How to Create an Effective Mobile App with Great User Retention Rate
Mobile applications have long become an important component of business for many brands. Companies try to do their best to get people to spend as much time there as possible. But the users themselves want the opposite. In spite of this, we at SimbirSoft are sure that user “retention” is nothing but history and all your app should be loved by users first of all. Let us explain that, give some examples and tell you how to create a favourable application.
Hold them or not?
According to Statista, today people spend a lot of time in applications — up to three hours a day on average. Social networks, mobile financial services and online stores demand our attention.
The most useful applications win the information “war”. User assistants who help saving time — for example, they allow to make a purchase or transfer money in just 2–5 minutes.
There are certain aspects that really help with keeping the user in the app — and make this usefully. We’ll review them later.
So, what can hold a client? What is his/her motivation to buy (or to use a product)? Let’s forget about the most common myths, it’s not the price, not the terms and not the quality. There is only one true motivation — just give them what they need.
The most common mistake of many startups is that they choose the market segment and the target audience, forgetting to study its specific problems and needs. Besides, there is very high competition in the IT solutions market today, so it is not enough to make just an “application for moms” or something like this anymore. In practice, those products that contain the most useful features are relevant and become most popular — even if these features are small.
Remember, you don’t have to offer “all at once”. Start with three steps:
- Identify the problem;
- Make sure it is relevant to the target audience;
- Solve this problem.
Today most people have up to 100 apps installed on their smartphones. You cannot choose the “most important one”. Each app serves its purpose. Even the most convenient mobile application won’t be able to get 100% of the user’s time. Users don’t want that, they look for flexible solutions. They can use several competing applications at the same time in each industry.
Fighting for User Attention
There are the following aspects of user retention:
- To solve a specific task;
- To meet your market requirements. For example, the bank should offer new products and services;
- To target the content basing on the user’s interests.
For example, if a pharmacy has a mobile application, it can be configured the way that each category of users will see the most relevant products. If the app is accessed by a woman who has children, she will be offered goods for children and cosmetics, not goods for male health. If she does not prefer to use that kind of cosmetics, of course. The app should adapt to the user’s needs.
If it is a banking application, the user does not use 100% of the functions — maximum 5%. For example, money transfer and utility costs.
The goal of the application is to shorten the user’s path to solve the problem. Today you can transfer money in a maximum of 40 seconds, with minimum clicks. This indicates that the trend towards user retention is fictional.
Even the human hormonal system revolts against spending a lot of time in the same app. One of the most important hormones is dopamine, a pleasure hormone that is primarily associated with pleasure from work. However, there is pseudodopamine — we get it, for example, when we eat sweets, watch TV series or waste time on social networks. At first glance, these actions bring pleasure, but short-term. And then there comes fatigue, dissatisfaction and emotional burnout.
What are social media based on? People watch visual images. They are familiar, understandable, and provide very small doses of dopamine. But this way of making up dopamine will never leads to satisfaction. On the contrary, if a person has been looking at the social feed for too long, he will leave unsatisfied — on a subconscious level he understands that he has simply wasted time. Some developers have already understood that. They try to create a positive impression. For example, if the user scrolled the Instagram feed in a few days, the application will warn him: no more new posts for now.
The interface must be flexible. It must adapt to the user. This can be achieved in two ways:
- Automatic adaptive interface
It works through precise algorithms or recommendation systems (Machine Learning, artificial intelligence).
- Manually adapt the interface
For example, in some applications the user can open the settings and choose what information to display on the main screen. Some users access interface settings, but not so often.
For the user, it is easier if the application decides for him. For example, with Machine Learning, if the user often accesses the X function, it will be displayed on the main screen. However, recommendation systems require business investment. You need a huge amount of Data Set to do this, including all statistics and analytics. This is suitable for banks, retail and pharmacy business.
Ecosystems
And what if you have a lot of products that form an entire ecosystem? Some companies unite all the services in just one mobile application. Others produce separate applications — for investment, for insurance. In this case, it is important to ensure a safe transition process. For example, if the user clicked the “I want to invest” button, he is immediately moved to the “Investment” application.
Push Notifications
Their effectiveness is gradually decreasing. Notifications disturb and force a decision. According to Zeigarnik’s effect, if a person started a huge number of tasks in one day, but none finished, he will not be satisfied. The information overload reaches the point when the person needs about an hour in the evening to simply shift attention from work tasks to personal ones.
Only the most important and useful information should be displayed in the push notifications.
Summing Up
If the app takes care of you and saves your time, the following results are achieved:
- You are more committed and loyal, you love the app and highlight it among others;
- You quickly solve your tasks; you do not need to spend much time.
Today users consider the financial app not as an organization, but as a mobile application. It is not necessary to force communication with the application, and to spend a lot of time in it. The loyalty of the user will be higher if the application knows and takes into account his interests. For example, shows him only those products that suit him, not everyone in a row.
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