Building a mobile app is a big undertaking — and one that requires a significant investment. If you’re going to devote resources to develop a mobile app, you want to be confident that you’ll see ROI of some sort. In this post, we’ll explore how to determine if building a mobile app will actually deliver the return you expect.
Types of ROI
You’ll define ROI differently depending on your goals. What constitutes a significant return for one business won’t necessarily be satisfactory for another. Before we jump into how to predict ROI, we need to look at the different types of ROI you may be targeting.
Selling More Products or Services
Will you be able to bring in more customers with a mobile app? Or can you prompt existing customers to purchase more often or spend more per purchase? An app-based customer loyalty program can deliver major revenue increases.
Reducing Customer Service Expenses
You can increase profit margins with a mobile app by reducing your customer service expenses. An app can handle many of the tasks that team members currently conduct manually. You can even utilize chatbots to take care of the initial communication sequence before a live human steps in to handle the more complex parts of the conversation. This will allow you to get more from your current staff or free them to do tasks with greater complexity.
Increasing Sales Productivity
Your sales team is the primary pipeline of new revenue for your company. What if they could do more with their time and resources? Mobile-based custom CRM functionality can automate much of the sales process and allow your team to complete tasks more quickly. Because your sales team will be spending less time on rote tasks, they can spend more time negotiating and closing deals.
Better Supply Chain Management
A mobile app can help you improve supply chain management, giving you real-time visibility and dynamic tracking for better decision-making. You can identify bottlenecks quickly and spot opportunities for greater process streamlining. Mobile apps can also facilitate communication between the various parts of the supply chain.
Avoiding Costly Mistakes
Mistakes of all kinds can cost you. Human error can cause production issues, failure to comply with regulations, and even accidents that harm your employees. A mobile app allows technology to handle many processes, reducing the chance of mistakes. For this reason, you’ll save money on fines, insurance premiums, and lost-time days.
Your Investment for a Mobile App
The investment required to build a mobile app will vary depending on what functionality you require, the number and type of integrations involved, and the number of user types who will be interacting with the app. While you’ll need to get a quote from your developer to get an accurate idea of costs, there are things you can do to keep this cost to a minimum.
First, do research up front to ensure you develop precisely what your company and your users need. This will prevent wasted development time. Gather input from all stakeholders to ensure you meet everyone’s need. Bring in a UX specialist who knows how to design interfaces that fit into users’ existing workflows. And build a prototype that you can test with users. (You can use your prototype as a foundation for the development of the full app, so it’s not an extra step in the long run.)
Also, don’t forget to account for ongoing costs. You’ll need to update your app as device operating systems change, and you’ll probably want to add functionality over time as you start implementing more use cases.
An experienced software development company will be able to share how to maximise the ROI you see from your app and how to plan for the associated costs.
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