social orientation etc. This gives a retailer valuable insight as to how the customer prefers to interact with the brand.
There are perhaps more compelling reasons why push notifications have become an important and integral part of marketing strategy in the digital age. But more than reasons, it is the intensity with which these little tools have become so powerful, and given the right usage with the right strategy in place, push notifications can be game-changer bet for a retailer company in this era.

Webrooming

Webrooming: Online Retail's Answer To Showrooming

So while retail industry is still catching up with consumer adoption of mobile and technology, there have been serious problems like showrooming bothering retailers, and then there have answers that seem to have nipped it right in the bud, already. All this amazingly happens at a time when a huge segment of retailers are still waking-up to the problem.

What is Showrooming?

Customers, these days, are better informed and better equipped, thanks to loads of information available on the Internet. Customers know there are online deals for almost every product available in the market. Hence, most of the times, customers would visit a store, choose a product, physically get a look and feel of the product, compare it with other things around, and then finally make the purchase online seeking a better deal. This is called showrooming.
Showrooming has bothered brick-and-mortar retailers for some time now. Because almost everything is available online now and customers know there'll almost always be a deal available online, the visit to the physical store has more or less become a step in the purchase journey. Brick-and-mortar stores have suffered significant setback owing to showrooming.

What is Webrooming?

The exact reverse of showrooming. Webrooming occurs when a consumer conducts a through research on a product online before finally buying it from the store.
Many retailers see webrooming as an opportunity and utilize resources to give the online channel its due credit. But somehow there are some who retailers fail to realize the importance and do not develop resources for consumers to make webrooming the unbroken link in the information chain.

The Trend

Customers have always been keen on product knowledge before purchase. Retailers have always approached this need as an opportunity and hence brochures, infomercials, flyers, workshops etc. have been in the marketing scene for as long as one can remember. Product research is not new. Just that with the advent of Internet and the sea of information that comes on the Internet, product research has gained a whole new meaning and momentum. Now customers are not only keen but also almost finicky about product information; every single detail including what goes into making, how is it made, competition, quality, price, everything matters. So instead of fighting the trend, retailers need to grab on the opportunity and use Internet as a medium to educate and influence potential customers.

The Omni Channel Approach

For companies that use the Omni channel medium for sales need to understand that in this connected age of seamless information, all channels and customer interaction points need to be complimentary to each other and not be competitive. Information from the Internet can educate your customer about your product which can in turn increase in-store sales and similarly a visit to the store might just reaffirm the customer to make the online purchase. It's not just about sales but also ancillary sales, and not just about one transaction but a long-term customer engagement.

Grolsch's Smart Cap

An innovative and intriguing way to engage customers

If you know the Dutch for their Windmills and Tulips, here’s one more great reason to know them, an awesome innovation. The popular beer brand Grolsch from Dutch has recently made some news for its innovative bottle-cap-Bluetooth-beacon. The app provides free movies to consumers through the beacon contact.
Here’s how this works. There is a Bluetooth beacon attached to the beer bottle’s cap. The beacon is sealed with a sticker from inside to ensure that the beacon gets activated only when the bottle is opened. Consumers who purchase Grolsch Beer can get connected to the beacon by tapping on the bottle cap with their smart phones. The app is activated on the tap. As soon as the beer bottle is opened, the beacon gets activated and starts sending signal to the server that authenticates the signal by matching up the signal with its previously registered serial number, is the authentication gets through consumers are sent a list of movies. A consumer can unlock a movie of choice from that list and get the movie for free.
It’s a brilliant application considering:

• It promotes direct sales of the product and not just ancillary sales
• It intrigues the customer and encourages enjoyable brand engagement
• It rewards the customer with a great incentive that will provide some good time and memorable moments

Beacons and wireless technology have been around for a while now, but examples like these demonstrate the real value that clever application of these technologies can create, both for the brand and the customer.

