7 Questions to Ask Before Building a Business Mobile App

What does the mobile presence mean for a company in the light of modern marketing realities?

It provides either market leaders or startups with the pool of possibilities. As the mobile rush progresses, a growing number of services providers acknowledge the leading role of the mobile experience compared to the desktop one. Should a website risk not being mobile-friendly, any hopes on customer enthusiasm and loyalty will be futile.

Whilst a fruitful mobile app constitutes an inalienable part of a client’s business, the overall number of common apps available for download is soaring (and most often, apps feature poor UI/UX created to bore users to death). According to the previous year’s stats, Android users had a plentiful choice of 2.8 million apps and iOS owners were slightly behind with 2.2 million ones in the Apple App Store.

So, when clients reach out to a software vendor with a request to design and develop another custom mobile business app, they often have little to no idea of what they really need.

Before making the decision on investing in your mobile app development, ask a business analyst the following 7 questions and figure out the true usefulness of a would-be developed app.

1. How often will customers run your app?

Mobile devices owners have dozens of apps on board but use only a handful of them. Their favorite list encompasses most frequently run apps with the rest disused and removed. Revise the functionalities of your would-be developed one and make sure it will be used far more often than a couple times a month.

2. Will some unique features make your app stand apart?

Clients often fail to clearly articulate app’s special or unique features opposite to typical website function. They honestly but unreasonably believe it is enough to create a client-app that will bring users to the corporate website — and they’re golden. Actually, end-users follow the line of least resistance: since it is easier to log in to the website, downloading a mobile app is a time waste.

A sought-after mobile app should entail some considerable advantages, i.e. better performance, higher usability, more secure payments, etc. Maybe it’s time to give your app another thought?

3. Are your business processes automated enough?

A mobile app may perfectly augment your automated business workflow, or it may inject confusion in the work of staff and become a headache for consumers. Check first the level of your business processes automation: are all the online orders handled as quick as incoming phone calls or is it possible to book a table online at your restaurant in no time and by using updated booking info…? If not, get back to automating business processes and then move on to the app development stage.

4. Will your app support offline mode?

There is a perfect indicator to help you make up your mind on whether your business needs a mobile app or not. It is a straight answer to the question: will this app be helpful to end-users in the offline mode? If they won’t be able to use it offline, you have to seriously think the issue over in case the development of a mobile app doesn’t answer your current business goals.

5. Do you have enough market coverage?

It is mistakenly believed that a mobile app itself will win claps from the target audience. In fact, your mobile app can get lost among thousands of similar ones. You’d better take some preventive measures.

First, ensure that your customers are aware of your app. The app is your specific promotional channel, but the percentage of end-users employing mobile apps is fairly small compared to the entire customer base.

Second, make the app adorable and urge customers to learn about its full functionalities, to download it and adopt all the advantages.

Third, avoid creating uninformative titles, cliché descriptions and any tech snags in finding the right app. You need to get listed in iTunes and Play Market. But the final say on your mobile app’s “to be or not to be” dilemma is after the reviewing teams. Give your product a chance to enter the market.

By successfully promoting your product, you can expect some tangible benefits in return and, in the long run, dramatically change your customers’ attitude towards your company.

6. Are you going to multiply the lines of “zombie apps”?

The rise of the “zombies” — apps invisible to consumers — is preconditioned with the fast-changing nature of hardware requirements are constant upgrades of operating systems.

To make the app up-to-date and compatible with top-notch mobile devices, invest more in testing and upgrade services. Otherwise, your app is doomed to join the lines of “zombies” that look odd with their legacy usability issues. Therefore, it is wise to consider total costs of the development, support, feedback management, compatibility testing plus additional expenses to maintain app’s seamless functioning. You can negotiate software maintenance, support & update costs beforehand to include them in the project budgeting plan.

7. Your app business functions are really that specific and unique?

Don’t dive into the app development without having a glimpse of already available apps. Perhaps, you will be able to find a fit for your business aims. Among the most common apps that crowd the market are accounting and inventory mobile software solutions, messaging and note-keeping apps and more.

If you need a service app for hotel reservations, restaurant booking, rental services, etc., get your app indexed and ranked in such search engines as TripAdvisor, Airbnb and the like. You will get access to their client databases and will allow your customers to access robust and user-friendly apps.

What’s more, some communication and document sharing issues may be resolved with the help of popular instant messengers, social networks and cloud-based apps by software giants, such as Google or Microsoft.

All in all, hope on you arriving at some useful answers! The article is not an intent to discourage you from investing in a custom-tailored mobile app. But you are highly recommended to frame the right questions to your BA. It will assist in the elaborating all the phases of app development lifecycle and accurate calculation of budget expenses.

7 Questions to Ask Before Building a Business Mobile App was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.