The speed at which the mobile market evolves is staggering. We have seen disruptive technologies such as the tablet really change the way we interact and go about our daily lives in recent years, both as consumers and within business. And newer devices including smartwatches are poised to have a similar impact. The market moves so fast that mobile trends we were talking about three to six months ago as ‘something for the future’ are now a reality for some mainstream businesses. Just as we started to look at mobile first, where businesses need to align their services and strategies to cater for mobile before desktop or other traditional channels, the notion of mobile only is now slowly creeping into the fore. But who are these mobile only consumers? Are they real? Are we really heading for a mobile only world?
Consider this report which says that a third (33%) of Barclays’ digital banking customers is mobile only. To be more specific, they are app only. Your own experience with customers may suggest a very different percentage. However, there is no denying that there is a segment of digital consumers for banks (and many other B2C organisations) that will only browse and buy products and services on their mobile devices. I have spoken to many businesses already about this, who are preparing to serve the mobile only troupe, so the wheels are definitely in motion.
Knowing mobile, it will hit you fast. The question is, are you ready for it? From my experience, many businesses are still lagging behind. For example, I recently tried to set up an account for a major utility provider via the iPad and found that their registration process was not optimised for an iPad/Safari browser combination. Instead it was much easier to register and set up on a desktop browser and transact on the mobile phone, but this simply will not fly with the mobile only group.
With the PC market in decline, there will soon be households that have tablets and smartphones, but no PCs and I think this is even a reality in many places already. A simple test every business should conduct is to explore how easy or difficult it is for consumers to sign up and conduct all of their transactions via mobile devices. You will probably be surprised by the result.
I have come across a number of businesses in the past year, who believe that the mobile app or the mobile optimised website is not significant for them, because their customers are not using it. In many cases customers are not using those channels because they are under developed and provide average to poor customer experience. To avoid this misconception, businesses need to do all they can to put themselves in their customers’ shoes and judge whether they would be happy with the service and functionality of mobile applications themselves. The testing and development stages are critical times to do this, but you should be checking on a regular basis to spot any glitches before the customer does!
Another simple check is the micro-transaction. Consumers tend to break up longer and more complex tasks into much smaller, micro-transactions on mobile devices, as this fits not only the screen size but also the typical use case scenario. So rather than spend an hour on Saturday on your bank website, sorting payments and bills, customers may be doing this in five and ten minute chunks at a bus stop or in between other jobs.
Once you understand the mobile experience you are offering, how do you identify your mobile only customers? One of the simplest ways is to use analytics to map consumers device profiles, and behaviour patterns. Combined with monitoring social media channels, it would not be too complex to create a profile of the mobile only consumer.
The mobile only customer is a reality today and their tribe, though small, will undoubtedly grow. By identifying and supporting them now, businesses will be able to enhance their mobile operations and customer services to run better, while taking the innovative lead to stay one step ahead of the competition to run differently.
Ved Sen is the Global Head, Advisory Services, Social, Mobile & Sensors, at Cognizant.
