How to Get the Most Out of Your Mobile App

Most people and businesses that own an app are unaware of the significance of investing in-app maintenance and support. So if you own a mobile app or planning to develop one for your business, it’s best to understand the role of app support and maintenance services to ensure its success.

Before we dive into the benefits of app maintenance and support, let's understand mobile apps' vitality for business.

What makes mobile apps so important?

There’s one simple answer to this: apps solve real-life problems in just a few clicks.

For example, if you're hungry, you open an app and order food; your food will be delivered without effort. On top of that, you don't even have to worry about the payment and change in hand, as you can pay through well-integrated in-app payment gateways.

Mobile users have surpassed desktop or laptop users in their numbers, and every business should have a mobile app to stay ahead of the game.

Advantages of developing an app for business

Mobile apps provide your business with information about your customers, e.g. demographics and geographical location. More importantly, you can give your clients information about your products and services. Apps can help you get to know the preferences of specific customers and meet their individual needs.

Let's discuss a few of the significant advantages of having a mobile application for business growth.

Provide your customers with value

Do you run a loyalty program? Why don't you make it digital using amobile app? This can be done by moving from the traditional reward collection to smartphones and smart devices.

People are glued to their mobile phones jumping from one app to the other. They’re interested in apps that have something specific to replace their efforts in real-life solutions.

You can take instances of ordering food, bank payments, and even replacing previous generation entertainment like TV or even desktops. All have been replaced with mobile apps.

Some apps make use of geolocation, and when a user walks near your store's physical location, they get a notification inviting them to your store or a restaurant. Curious users will eventually flock to your store to see what it's all about. This approach is most useful for brick and mortar businesses.

Building brand recognition 

Whether you’ve started a new business or are rebranding the existing one, you can enhance your brand's recognition by introducing a mobile app.

All you need to do is create an app with likable features that can mesmerize your audiences.

Instead of putting up an expensive billboard, build a functional app. Nobody pays attention to billboards anymore; everyone is busy looking into their phones.

After building, you need to find a way to get your users involved in your app regularly.

The more often they interact with your app, the more likely they like products or services in your app. It helps increase your brand recognition across the market.

Increase customer engagement

All clients need a way to reach the business that sells a product or service they’re interested in.

If you’re unreachable, you could run the risk of losing customers. A mobile app plays a significant role. It comes in handy at enabling customer reach.

You can get a mobile-friendly help desk where customers can raise and post their queries, comments, orders and complaints.

Through the app, you can reply to all their communication personally or create a list of FAQs to the issues they’re facing.

You can also make the ordering or booking simpler with easy and seamless payment options and create an option to create an account on your app through their social media accounts.

Stand out

The fact that a mobile app sets you apart can’t be denied!

You need to take advantage of this effective communication and marketing tool if you want your business to attain immense success.

By the time your competitors realize its importance, you’ll have the majority of the market share.

It doesn't matter what you sell; you can take a commanding role among your peers. Just bythe tap of a button, your clients can see your products and services.

Since mobile apps are fast, easy and simple to operate, this ease can drive customer engagement and loyalty to an unprecedented level.

Increase your customer base

How many customers come back to your store for a second purchase? This is an essential aspect of a business every business owner must cultivate.

Customer loyalty can be achieved when you constantly remind your clients about your presence and the kind of products and services you sell.

There’s already a hoard of advertising campaigns out there. It would be best to choose what can help you convey your brand message accurately and smartly to your target users. To do this, you need to take a step back and rethink your marketing and ad strategy.

A mobile app makes a truthful and sincere connection between your business and your customers, increasing a brand's recognition and loyalty.

Now you know what mobile apps can do for you, you need to know why it’s crucial to emphasize mobile app maintenance and support.

Why do you need mobile app maintenance?

Soon after you launch your application, it’s imperative to monitor the working of the applications at regular intervals. Continuous upgrading and alterations can help in boosting the overall performance of your mobile app.

This can only be achieved when you opt for application maintenance and support services from a reliable source.

