Using mobile apps in business
12th of July 2024
Mobile apps can benefit many businesses. Everything from retail and service-based businesses to traditional trades, in a host of ways that require an innovative mindset to find. In this week’s article – we’re looking at these three ways businesses can use the technology to their benefit. You’ll learn how to use mobile apps in your business to achieve success that’s only possible through digital transformation – as well as how to get the right one for your business needs.
By this point, the vast majority of us use mobile apps in some capacity in our daily lives, be that social media and news on our phones or making WhatsApp calls from tablets. The data backs this up as well, in 2022 86% of people used their mobile to go online compared to just 28% of us back in 2009. This market continues to grow by around 2% each year and in younger demographics hs near-universal adoption figures. In the UK a mighty 98% of 16-24 use smartphones.
Look around your office, or where you work remotely – you’ll more than likely see a smattering of smartphones and smart devices that use technology in various ways to improve your personal life. The same technology can be used to improve your business.
The technology is there – you just need to see how you can use it to the benefit of your company. These are three real-world examples of mobile apps used in businesses.
Regulation compliance
Mobile apps can assist with regulation compliance in ways that you simply can’t imagine if you still have members of staff on-site with reams of paperwork that need to be manually administered.
Earlier this year at Shoothill we developed the Housebuilder Pro mobile app. The purpose of this app? To streamline compliance with a new time-consuming regulation called, Building Regulation 40 Part L. A regulation introduced in the wake of the Grenfell fire it requires new home builders to keep records of many different steps in the construction process. At first, this seems quite simple.
However, it had the new homes industry concerned. The data required was extensive, to say the least. They now needed records or images, written information, location data and when it was documented.
With the launch of these regulations last year, housebuilders were concerned about not only how they’d have the time to collect all this data, but also how they’d administer and store it.
Fortunately, though this could all be captured and saved in the cloud through a purpose-built app. A user would simply need to take the image, and make their note and the app would store the location and time. All of this is then fed directly to the Housebuilder Pro new homes management system to be stored – without the need of time-consuming administration.
What was once a terrifyingly large amount of paperwork, and spreadsheets became a breeze with a mobile app. You may have a similar process in your business that you need to accelerate.
Getting jobs done first time round
Many service-based businesses need to assess a problem and return to the site a second time to fix it with either the right part, the correctly qualified trade or when they’ve got enough time to actually do the job. If you work in this sort of sector you may look at this as just a cost of doing business, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Imagine a world where you can get an issue sorted the first time? What competitive edge this would give you? How would this improve your reviews?
Here’s how it works.
You use a mobile app or application-driven website to have customers contact you with all the information you need, so everything from their availability to images of the problem. You can assess and prepare ahead of time, arrive prepared and as a result save time and get better reviews from your customers.
Enhancing customer loyalty
So far we’ve looked at ways you can improve your admin and your service. This third method will help you build the lifetime value of each of your customers. With an app for your customers, you have access to a host of features that enable you to build a stronger relationship with them and keep them coming back to you.
If you use this app to provide extra value to your customers, through exclusive content, networks with other passionate customers and even exclusive offers, it’s easy to get them to download and install it. The average smartphone has over 80 apps installed on it. Play your cards right you can become one of their most used.
The same technique that gets people hooked checking the news and social media, push notifications, can be used to remind your customers of your existence, your latest sales as well as new product and service launches. Providing you with ample opportunity to send them down your sales funnel.
In the sign-up process for an app, you can even gain access to customer’s mobile phone numbers, and email addresses. With marketing consent, you’ve got another avenue to explore. While we all know the pros and cons of traditional email marketing, many businesses haven’t tapped into SMS marketing which can see a conversion rate of as high as 28% with opens exceeding the 80% mark.
So how does my business get a mobile app like one of these built?
The unfortunate reality is that you’re not going to find the right solution for your business’s newfound ambition to streamline regulation compliance, only having to go to a job site once, and increase buyer loyalty through a new mobile app on the app store or on Google.
The only path is to commission a talented team to build the platform for your success, for you. With an 18-year history of tackling these unique challenges, Shoothill is the team to achieve your untapped potential in business, secure your digital transformation today by contacting the team.
+44 (0)1743 636300