Building Your Brand on Mobile and Why it Matters

Imagine the power unlocked by those little hand-held devices when 77% of searches happen on mobiles and not laptops or desktops that browse the web.

Too bad if you missed the buzz: The story of smartphone subscribers overtaking feature phone users is already a touch old. The Forrester report that disclosed those numbers also projects that by 2020, over 85% of mobile users’ primary phone will be smartphone.

With affordable data plans connecting the world impressively, it’s easy to see why your brand should be on the mobile platform for more reasons than one.

Mobile as a means of digital reflection of customer behavior opens up pathways to engage with customers- existing and prospective. To be on mobile is also inevitable if your brand has to deliver on micro moments (as coined by google to allude to customer urge to address their needs instantly and on the fly).

What drives a great experience on Mobile?
Using a mobile-centric approach to reduce customer effort:
It all starts with providing the right offers and options to the customer quickly and effortlessly and at the time when they would be most receptive to it. The mobile-first approach makes it easier. It not only provides means of collecting user data e.g. location and activities for personalization but also can be used for zero touch interaction using QR codes or digital assistants.

When it comes to ease of use, My Verizon app (from Verizon Wireless) provides a simple card-based interface as soon as the user opens the app where the information or options are personalized based on lifecycle events of the customer- from personalized offers to order status to billing information.

Using Mobile to provide connected experience across channels:
It’s a common practice to check things on digital channel and buy them from a store. Mobile becomes the medium of providing a connected experience.

Let’s take the example of My Verizon app which provides the ability to customize product reviews based on customers’ location in store. It integrates with the Verizon Wireless point-of-sale system to predict why the customer is visiting the retail store and offers a customized greeting and expedited check-in.

In their latest avatar, mobile apps are also fast becoming the medium of integrating payment in store through mobile wallets.

Mobile app for continuous engagement- tapping into digital reflections:
With more users open to connecting to their contacts (read: social), mobile apps are great to spread the word. To enable it, businesses have to first think about the tactics to drive repeat visits, offering mileage points or coupons to those who interact once each day with their mobile site or app. Then, follow up with experiences that influence customers to share the delight with others, letting your brand shine.

Notifications & reminders is another great way to keep active engagement going especially when it provides timely information related to customer needs.

My Verizon app has a diagnostics feature that alerts the user and helps fix device-related problem so the customer doesn’t have to run around looking for experts. It’s right there on the phone.

How can it all be accomplished?
For the mobile app to be a digital mirror, apps have to be built with mobile-first philosophy rather than adapting to mobile what was originally built for web. It should be able to assist the customer in narrowing down the choices and fulfilling their expectations with reduced cognitive load.

Central to exceptional engagement on mobile are:
Data: Leveraging data from connected devices and past history to gain context insights. This helps in directing customer choices to their delight.
Human-like interactions: Design intelligent conversation-style experiences delivered through chats or assisted navigation including augmented reality.

The brand that connects
These enriched experiences are not just providing brands with a connect to prospects but are fast becoming the magnetism for lasting customer relationships. So every business has to think through their strategy on how to tap into the mobile-first evolution, not just to serve the customers but to be able to delight them.