Google periodically releases reports on mobile retail apps.
The report covers everything about apps from customer discovery and searches to product reviews and payments.
There is often an emphasis on the importance of the first interaction.
It’s easy to download apps from app stores, come to the realization that it is not what one thought it was, lose interest in it, never use them and then delete them at some point, forever…
One of the ways to avoid these zombie installs is to make it clear to the user what it is exactly they are getting BEFORE they register as a user.
The vast majority of users —over 82% in fact — report that they want apps to give them a clear reason for requesting personal information.
Not-so-fun facts about mobile app user retention that you might want to be aware of, is that not only do just 24.9% of users revisit a newly installed app the day after download, but the number drops to 9.4% after just 2 weeks. You basically have just a 2-week retention rate for mobile apps.
Three months in and almost 71% of app users will have churned completely.
“Users often abandon an app that asks them to provide personal information upfront unless there’s some form of immediate payoff (ordering a car service or food delivery, for example). In particular, apps with low brand recognition—or those in which the value proposition is unclear—must clear a higher hurdle when asking users to register at the start of the experience. Only ask a user to register if it’s essential. One common way this principle is applied is by providing guest checkout at the point of conversion.”
The most popular mobile apps provide a lot of utility to the user.
From messaging and social networking to storing recipes and tracking exercises.
The best apps enable us to do things that we just couldn’t do before. Establishing your app as part of a new habit makes it very sticky so it is important to think about what things your app needs to have to maintain stickiness and attention.
Some ways you can add utility
- Make it easy to create things like gift registries and gift shopping lists for special events
- Sync-up maps of the preferred stores with the lists so that store navigation is faster
- Provide a mainline to customer service reps via phone or chat
Google emphasises that the online product catalogue should focus on making the mobile user feel like they’re not missing information—a tough balance to master in the mobile world especially when you want to maintain performance against the backdrop of a PIM of potentially thousands of SKUs. If you add the level of savings that customers get when using the mobile app over in-store purchases, you just differentiated your channel!
“To make the most of your promotions, ensure you display the sale price and the original price as a comparison. Show them how much they’ll save.“
Mobile apps that hold and manage discount coupons are probably your most underestimated value add for both eCommerce and in-store purchases. Instead of forcing people to track coupons in a coupon wallet or engage in coupon clipping, why not deliver them to the mobile app directly, and then go a step further, and add coupons that can be found and used on the fly – now you’ve really added value!
Five great areas of opportunity, then are :
- Clarity on the reason you need personal data
- Adding value to the app to maintain stickiness and attention
- Maintaining as much of your product catalogue as you can in the app with a search function
- Providing value add widgets that make the app compelling list shopping lists
- providing easy access to support and service via the app
- Providing details of a store locator
- Providing access to coupon info and keeping track of coupons
Use your Pretectum CMDM to help track the unique identity of your customers so that you don’t have duplicate customers or customers with missing information in your data landscape when working with your mobile app.