With consumer spending on mobile apps reaching $50.1 billion worldwide across the App Store and Google Play in the first half of 2020, representing a 23.4% growth from the previous year – building an app is probably not a new idea to you or your business.

Since its inception in 2009, the app industry has seen many organisations and brands joining this new trend and achieving great results with it: helping their businesses sell more, reach new customers, improve customer loyalty, increase efficiency and even create new business models.

Apps are good for businesses and for customers!

Indeed, market data shows that launching an app might be one of the best business decisions:

• For retailers, users view 4.2x more products per session on apps compared to mobile sites. And have 3x higher conversion rates. (According to a new research by Criteo, a marketing specialist company).
• For enterprises, internal apps can improve employee productivity by up to 40%. Primarily because they allows employees to complete tasks on-the-go, streamlining work processes, training employees and keeping them engaged.
• And for customers, a recent research shows that a total of 85% of them prefer mobile apps over mobile websites. (According to data from Compuware, a leading software company).

Apps are not for everyone

But how do you know if an app is a good decision for your specific business? Let's face it, not all businesses need mobile apps:

• Some businesses generally don't benefit much from apps (such as a marketing agency or most consulting businesses)
• Others might be able to get away with only a web app (such as a flower shop or a restaurant, that sell simple products or make bookings online)
• And some will need or greatly benefit from having their own app (such as fashion retailers, health clinics, travel agencies, maintenance firms, telecom companies, retail banks, education institutions, real estate agents, governments and many more).

How can apps help you?

Here is a list with some of the main benefits other businesses have found when launching their own mobile apps. Can an app help you too? Feel free to drop us a line and discuss your app idea with our team at hello@codeleap.co.uk.

Increase sales

There are three main ways in which mobile apps help companies generate higher revenues:

1. Get more repeat purchases. Once an app is installed, clients can conveniently grab their mobile devices from their pockets and make repeat purchases on the go. This is a great advantage over websites, which requires users to Google the web address first and risk going for a competitor brand!
2. Conversion rates are higher for mobile apps versus mobile websites. This might probably happen because a user's experience within an app is generally smoother than in a mobile website. Good quality apps are engineered with their users in mind.
3. Increase retention rates. Apps have been called the "New Loyalty Cards" and indeed mobile apps tend to increase retention rates, this happens via the visibility that they get from push notifications and by exposing their brand icon at the client's device. No wonder 45.9% of people that download an e-commence app also end up visiting their physical store more often. Compare this to mobile websites, which barely retain 40% of all visitors past the first few seconds.

Improve customer experience

Websites generally just don't look or feel good on a phone screen. Since mobile apps are engineered with their users in mind, they are capable of providing much better user experiences and make use of a wide variety of resources that websites normally perform bad at (such as live location tracking, device cameras, step count data, live messaging, video calls and even Siri and Google Assistant voice commands!).

It's no surprise then that improving customer service is the top reason why businesses launch mobile apps.

Increase efficiency

A staggering 78% of organisations still rely on email to communicate with employees and most don't yet provide a mobile version of their internal software for operations. When you consider that up to three-quarters of employees in any given organisation are non-desk-based, it’s no wonder that employee engagement figures remain stubbornly low and reports of isolation, loneliness, or disconnect are escalating. Not to mention the lost opportunity of making work processes streamlined, getting work tools to be available for employees on-the-go, and automating end-to-end solutions.

However, the data is very clear: enterprise apps are here to stay. 71% of employees already spend more than 2 hours a week accessing company information on mobile devices, and research shows that there is a 47% improvement in internal communications when enterprise apps are deployed.

Companies are noticing the trends and 66% of organisations already expect to increase their investment in enterprise mobile apps within the next 3 years.

So, what's the conclusion?

Mobile apps are likely to help business in one way or another, be it generating sales, improving customer experience or increasing efficiency of internal operations & employee satisfaction.

There's generally no one-size-fits-all solution and building an app will require a deep understanding of your business, your clients and the problem that you're trying to solve.

If you feel a mobile app can help you and your business, whether it is a new company or an existing one – don't hesitate in reaching out to us at hello@codeleap.co.uk. Someone from our team will love to hear from you!