While organizations are judiciously
deploying their mobile application strategy, there are 10 major mistakes that
cause mobile customer service failure, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner
said organizations should develop a mobile application strategy that enables
them to capitalize on the unique opportunities presented by mobile technology.
There are four areas that need to be addressed when developing this strategy:
-- Demand. What do customers want, what does the business need, what
devices and habits do customers have, and what will the competition do?
-- Supply. Innovation is a major challenge, demanding that
organizations go beyond "me too" mobile applications. What staff and
skills will be needed to manage external partners, and how will they be
obtained? What services and partners should be used?
-- Control. Who owns and manages the strategy? How will the strategy be
managed? What measurements will be used to track it?
-- Risks/issues. What risks and
issues are raised by mobility? What could derail the strategy, what other
factors will impact it?
Gartner has identified 10 major
mistakes that lead to the failure of an organization's mobile customer service:
1. Violation of
the "three-click/tap/press" rule.
Applications must not use more than three key strokes to get to the required
functionality. Each additional keystroke typically adds complexity and often
stops the user from returning to the application.
2. Difficulty with
ergonomics, especially text input.
Just because your web content fits onto a laptop browser screen, this does not
mean it is suitable for a mobile device. Mobile content needs to be simplified
and repurposed for each user device.
3. Not reusing
learned behaviors — such as soft keys, navigation. Mobile applications need to pick up the user's habits on
the phone. For example, if "autocomplete" was switched off on the
phone settings then don’t use that option in your mobile application — because
the user clearly dislikes that functionality.
4. Violating
"security 101." As with laptop
and desktop applications, mobile applications need to comply with security
requirements. Authentication, encryption and secure login should all be part of
any mobile application architecture.
5. Difficulty with
navigation. Standard Web pages displayed on a
mobile device often have content disappearing to the right and off the bottom
of the screen. To navigate, users have to scroll left-right and up-down to try
and find basic functionality such as the "back" button. Ensure that
navigation buttons can be easily accessible at all times.
6. Burying most
important functions. Due to the limited screen real
estate, mobile application designers must ensure that the most important
functionality is right at the start of the navigation journey, as opposed to
layering functionality deep down in the application.
7. Incorrect or
illegible display of text or graphics.
Many mobile devices are still not smartphones and have limited graphics
processing capability. Pushing large graphical images and video text to the
mobile device could result in a very poor quality experience for the user.
8. Inability to
revise mistakes. Few things are as frustrating on a
mobile device as trying to get the cursor to the middle of a word or Web
address to correct a typing error. Always have two "back" buttons --
one that erases text and one that does not erase text but will allow the user
the opportunity to correct typed mistakes.
9. Content
visibility. Sunlight is one of the worst
enemies of mobile applications, because it often makes the text on the screen
illegible. Employ the best practice of "bolding" the most
important pieces of information on the screen.
10. Resource inefficiency -- draining the battery, excessive
network round trips. Mobile applications must have a
stop-start capability to allow the user to stop an activity or data entry and
then return to the same point without having to re-enter all the content. This
capability is needed when the device has to be switched off mid way through a
transaction -- for example, when flying or when the battery runs out.
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