If you have an e-commerce website, online store, product or any service based business then you need a small business mobile app to connect with your customers in real time. Business apps are widely used to engage customers and often to promote discount coupons, new product launches or promotional offers using push notification features of apps.
These apps give analysis on user shopping behavior to understand what your customers are demanding. With no restriction to computers business app work great to reach customers more efficiently.
Before jumping on tools to build business apps lets see some basic feature to include while building.
Feature To Include in Small Business Mobile App
1.Customer Loyalty Program
Focus on building a loyalty-based program feature in the app. People should be rewarded for the actions they take like giving feedback for the service they used. It can also be based on the number of purchases they have done through the app. Customers can accumulate these points and use them to gain discounts on their next purchase. Loyalty program features in business apps are crucial and widely used.
The success of any app is based on the retention rate of it’s customer. Loyalty features in business apps are also crucial features in customer retention over a long time. Most of the app fails in the market because they fail to retain their customers.
2.Provide Discount Coupons
The customer tends to spend more if a discount coupon is provided to them. Any strategy that requires you to increase your mobile app download should include discount coupons for acquiring new customers. These coupons can be on the basis on share “Share to unlock this coupon code” or personalized for each and every customer. The bottom lines is that coupons can increase sales and grab new customers.
Providing discounts through the mobile business app is an essential feature to include while planning a business app.
3.Customer Care Through App
A good setup customer care service through the app can increase your retention rate of customers. Every customer goes through a journey where they need to get in touch with support. A timely response to a customer will increase customer loyalty and result in a long term relationship.
The value of customer service in-app helps to get recover customer acquisition costs in the long term. A customer is more likely to continue using the app if they don’t feel ignored by the company hence roles of customer care in business app increases exponentially.
4. Easy To Call Function In App
Be it a feedback call or Pre-Sales inquiry call, it is a good practice to give an easy to call functionality in-app. In the sea of all the options, the customer usually ends up with a lot of questions in their mind, if these questions can be answered as soon as possible there is a better chance for customer retention which is much cheaper then acquiring a new customer.
5. App Push Notifications
App users like receiving creative push notification which are personalized messages like birthday wishes, discount coupons and offers through the app notifications. It is a good idea to include this feature in your app while building a business app. In general, it is found that users open apps notification which is personalized in nature, limited time offers and new product or service messages.
Here is a guide by Sendpulse on App Push Notification and it’s impact
6. Leaving Reviews on Product
The impact of online product reviews on purchasing decisions is more than 93% as read on Thedrum. Before purchasing a service or product the consumer will see the reviews from another customer. The average rating impacts the buying decision of the consumer and push them a step closer towards buying.
The review section should be an integral part of a business app while designing. In later stages, you can also ask for reviews after a consumer has brought your service or product.
Here are some more features to consider before creating a business app
- Purchase services or product within the app for customer
- Integration with Social media for sharing
- Google Maps drive to action for visiting your physical location
Business app builders for small business
Shoutem
Shoutem is the best react native UI framework for developing different UI frameworks. You can show any type of content i. Videos, blog articles, check-ins, Photos, People profile. If your business is supported or managed by a CRM then Shoutem gives you an option to integrate both App and CRM.
Some of the features of Shoutem are following
- Ads Support – It gives and supports all the significant ads services like DoubleClick or Admob by Google
- Push Notification – Push new offers and product to your customers directly on their phones
- Integrate with Shopify from WordPress
- Building a community – Check-ins, status updates, and comments
- Loyalty Programs for customer retention and engagement
Apart from the things mentioned above, Shoutem also gives analytical data to understand your customer buying behavior. People can create their profile an be active on the app. In terms of customization, Shoutem give more than 40+ built-in screen types and 200+ Customizable layouts
If you require more features then you can use the Extention from marketplace. You can integrate more things or add new features to the app.
Different plans include market place extension, CMs integration, Push Notification, and app publishing are all common in all the below mentioned plans.
Android only – $49 / mo
Include Ios – $79/mo
Professional – $149/mo
Appy Pie
If you are wondering how to create an app without coding skills then Appy Pie is the answer to your prayers. It covers all the three major types i.e Android, iOS and PWA (Progressive web apps). They also help with publishing teams which helps with the app submission on Google Playstore and iOS store.
