According to KiteWheel’s State of the Customer Journey 2018 Report, in-app experiences are growing 50% year over year. Consumers are increasingly using apps for key brand interactions and are defining their brand perceptions based around these mobile experiences. In this sense, businesses should prioritize their customer experience specifically in-app when they think about developing a competitive edge. They should focus on overcoming any barriers to adoption of the app, aligning the mobile experience with other brand interactions, creating a continuous experience across different platforms, and establishing processes to constantly learn and improve.
Anticipate Initial Objections
Consumers tend to be impatient with apps, and want them to deliver quickly. In fact, according to TechCrunch, one in four consumers will delete an app after just one use. With high app abandonment in mind, businesses should anticipate objections before they arise and try to overcome them. For example, financial services apps should think about the more technical or difficult aspects of their apps and make sure those pieces are fool-proof. This means mobile deposits, account transfers and any budgeting tools work seamlessly and reliably. By hooking first-time app users with an easy experience, they’ll continue to come back and develop positive brand perceptions through a no-hassle mobile interaction.
Consider Context
Understanding why consumers download an app in the first place helps give context to their state of mind and immediate needs upon download. Meeting their top-of-mind tasks, whether it be aligning their checking account with the app or breaking their monthly expenses into a pie chart, can help financial institutions fast-track customers to their most pressing demands. When financial institutions succeed in meeting these needs, they get to claim an “early win” for app use, which encourages future use and sets the customer on a positive trajectory for brand interaction and app engagement.
Synchronize With Other Platforms
Apps should never be “free-standing” for businesses whose customers have an online or in-store history. In other words, pieces of information about the customer should easily sync with the app, and continue to do so for future interactions. Consider the example of a customer adding an additional owner to their savings account. If the customer submits an inquiry online (from laptop/desktop), they should be able to get onto their app later and follow up with the correspondence. This continuity among different channels – especially in-person, online and through the app – is an intuitive and expected connection consumers want. The fluid experience among channels creates a singular and cohesive customer experience where the various channels they use are purely for convenience.
Listen And Improve
Constant improvement is a must for apps, and while app developers obviously have an expertise in design and experience, customer feedback should be a core part of the improvement process. Understanding bugs, functionality issues, or missing pieces of an app can help developers create an experience that meets and exceeds expectations for the next user. Ratings, bug reporting, open-ended feedback links, and active solicitation of survey feedback are all ways financial institutions can gain valuable insight. Similarly, integrating regular review and analysis of feedback, usually conducted jointly by an internal operations and app development team, can make the most use of this insight and help establish a reviewable timeline for implementation of the most important improvements.
