Unlocking the Hidden Potential of Mobile Apps: Maximising Business Returns

In today's fast-paced business landscape, having a mobile app isn't just about boosting sales. It's a strategic move that can revolutionise your company's success in more ways than one. From enhancing customer engagement to streamlining internal processes, mobile apps offer a wealth of opportunities to propel your business forward.

Let's explore all the benefits your company can unlock by embracing mobile apps. We'll break it down using the App ROI Framework (explained below) and illustrate its application with real-world examples. This framework is your roadmap to understanding the full spectrum of advantages that come with having a mobile app and how to maximise them effectively. Whether you're a C-suite executive or a product owner, mastering these tactics will position your company as a leader in harnessing the power of mobile apps.

Unlocking Digital Potential: Applying the App ROI Framework

All business endeavours seek to optimise for either Revenue Generation or Cost Optimisation – perhaps in some cases both. However, achieving these objectives encompasses various strategies and approaches. For instance, businesses may implement loyalty programs to boost transaction frequency and value, or they may focus on optimising customer service costs while ensuring top-notch support for clients.

At Shape, we've discovered that discussing tactics specific to the app space can greatly enhance our clients' success in aligning their digital presence with overall business objectives. For example, when aiming to reduce customer service expenses, which app features should be prioritised? How do these features complement each other, and how do they contribute to the overall value proposition of the app? These tactics are crucial elements in the recipe for product-led innovation, helping businesses unlock their full potential in the digital realm.

In order to put these things together and work with them in a tangible way, we apply the App ROI Framework, that consists of three levels:

• Purpose - What is the root effect that you are trying to achieve
• Initiative - What concept will get you there
• Tactic - How do you actually apply it and work with it.

Below you’ll find a visual representation of the framework, however non-exhaustive. 

Growing Revenue and Cutting Costs: Applying the App ROI Framework

The framework can be read in two different ways: 

1. As a business manager, you aim to boost revenue or cut costs. What strategies and tactics can you use to achieve these gains?
2. As a product owner, your goal is to ensure your digital product drives revenue growth or cost savings. How do the features in your roadmap align with these goals, and do they support your envisioned initiatives?

Below you’ll get examples of how we utilise the framework.

Example 1: Seeking to increase revenue for a subscription business 

Imagine you're a business manager aiming to boost revenue for a company operating on a subscription-based model. Unlike traditional sales approaches, where the focus is on individual transaction amounts, subscription models emphasise Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – essentially, how much revenue a customer generates over their engagement with your business.

In this scenario, your goal is to maximise the revenue each customer brings in over time. While normally, you'd also consider the Total Cost of Acquisition (TCA) for a comprehensive business case, for simplicity, we'll focus solely on CLV here.

There are some key words to take from this when working with the initiatives and the following tactics applied, such as; 

• Engagement 
• Lifetime 
• Value 

For this it would make sense to have a look at initiatives such as; Loyalty and cross selling. 

Then, we focus on the tactics. Which features can boost engagement, prevent churn, extend customer lifetime, and enhance the monthly value of subscriptions?

*** Disclaimer: While the following is not an exhaustive list it gives an overview of the approach and how to work with the framework. ***

Unlocking Loyalty: The Power of Personalisation

Think about personalisation like the key to loyalty. When people feel seen and remembered in their settings and also in their preferences, they stick around. If you want to build an intimate relationship with your customers, you've got to meet their needs spot-on. And when you do that, they'll stick with you for much longer.

Want to dive deeper into the value of personalisation? At Shape, we've created a comprehensive report with data from one of Denmark's largest studies on app usage. Get access below 👇

Beyond Play: Exploring the Versatility of Gamification

Gamification — it's a trend that’s been around for a while in the digital world. But even though it might seem overused, it's still incredibly powerful. You might think of it as just games, but it's actually a lot more versatile. It's about using challenges, points, and streaks to make things more interesting. And when you make things more interesting, people keep coming back, forming habits around using your product.

The Fitness World app provides unique personalisation while continuously offering new and fun challenges to keep users engaged and motivated. For more insights into how we have worked with personalisation and gamification, have a look at our work with Fitness World.

Navigating the Pitfalls and Promises of Push Notifications

Let's talk about push notifications – they're one of the unique features that make mobile apps different from websites. Unlike web notifications, push notifications can reach beyond the app and show up on your phone's screen, getting up close and personal with users. This can be extremely powerful, but it also comes with risks. While push notifications can remind users about abandoned carts or encourage them with "we miss you" messages, they can also annoy people if they're too frequent or pushy. 

Want to learn more about using push notifications effectively? 

Learn about successful notifications strategies👇

Boosting Brand Reach: The Influence of Share/Recommend Features in Mobile Apps

The share/recommend feature is a real powerhouse when it comes to mobile apps. The smooth connection between wanting to share something and the messaging options on mobile, plus the habit of casually reaching out to people this way, creates a perfect mix of simplicity and social acceptance. This combo makes it super easy for users to share and recommend products and services to others. 

Example 2: Reducing cost in a B2C organisation with +100.000 customers

Imagine you're the app product owner in a large organisation with over 100,000 customers. Management has decided to cut costs, and every digital product needs to help out. So, what can you do? Well, think about the large amount of customer service requests with so many customers. Shifting customer service to a channel that's both great for users and cheap for the company could be highly beneficial. But which features can make this happen?

It depends on the kind of service that the customer is requiring, which could be broken down into three categories: 

• Low complexity
• Medium complexity 
• High complexity

Low complexity requests could be a feature such as a chatbot. This will help the users get a swift response to trivial questions. This saves a customer service employee having to do it manually, taking some of the volume from the call centre. 

Medium complexity requests might require human dialogue, as their nature can be hard to standardise and automate. However, in order to soften out spikes in the calls, a callback function would be able to help you optimise your channel. That way you ensure that your customer service ressources are always active, however, never overloaded, getting the most efficient utilisation of your ressources. 

Highly complex requests will often require you to have some sort of physical interaction with whatever product or service you are supplying. This has typically been costly as it either requires that the organisation accommodates for an employee to go to the customers location or the product to go to the organisation. All requires time, effort, and adds to the cost. Implementing a feature such as video calls can reduce these. 

First pioneered within the medical industry under the name Tele Medicine, this feature has been hugely successful not only in driving down cost, but equally spawning new business models such as that of HejDoktor. 

All of the above is a demonstration of how to work with the framework. Please keep in mind that there is a longer list of features as well as themes that can be covered, however, for the sake of simplicity these haven’t been shown here.