Here are a few factors defining the role of app support and maintenance services:

• As the users build-up and the data grows on your app, it will start encountering glitches and bugs that need to be fixed to provide a seamless app experience. If they aren’t fixed, your app may frequently crash, creating a poor user experience.
• Every app needs to be upgraded in terms of functionality, look and feel. Your customers shouldn't feel that your app is outdated. Think of new options, features and strategies to make your app modern and up to users' mark.
• It’s suggested to go for monthly app updates and maintenance. This will make your app worth using and help you gain maximum users within a short time.

Now that you know how important it is to maintain an app, you must be wondering how much mobile app maintenance costs.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't end by just developing and deploying an app.

Once the app is launched, the developers have to monitor your app's performance and make necessary alterations and upgrades at regular intervals. Upgrading isn’t just for the functional elements but also for the content.

Monitoring your application at regular intervals plays an essential role. You might've observed that you get an update for your Facebook or Instagram app at least once in 10 days, if not a week. This is one of the biggest reasons why they’re the most used apps.

You don't have to do updates so frequently it’s unlikely your app will have as many options, complications and users. You can do it once a month or three times a year.

The cost of maintaining your app typically depends on your app's nature; the more complex your app is, the more money you spend on maintenance.

It’s estimated that 20% of the initial development cost while scheming about the costing in maintaining any software. Let's say your initial development cost is $25,000 to $30,000: you can expect to spend about $5,000 to $10,000 per year to maintain your app.

But if an app is costing you $25,000, you probably don’t need to worry about paying the maintenance costs.

You could either get an app maintenance assurance/contract with the company building your app or you can find a cheaper resource to maintain your app. But you need to be careful when choosing a third-party company to maintain your app.

How do mobile app development companies maintain apps?

Mobile app development companies provide different maintenance procedures and techniques to make your app perform better. Let's understand them one by one:

Emergency maintenance

These are the cases where the problems and errors in the system are unpredictable.

• Mobile app development companies use emergency maintenance and support when an unscheduled and unseen error occurs with your app
• This type of maintenance is helpful at the time of the app crash
• When an app crashes, all the users are in distress and an immediate solution should be immediately available

Perfective maintenance

Perfective maintenance is the implementation of new or changed user requirements in an application.

• It’s used to make functional modifications in an app for not affecting an app's regular behavior
• For example, if you want to add a new feature without affecting anything in the present app, you should choose perfective app maintenance
• This type of maintenance is executed by making the necessary changes in the source code to bring new functionality according to user requirements

Adaptive maintenance

In adaptive maintenance practices, changes are made to the application to keep the system updated.

• This maintenance practice is executed to update the app by considering the change in the working environment, such as a hardware or operating system
• The term ‘environment’ refers to the influences and conditions that act on the system

Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance requires frequent actions to be performed to stop the repetitive occurrence of errors.

• This type of tactic is implemented to lower down the software complexity
• It’s executed to improve an application's understandability and maintainability

Corrective maintenance

Corrective maintenance is chosen when you need repairs by detecting and finding faults in day-to-day application functions.

• It deals with the logic, design and coding-related errors of an application
• All these errors are referred to as residual errors

All the aforementioned app maintenance types are the best to choose according to your app type and nature.

Instead of consulting an app maintenance company after your app gets into trouble, it's advisable to have a credible team in advance that can provide proper app maintenance services from the beginning.

It saves you from the burden of extra costs you need to spend when the app is in trouble.

Finding a mobile app maintenance team

In this cut-throat web world, it’s necessary to be aware of a few aspects while hiring resources for your product's support and maintenance.

For instance, your hired team should ideally meet most of the below standards:

• Good response time
• Ability to manage and store backups to avoid losing data
• Customer support, preferably a dedicated account manager
• Be familiar with the software/app they’re maintaining

Follow these steps and you can't go wrong in hiring app maintenance partners.

Final thoughts

The most critical part of mobile app maintenance is fighting off the bugs, 

keep your app updated according to the current trends and not falling back in the competition.

This requires constant surveillance of your app and a proper system to take action towards unforeseen issues.

Setting up a team for maintenance is undoubtedly a daunting experience, but once you have a team setup, it's a constant cycle that will make your app run smoother.