A Promising Future

When beacons were first introduced, there were promises and projections of endless possibilities especially related to customer engagement. But when it came to implementation, beacons failed to deliver on the promise. It seemed more hype than real possibility. For instance, QR codes that led the customer to the company’s website didn’t really have relevance or any value for the customer. But with applications like these, there seems to be intriguing brand experiences as initially promised by beacons.
Beacons, when combined with mobile apps, can deliver real time brand engagement and an enjoyable user experience to customers, which is zenith of brand-customer involvement. Companies are developing more campaigns like these, with intelligent ideas and clever implementation, across the world. This looks like the road to a promising future.

Give Your Customers The Right Push

How to make the most of Push Notifications without annoying your customer

Mobile apps and marketing through mobile apps is becoming a norm especially in the retail industry. Mobile app marketing primarily consists of informing customers of deals, discounts, special offers or sending shopping reminders though messages called push notifications.
Push notifications are a very critical tool in mobile marketing. If integrated well in the marketing strategy, push notifications can add considerable numbers to the bottom-line. At the same time, if over-done or unplanned, push notifications can be extremely annoying for customers who in all probability will uninstall the app. So, with a tool as strong, formulating a winning push-notification strategy would mean laying key emphasis on relevance and the timing that would win customers, and lack of these two will shoo customers away. And with the holiday season approaching, the need for planning it right has become even more pressing for retailers.
Here are a few points that need to be considered while formulating push-notification strategy.

Frequency

This is the trickiest part of push-notification planning. There can be no defined number that would be right. It will depend on various factors like your product, customer segment, time of the year and most importantly the customers' personal profile. For instance the frequency of notifications would be more during the holiday season, or when the retailer is offering discounts or deals, or while updating the customer for new arrivals. But again this is a very sensitive issue. As a retailer you cannot bombard your customer with messages just because you have her attention. Another important thing to be considered while deciding the frequency is the customer's buying behavior. For instance if the customer has a history of purchasing products on discount, then a message informing her of sale would be appreciated. But if the customer has a history of purchasing tastefully, informing that customer of fresh stock arrival will make sense. This will involve personalization, but isn't that what apps are for?

Timing

Push notifications get the kind of customer attention they get is because they are delivered as messages on the consumer's mobile phone, which the consumer will most certainly read. Therefore the timing of the notifications has to be very well planned. Even if your push notification system is automated, it needs to be tweaked to suit consumer convenience. The notifications cannot go at 2am; timing has to be localized. Also, time of the year can be an important determinant of timing. A restaurant may send dining coupons a day prior to Valentine's day with a sweet message like "have a lovely evening", or maybe prior to the customer's birthday or anniversary while wishing the customer.

Personalization

Mobile marketing is all about personal marketing. Customers who have downloaded your app, given you that coveted space in their mobile (and mind), expect you to treat them specially. They expect personalized messages. And personalization doesn't end at including the customer's name,it just starts there. The app needs to learn customer behavior from usage pattern and based on it make a profile specific of that customer. Each interaction that the retailer does with the customer should be in line with the customer profile that is updated continuously. For instance a working professional might log into all social media sites in the evening probably after getting free from work, so the app needs to make a note of this pattern which would help in deciding the timing of push notifications for that particular customer.

To Conclude

Engaging the consumer in a value relationship will benefit both the retailer and the customer. Push notifications that are well timed and value packed for the customer can subtly encourage the customer to buy without being too "pushy".

Your App: Good or Bad

Read on to understand what makes an app good or bad, and where does your app fit in?

The app world is huge now. There are all sorts of apps, the good, the bad and the ugly. And anybody can flaw. Some time back users had scorned the Facebook app as initially the app lacked support for real-time picture upload and viewing, chat and profile editing. Obviously, Facebook improvised but the point is, with apps anybody can get it wrong. Anybody.
Here are a few points to ponder upon and reassess your app if you have one, or chalk out a perfect plan for an app hat works for the users if you are planning one.

