In this time and age, businesses need software and technology to help them not only to succeed but also be able to compete and get ahead of the competition. With this, it is essential for every business, even the small ones, to invest in software development to bring their business to new heights.
Both software and technology allows different products or services to be easily accessed and used by consumers using their smartphone or computer from almost anywhere. Brands can reach an incredible number of people whenever they launch new products and promotions. People are able to access their bank accounts through secure mobile banking.
People can now easily connect with their friends or loved ones, even if they are in different parts of the world. It accelerates the process of healthcare claims. It greatly improves every process in almost every area of society. In short, software and technology make people’s lives better in every aspect.
However, not all software or apps that are being developed by companies are considered essential. So the question is how they’ll be able to compete in the market? If you’re a software company and plan to offer a non-essential product, below are some essential tips on how to attract customer engagement and make them always come back to you even if your software product isn’t considered an essential.
Features and Functionality
Probably these two should be the first thing that software has to offer to the consumers. After all, the very purpose of software developments is to make things simpler. If what your product can do can also be done easily in some other way, people won’t waste their time using your app since it won’t make any difference.
However, even if your software or app isn’t essential but can effectively simplify complex tasks, able to unlock new possibilities, and more importantly, makes the user’s job a lot easier, then it is certain that your product can still win the market competition.
One way to entice the consumers is to create an app that is able to work offline and doesn’t need too much interaction on the internet. By enabling your app to work offline makes the user continue their work even if Internet access isn’t available. However, since offline-mode poses a risk to data security, make sure that your app can protect its users’ sensitive data and information.
Furthermore, making the consumers feel safe and comfortable when using your app allows them to customize some of your software settings the way they want it. For instance, allow them to personalize the color or select a theme, enable them to change fonts style and size, and, more importantly, let them customize the privacy settings.
User experience and User interface
Aside from having excellent features and functionalities, your app should also offer an excellent user interface. Besides, functionality alone doesn’t make a successful software.
The user interface is one of the determining factors for consumer acceptance. Also, if you are considering adding some cool things in your app to make it look good, make sure to be cautious when you do. If those things do not align with your consumers’ goals and needs, then those things might do more harm than good. Sometimes, it is way better to keep things simple. Minimalism is becoming a trend, so you might want to consider that too.
On the other hand, user experience should also be equally good as the user interface. These two should work comfortably together to get things done seamlessly. Providing a good user experience often depends on the code quality of the software.
As a software company, it is essential to have software test management tools like PractiTest to ensure the reliability of the app and its quality. Remember, providing both good UX and UI is one of the best ways to achieve customer satisfaction.
Usability
Usability is quite similar to user experience, and it is also an important aspect of your software that needs to be polished. Usability means your app should be able to work seamlessly across different devices as well as to different operating systems.
If you’re not careful about this matter, your app will more likely crash frequently, which makes it very inconvenient to the users. And again, software/apps that allow offline usage is more enticing over apps that don’t.
Compatibility
While software and technology continue to evolve over time, it doesn’t mean that you always have to use the latest updates. One of the keys that makes software successful is not always using the most trending technology but effectively identifying and using the one that is the most relevant. So, ensuring that your product compatibility across multiple combinations of mobile devices and even browsers levels up the user experience and satisfaction.
During the app testing phase, ensure that you are following agile and market-ready testing methodologies to produce high-quality software that runs in any device.
User acceptance
If a company, or a corporation, or an organization finds your product more useful and decides to use your app, make sure to provide the necessary support for straightforward user acceptance. The reason behind this is that most enterprise users may already have an existing system that is quite challenging to dismantle since they are already comfortable with it.
Your app must work seamlessly with the existing system and require little changes but offers huge benefits. If you can, provide training to familiarize users with the features and functionality your app offers.
Have a dedicated development team
Now that we have discussed the high importance of enhancing your software’s functionalities, UX, usability, and compatibility. We highly recommend having a dedicated development team on your side for each app to achieve those app qualities.
It would be best if you had a team equipped with technical knowledge and experience that are fully involved in the software development in a particular project where they will work from beginning to end. With this, they will have a better understanding of the objective of the project and the things that needed to be achieved.
This ensures that they will have full control of every stage in the development process and deliver what a client exactly needs.
Agile methodology
Another good reason you need a dedicated development team is to apply the agile methodology in the development process. Applying agile methods can help your development team to manage their work more efficiently and more effectively. It can even enable them to deliver high-quality applications within the constraints of the budget.
Also, instead of spending too much time building out the whole project, an agile method allows them to work on small portions, assess progress, and then continue down the path. This ensures that they are on the right track as the development progresses.
QA and testing
Like any other applications, they need to be of high-quality before being released in the market. While testing and quality assurance often overlap, these two processes are not exactly the same thing. Testing is focused on detecting possible defects and bugs in the app using software test management tools.
It aims to clear out bugs in the software’s source code. Quality assurance (QA), on the other hand, is a process of assessing the quality of the app and ensuring that it meets the client’s needs and expectations.
Both quality assurance and testing are crucial in every part of app development, which also has an impact on its success. It helps polish the user experience to improve customer satisfaction. It enables you to lessen if you can’t totally avoid negative customer feedback, and more importantly, keeps the customer happy.
Product quality
If you haven’t noticed yet, what we keep telling you right from the start is that you need to ensure the quality of your app to compete in the market, especially if your app isn’t essential. Offering a product that comes with major quality issues doesn’t build value, and worse, it would only frustrate customers.
Your application must be simple, quick, and reliable to fit in. This is why investing in agile methodologies, software test management tools, and quality assurance is essential in the software development process.
Quality is not a thing that you should add later on. It must be served right from the start of the development to improve outcomes, especially if the objective is to streamline the customer experience. Quality can help build customer trust and breed loyalty.
Marketing
Now that you have ensured the quality of your application in all possible aspects. You should also have a strong marketing and product promotion strategy. After all, how would people know that you have cool software or applications to offer if you don’t have a product awareness campaign?
Conclusion
The market competition for software and application is getting fiercer over time. However, by keeping and following these essential tips we have discussed above, your app might have a better chance of winning the competition even if it’s not essential.
