Does your business need a mobile app?
Usually not. For most small businesses, a website that works well on phones, plus a phone number and text messages with people who agree to them, does what customers need. An app tends to make sense when customers return often and log in, when it must work without a signal, when staff work in the field, or when you need features a website often cannot do well. Customers have to install an app, so it must be worth the trouble.
Three ways to reach people on a phone
Texting a customer is done only with the person's consent.
| Website that works on phones | Text messages | Your own app | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer installs something | No | No | Yes, usually from an app store |
| Good for | Being found, answering questions, booking and contact forms | Quick back-and-forth, reminders, photos of the problem | Frequent use, logging in, field staff, working without a signal |
| Weaker for | Working without a signal | Anything long or formal | Reaching new customers who are only looking |
| Upkeep | Keeping the site current | Someone answering, and texting offers only with the person's consent | Often updates for each type of phone, plus the app store's rules |
When an app can make sense
If most of your customers need you only once or twice a year, an app is a hard sell, because installing one often costs them more effort than it gives.
- Customers come back often and log in to see orders, a membership, history or a balance.
- The work happens where there may be no signal, and it has to be recorded anyway.
- Staff are in the field and need schedules, photos and job notes on a phone.
- You need something a website often cannot do well, such as working offline or sending notices customers have asked for.
- Your customers already ask for one, and would use it more than once.
Check what you can buy first
Some booking, ordering and job-management products already come with their own apps for customers or staff. In that case you may not need to build anything. The related answer on buying software or having it built covers that decision.
Questions to ask before building one
The related answer on whether a website needs to work on phones covers that first step, and the related answer on letting customers text your business covers setting up texting. Ascent Vision builds websites and custom software and apps, and does not publish prices.
- What will a customer be able to do in it that they cannot do on our website or by text?
- How often would a customer realistically use it?
- Who keeps it working and updated, and whose name is on the developer and store accounts?
- Is our website already easy to use on a phone? Try it on your own phone first.
Related answers
- Does a small business website really need to work well on phones?
- Should customers be able to text your business, and how do you set that up?
- Should you buy off-the-shelf software or have something built?
Custom software and apps
Off-the-shelf tools get you most of the way. When the last stretch is where the time goes, we build the part that fits: the dashboard, the portal, the internal tool or the app.