The Bad App

What makes an app bad? The same thing that makes everything else that is bad, bad. It’s when you don’t do what you are supposed to do.
The whole idea that revolves around mobile commerce or mobile apps is that they make things convenient. It’s just one word that defines everything required of a mobile app, and the word is CONVENIENCE. The app is supposed to make the user’s life easier and not complicate it. There are so many things that can make an otherwise brilliantly designed app look bad. And the worst part is most of it is so basic that as a developer or as the over enthused app owner, one tends to take these things for granted. Some of these things can be as listed below: Slow - An app must not take more than 5 seconds to load. Anything beyond will tick off the user. Functionality – My Anroid phone has the Skype app that I use for work. I got a personal message on the Skype chat once, which I removed citing it’s a work phone. The message there shows “This message has been removed”! And there is no way I could figure out to totally remove it. Now that “..message has been removed” makes it look worse than having had the harmless personal message there. That’s a real lousy error. So necessarily your app needs to function the way your website does or even better. It CANNOT under perform on the basic functionality. Simplicity – Your app needs to simplify stuff your website has, be it navigation, be it product search, reading reviews and most important of all, checkout. User Experience – A good app will solve any user requirement within 5 taps or less. Lesser the better. Taking the user on a whole tour for nothing, asking useless questions, asking to register, giving out irrelevant results etc. are all signs of a bad app. Privacy – This is in regards to push notifications. There is a very thin line between informing and over-informing. Push notifications need to be strategically given out. Overloading the customer for every minute detail will certainly turn people off. Also, new age apps are intuitive, they learn from customer usage. This information should be very delicately handled. Getting very personal can be freaky for many people. Confidentiality – Any information that the customer gives out, be it financial or personal, it must be respected for its confidentiality. If users cannot trust your app, they will not use it. Use trust symbols, have a privacy policy worked out and abide by it.

Conclusion

While nobody plans and works to create a bad app, there are chances of falling in the trap. Start with a robust plan, check at each milestone and finally have rigorous usage testing done. A well-planned, meticulously executed and conscientiously tested app will make an app consumers use and recommend.

iBeacon

What are iBeacons? How to implement and benefit from them?

It's raining innovation in the digital world. And retailers are pacing to catch up with the jargon, technology behind that jargon, implications of the technology and consecutively a winning strategy that can help mint it. These innovations can either complicate or facilitate business, depending on how we use them. One such invention, iBeacon, has managed to muddle up a lot of retailers if not all. Before there's more confusion that affects business, here's a quick help on understanding iBeacons and the apt usage that can help businesses add value both to their customer satisfaction index and the bottomline.

Understanding iBeacons

A beacon is a Bluetooth enabled, small wireless device that transmits radio signals and communicates with any Bluetooth device in the vicinity. So typically a beacon installed in a store can exchange signals with the customers Bluetooth enabled smart phone, and if the Store’s app allows, greet the customer, notify him of aisles with discounts at the same time alerting the store of the customer’s purchase history, preferences etc.
It gets better. Storeowners can install 10-15 beacons at a distance of 10 feet from each other and create a close network that can track and record every movement of the customer.
iBeacons, an Apple product, are tiny gadgets made with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology. This is an advanced technology as compared to the classic Bluetooth technology; it consumes less power and is simpler as compared to its older cousin. Technically it is software that allows the BLE device to communicate with other Bluetooth devices. These signals trigger the action the app takes.
Here are a few examples of how beacons have helped businesses.

Macy's

The iBeacons at Macy’s work with Shopkick App. As customers enter the Macy’s store, they are alerted of latest deals and the items that the customer might be interested in based on the purchase history.

American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle Outfitters also use theShopkick app. as the customer enters the store there is a welcome message along with information on the latest deals and discounts. Customers can also tag products for which the app will send a reminder notification when the customer is in store.

Apple

Apple has installediBeacon technology in its stores that works in tandem with the company's Apple Store app. Customers get notification as their order gets assembled and ready. It also prompts upgrades if the customer is in the concerned section.
Not just notifications, beacons can provide a safe and secure way for digital payments. Other uses would include loyalty rewards, notification to customers when they are in vicinity and many more. The opportunities are immense and possibilities limitless. It would depend on the retailer to use this wonderful technology to drive more sales and enrich customer engagement.