Personal Services Apps: 2022 Mobile Customer Engagement Benchmarks

The following data and information on Personal Services apps is from our 2022 Mobile App Customer Engagement Report.

Subcategories for Personal Services Apps: Home and Family

Personal Services apps are separated into two subcategories: Home (real estate, property management, and connected devices) and Family (milestone tracking and family schedule management). Industries represented within the subcategories have vastly different business goals.

Rather than comparing by benchmark, below is a short summary of both the Home and Family apps included in our data.

“Statistics are just people with the tears wiped off,” Spencer Rascoff, Co-founder and former CEO of Zillow

Data included:

• Ratings and reviews
• Retention
• Interaction and response rates
• Surveys
• Popular phrases
• Popular phrases with sentiment distribution
• Consumer sentiment
• Expressed customer emotion
• Shifted emotions
• Expressed consumer sentiment by subcategory
• Shifted emotions by subcategory
• Retention rates for Fans and Risks

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Summary of Personal Services Apps in 2021

Home apps: Mobile customer engagement benchmarks

The housing market had a wild year. Extreme demand drove MAU, usage, and consumer emotions, so mobile teams working in Home had to pivot how they gather and act on customer feedback. Brands were still eager to talk to their consumers, but the 2021 data story paints an interesting picture around caution in their approach, particularly around surveys.

The average survey response for Home was 3%, much lower than the overall average of 13%. The percentage of people prompted for surveys was only 5%, much lower than the overall average of 28%. Basing product decisions on only 5% of your brand’s consumer base is a flawed and dangerous strategy. In order to prevent churn and increase loyalty, brands should use 2022 to expand the number of consumers they survey and ultimately take action on their feedback to improve in-app experiences.

Home consumers are eager to give feedback when asked. Home apps’ average interaction rate was 48%, which is extremely high (26% overall). The average response rate in Home was also above the overall benchmark at 92% (91% overall). Getting in front of consumers before they churn is critical, and targeting Fan vs. Risk segments is the best way to do so proactively.

Despite engaging with too few consumers, Home apps saw strong retention throughout the year: 72% 30-day (67% overall), 63% 90-day (58% overall), and 45% annual (44% overall). 90-day retention after Love Dialog was 82%, which is above the overall average of 79%. But sentiment wasn’t all roses. Home apps’ Love Percent was an average of 58% (64% overall). Unfortunately, much of the negative sentiment likely had to do with frustration in home buying. Estimates were notoriously off in 2021, and frustrated buyers often blame the app rather than the marketplace—bolstering the need for qualitative, open-ended feedback.

Family apps: Mobile customer engagement benchmarks

Mobile teams working on Family apps experimented with talking to more new consumers at different times throughout the year, and saw mostly positive waves of change as a result. The average interaction rate for Family apps was 28%, slightly higher than the 25% overall average. Average response rate for Family apps was exceptional at 98%—meaning almost everyone who was interacted with responded. Responses were generally positive, and Family apps had a Love Percent of 74%, high above the overall average of 64% overall.

Family apps saw fewer shifted consumer emotions in 2021 than they did in 2020, with only 8% of consumers shifting (11% overall). In talking to more people, they were able to proactively make connections that helped keep them happy and around. Asking more people how they feel about the brand and mobile experience allowed teams to identify more Fans to ask for potential ratings, which they did—Family apps’ ratings went up to an average of 4.49.

While interactions were up, surveys didn’t quite hit the overall benchmark. Family apps only surveyed 19% of their consumers, lower than the overall average of 28%. The consumers who were surveyed responded strongly, with an average 21% survey response rate compared to the 13% overall average. In 2022, Family mobile teams should prompt more of their consumers with surveys at non-interruptive places and times throughout their mobile experiences as they are eager to share feedback when asked for it.

Bonus reading and resources

• Learn how Zillow uses Apptentive to boost customer happiness and app store ratings
• The Ultimate Guide to Closed-loop Feedback
• Product Lessons from Experts at Disney, Redfin, and T-Mobile
• So, You’ve Collected Customer Feedback – Now What?

Want to see how the Personal Services category compares to the macro trends we identified in our 2022 Mobile Customer Engagement Report? Download your copy here.

Additional visual benchmark data for Personal Services apps

→DOWNLOAD THE FULL 2022 BENCHMARK REPORT HERE