Most of your customers will not install your app, and that is the first thing to plan for.
There is a phone in your customer’s pocket with no storage left and a red badge on everything. Your app is asking for room on that phone. Then it is asking to be opened again next week.
An app earns its place when somebody comes back. Ordering the same twenty items every Tuesday. Checking whether the technician has left. Everything else is a website that nobody needs to install.
A customer app is software your customers install on their own phones, and that single fact changes everything about it. You have to persuade someone to install it, then give them a reason to open it again. It also has to work on an old Android with a cracked screen and no free storage. Features are the easy part.
Where it earns its place.
What makes somebody open it a second time
The install is not the win. The second visit is, and only a few things reliably cause one.
- Repeat ordering, where last week’s order becomes this week’s in two taps
- A booking they make often: a slot, a table, a pickup, a service visit
- The status of something happening right now
- Money: a balance, a due date, a statement, points worth having
- A record they need later, such as a warranty, a prescription or an invoice
What an app does that a mobile website cannot
- Notifications that arrive without anything being open
- The camera, for a photo of the damage before the visit
- Something useful on a screen with no signal
- A sign-in that stays signed in, so reordering is not a login
If none of those matters to your customers, a fast mobile website and a WhatsApp number will reach more of them for less money.
What goes into most of the ones we build
- Sign in
- Browse
- Order or book
- Pay
- Track
- Reorder
- OTP sign-in on a mobile number, because nobody remembers a password
- A catalogue or service list your team controls, with the prices they set
- Payment online through Razorpay, or on delivery
- Order and visit status, with a notification at each change
- The staff side, where your counter sees the orders as they arrive
The part that decides whether it works
Building the app is a few months. Getting it onto phones is the rest of the year.
- A reason to install, said in one line on the bill or at the counter
- Staff who mention it, since they are the ones talking to the customer
- The same prices and offers as every other channel, or nobody trusts it
- A web version that still works, because people do uninstall
- Somebody watching how many open it again after the first week
When we say build the mobile website first
This comes up often enough that we would rather say it before a proposal than after one.
- Purchases that happen once or twice a year
- A customer base that will not install anything, whatever you offer
- A catalogue people find through Google, which an app is invisible to
- A trade where WhatsApp already carries the conversation well
An app after that is a sensible next step, and the website will have told you what people actually do.
When this is the right choice.
- Customers who buy, book or check something regularly rather than once a year
- A service where the customer wants to know what is happening right now
- An existing customer base you can reach to tell about it
- Dues, balances or loyalty that give somebody a reason to open it
- A working web version already, so the app is your second channel and not your first
When it is not.
- A one-off purchase, where the install costs more attention than the sale is worth
- Replacing WhatsApp for customers who are perfectly comfortable messaging you there
- Anything that needs to be found on Google, since nobody searches inside an app store for your trade
- A launch with no plan for getting it installed, which is how most customer apps die quietly
Questions we are asked about it.
Do we need an app or a mobile website?
Ask what a customer would do in it more than once a month. If there is a clear answer, the app is worth it. If there is not, a fast mobile website and a WhatsApp number will do more for you.
Android only, or both?
Most Indian customer bases lean heavily Android, so skipping iOS is tempting. With React Native the second platform costs far less than a second build, so we usually do both and let the download numbers decide where attention goes.
How do we get customers to install it?
The bill, the counter, the WhatsApp message after an order, and the staff who serve them. A download link in a website footer does nothing. The reason to install has to be something the customer already wanted.
Will it work on old phones?
We test on low-end Android, because that is what a large part of any Indian customer base carries. It shapes the app: lighter images, lists that load in pages, and screens that behave when the network drops mid-order.
Can customers order without creating an account?
Up to the point where you need an address or a payment. We let people browse freely and ask for an OTP at checkout, which loses fewer of them than a sign-up form at the door.
Who replies when a customer messages inside the app?
Your team, and it is worth settling before launch. We usually route it to WhatsApp or an inbox somebody owns. An unanswered chat inside your own app does more damage than not offering chat at all.
Services that use it.
What it sits with.
Not sure Customer apps is the right choice?
Tell us what the software has to do and who opens it. If something else fits better, we will say so, and say why.
- No obligation
- We reply the same working day
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