- Push Notification functionality in the app for customer engagement
- Google Map direction service to drive them to the physical location of your store
- Social media login functionality for users
- Easy upload and share of videos, images, and comments through the profile feature
- Analytics to understand consumer buying behavior
Building loyalty programs app features and giving multi-language support for app users from different locations gives a much necessary boost to gain profit and retain a customer in-app.
Appy Pie apps are native in nature which means they load fast. They also claim to provide offline content to users which are a feature to lookout.
The pricing plan of Appy Pie includes Basic, Gold and Platinum plans. The basic plan doesn’t include premium features. All three plans give unlimited app editing and push notifications capabilities.
Basic Plan – $13.6 /app/month
Gold Plan – $26.3/app/month
Platinum Plan – $39.9/app/month
Buildfire
Buildfire is good Appy pie alternative as this also doesn’t require any coding skills to build business apps. It works on the concept of plugins that are available in the marketplace. You can add plugins and include functionality that you require like adding videos in your business apps.
- Build an app using click and edit type functionality
- View changes in real-time while developing
- Building apps using a function called plugins
- Monetizing apps
- Push notification features
- Analytics and reporting for insights
Buildfire uses fewer codes to build new features while developing apps. It also gives an option for the integration of online stores like Shopify and Woo-commerce. Customer engagement through drip notification and group-based notification gives a personalized feel to consumers while using the app.
It is one the top app builder and so does the pricing varies for user needs. The basic plan includes Android, iOS and PWA. With each higher plan, you get more the number of push notifications in the month and also better support from customer service.
Basic – $89/mo
Professional – $149/mo
Enterprise – $499/mo
Free App Builder – Mobincube
Mobincube helps you start a mobile store which is a great way to increase your sales. If you are a business owner with only a website at your disposal then you can choose a 30+ template for creating a business app from basics. One of the functionalities which Mobincude gives is to earn through advertisements.
- Push notification
- Adding multimedia content like videos and image
- Google Map integration
- Google Analytics integration for reports and find
- Ads implementation and monetization
You can build an app for android and iOS and for monetization you can integrate Admob or other ads services. For payment methods, you can use PayPal. Like other business app builder, you can use loyalty programs feature to engage with customers using push notification features.
$0/mo
Free
$2.99/mo
S
$9.99/mo
M
$19.99/mo
L
$49.99/mo
XL
Appmachine
This small business mobile app builder comes with 30+ prebuilt blocks. You can import your website content like images, videos or social media accounts data into the app. The app builder comes with live window customization which makes it possible to monitor the changes as you go ahead creating the business app.
- Easy modification of the app features like color and templates set.
- multiple navigation template bar for customization
- Importing data from workbook like excel files to app
- Integrate other services using rest API calls
- Guidance in-app submission in app stores
Appmachine is available with a dashboard for viewing all the analytics from your app. People searching on how to write an app can build apps within hours using Appmachine. The ability to link to Google Analytics for a broader level of understanding of your consumer behavior is also a given advantage.
biznessapps
Biznessapps is one platform to create engaging small business mobile apps. It comes with backend CMS which helps in processing orders and analytics to understanding and run the business more efficiently. It is the only app builder that comes with the ability to design marketing material.
biznessapps features
- Push notification for asking customers to leave a review.
- Custom Google fonts for unique and awesome UI
- Ready-made templates for different industries
- Can use to create Android apps, iOS apps and PWA (Progressive web apps)
- Drag and drop app builder functionality
- Push notification
- App analytics
biznessapps as a small business mobile app goes a mile ahead by providing the virtual signature facility. It also comes with multiple language support where you can target different regions and demography using language-based marketing strategies.
It also comes with different payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, payUbiz and many more.
Standard – $300/month
Gold – $360/month
Platinum – $400/month
Advantages of mobile apps for business
In conclusion, small business mobile app can increase your brand visibility and brand loyalty. These mobile apps help in making sales. You can have everything set up like professional email ID or website but if you are not reaching your consumer phone then the chances of your business growth are very thin. Mobile apps have huge impact on your business and they will continue to dominate the markets in the coming years.