For many customers, their first interaction with a brand happens on a mobile device, so creating a stand-out mobile customer experience is key. We turn to our phones first in many circumstances, especially when we’re out and about. And even when we’re at home, we are often looking at our phones while watching TV, cooking dinner, working out, etc. Chances are, you’re reading this on your phone right now.
The way in which customers interact with brands on their phones is different from how they interact with them in-person or even on the computer. But that doesn’t mean the experience should be deprioritized. In fact, we’re here to argue that the mobile customer experience should be prioritized by brands. Adopting a mobile-first approach will help you gain market share, understand your customers better, and ultimately drive more revenue for your business.
Here are few quick mobile usage stats for you to reinforce this idea:
🌎 6.4 billion smartphone users worldwide – that’s roughly 80% of the population (Statista)
💳 $2.91 billion mobile e-commerce sales worldwide (Statista)
📱 141 billion mobile app downloads worldwide (Statista)
🌐 54.8% of global web traffic is from mobile devices (Statista)
💵 $143 billion global consumer spend on mobile apps (Statista)
The two keys to improved mobile customer experience
Key #1: Personalization
Today’s consumers expect personalization. In fact, they demand it. Mobile is arguably the most personal of any channel. It never leaves your side, it’s your connection to friends and family and it’s predominantly used for social interactions. We’ve become accustomed to using our mobiles in a conversational, personalized way – and interactions with brands are no different.
As our data shows, allowing people to direct their own journey within their mobile experiences based on individual preference is the key to short-term retention and long-term loyalty.
Personalizing in-app experiences centers on delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right place, and at the right time within the app. That’s a mouthful, but if you break it down, it makes sense.
- Right message: Is your message relevant and helpful?
- Right person: Are the right customers seeing your message?
- Right place: Are you meeting customers where they’re at?
- Right time: Are you communicating at a time that’s convenient and makes sense in the customer journey?
If you miss one of these steps, it can lead to an impersonal experience for your customer and risk driving them away. The context in which messages are delivered to customers, or rather, finding the right “mobile moment,” is everything.
The deeper brands can segment their mobile consumers based on in-app behaviors, purchase patterns, and usage—ideally down to the individual customer ID—the more success they’ll have at delivering customized experiences that aim to please. With in-app marketing, less is more. The fewer messages each customer receives, the more powerful each message becomes.
Not only does personalized engagement create an exceptional mobile customer experience, it also significantly increases the amount of time customers spend in your app. More time in your app = more opportunities for growth whether that be from ad revenue or in-app purchases.
Key #2: Proactive listening & communicating
In 2020, 63 percent of consumers who saw an in-app interaction (that means some sort of communication from a brand such as a rating prompt, survey, Note, etc.) in Q1 were seen later in Q3-Q4 and 50% of consumers who saw an interaction in January were seen again in December. This proves the value in proactively communicating and listening to mobile customers.
Just as customers demand personalization, they also expect brands to ask for feedback directly. With mobile devices in our pockets at all times, it’s the easiest way for brands to build a two-way communication channel with customers directly. In fact, fifty-one percent of consumers say they expect companies to ask for their feedback, and that number is even higher for consumers who prefer to leave feedback in-app (64%). App customers are very willing to give feedback; 98 percent said they’re likely to do so when asked.
Most brands today might think they’re talking to the majority of their customers, but in reality, they only hear from less than one percent of their customer base. That means about 99 percent of their customers are in the “silent majority” and their voices aren’t being heard. Traditional feedback channels like emailing an NPS survey just don’t cut it anymore.
“Brands that take proactive steps to address customer concerns demonstrate customer centricity, which earns customer trust and builds relationships,” Gartner.
If you’re not proactively asking for feedback, you’re leaving an opportunity on the table to keep your finger on the pulse of your app customers, improve customer happiness, and increase your bottom line.
There are systems and tools you can set up quickly and easily to get the most out of customer feedback such as:
- In-app surveys
- NPS+
- Love Dialog
- Rating prompts
- Message centers
Now, more than ever, your customers want to be heard. They’re itching to give you feedback. Do you have the right tools to capture that voice? If you don’t, you need to get those in place – and fast.
