The Kiwibank Home Hunter app introduces new customers to Kiwibank by giving them a great experience using the bank's home loan service. Novel features like the ability to find a house nearby by moving the camera about or seeing which areas will get the most sun throughout the day, make the app stand out from the crowd.
CIP Mobile, just recently launched, allows users to build and manage an investment portfolio and track share fluctuations with built-in alerts and expert advisor assistance from Craigs Investment Partners. The app also includes market news, live currency updating, live market indices, and more powerful features to engage customers and create a great experience. In order to reach and interact with the broadest possible customer range, we decided to develop CIP Mobile for all platforms, so it works on iPhone, Android, Mac, PC, tablets, iPads, and anything with an internet browser.
What do clients generally want in a good app?
Most of the clients we work with are looking to utilise an app to streamline their business processes. Customer satisfaction through a great user experience in an app adds strong value proposition and strengthens the customer's relationship with the brand.
What sort of advice do you give your clients when at the beginning of wanting to create an app?
Qualify the need for an app. In other words, define an area or process, or several, within the business that you'd like to improve, for example, customer growth, customer experience, time savings or cost savings. Many of these areas may overlap, due to the connected nature of business processes, but the main thing is to identify any weak points and then work toward a solution.
What purposes are businesses using apps for? What can a good app do for a business's turnover?
Businesses use apps to improve workforce productivity through field automation, to reduce costs by streamlining business processes, to make better decisions through real-time business analytics, and to increase the bottom line by engaging end-customers.
Our dedication is to create success for our clients. In order to give them the very best service, we endeavor to create solutions which create timely and demonstrable value to their business so that apps pay for themselves in a shorter timeframe. Our thinking process, development mindset, and team culture are all aligned towards achieving ROI and success for our customers.
One good, well-thought out app has the potential to change the entire business dynamic.
Any tips for companies at the beginning of this journey?
An app is not a strategy. More than a collection of apps, strategy means leveraging mobility for new channels, new customers, new business models, and new use cases.
Resist the "cool factor." Rationalise demand for interesting features by understanding what value is to be gained. Great features don't necessarily guarantee business gains. Technology and business roadmaps must be aligned with each other.
Mobility is not an afterthought. Approach new business ideas and innovations with a mobile-first mentality. In desktop virtualisation the device is often an afterthought. In offering web access to enterprise apps, user interface is often an afterthought. Mobility tacked on as project planning, is an afterthought.
Innovate beyond consumer apps.What is possible is virtually only limited by your imagination. Look to business to business, business to employee solutions to drive success in other areas.
Mobile web may not be enough. While mobile web sites may be relatively easy to set up and support most devices, users with limited Internet access may have a poor experience. Furthermore, lacking access to core device functions, like graphics acceleration, background GPS and push notifications, inhibits the abilities and may fail to meet user expectations.
Next week: New Zealand has a vast number of one man/woman bands - people happiest working on their own, doing what they do best - piano tuners, software developers, electricians, plumbers, artists. They don't have staff to hand over to during the year so they tend to soldier on for the greater part of it without a break. Most of them at this time are counting down the days to the summer holiday when they get to relax for a change. Tell me your stories, how do you cope with up to a month of no invoices coming in?
