How does a customer spell ‘satisfaction”? I-N-S-T-A-N-T.
And as it turns out, customer satisfaction and instant gratification go hand in hand. And Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are synonymous with instant services. For starters, PWAs ensure instant push notifications, instant shopping, instant updates and so on; not to mention, PWAs could be instantly developed using your existing website code.
The best news: They could be developed at cost-effective rates as opposed to mobile apps.
Not surprisingly, all big giants of the online world, be it Amazon, Alibaba, AirBnB, Uber, MakeMyTrip, Tinder, Trivago, Telegram, Twitter, Financial Times, Pinterest, Flipkart, the list goes on and on, have switched gears and adopted Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) for serving customers.
“I know your next question.”
So, should your company move toward developing PWAs?
The answer is Yes and No.
Yes, if your organization is keen on incorporating the above mentioned ‘instant’ features into your app, and apply your existing responsive web apps’ strategy to your upcoming PWAs.
Nope, if you are primarily focusing on the iOS operating system because iOS devices are not compatible with PWA’s at the moment.
By now, I believe, you have a roundabout view about what a PWA is and how it would benefit your business. Here’s a bit about Progressive Web Apps for the uninitiated.
Progressive Web App in a Nutshell
The look and feel of a PWA is no way different from a traditional app. That said, while a conventional app needs to be downloaded from a mobile app store; a PWA, on the other hand, needs to be accessed through a mobile browser, just like the way you do with a responsive website. And, more importantly, PWAs are indexed by search engines to show up in search results. The best part: It loads, functions, and responds like an app.
What’s more, PWAs cuts down the effort and time at the customer’s end when it comes to identifying and installing the best-suited app. Not surprisingly, they have become really popular among customers because of their superior development, deployment and user experience as opposed to its predecessors.
The Biggest Pluses of Progressive Web Apps
Customers are expecting unique and instant treatments from businesses these days. So a PWA could be the safest bet businesses could think about investing.
- Quick loading: The customers demand instant services these days. And PWA offers just that. The web app loads 15X quicker as opposed to native apps.
- Instant updates: The instant update feature will ensure that your app updates on its own. Meaning, you do not have to perform an upgrade, and because of that, your app won’t experience any downtime.
- Less Storage Space: As you know, a native app requires significant storage on a device. On the contrary, the web app needs 25X less storage capacity.
- Push Notifications send directly to your devices: Delivers news, product offers and more via push notifications instantly to your device.
This feature is considered to be a fantastic addition to PWAs and something that your regular responsive app won’t provide.
- High Engagement and Conversions: Engaging with the customer and then prompting them to convert, during sales inquiries especially, is the primary goal of PWA. It has been observed lately that PWA’s offer a jaw-dropping 52% increase in conversions.
- Cost-effective Development: As compared to native app counterparts, PWAs are less expensive to create given that code used is your existing website code.
- Quick Google Indexing: While promoting native apps is a different ball game together considering the money and effort that goes into it while promoting them in various marketplaces, for PWAs, you don’t have to think on all those lines. PWAs are considered equivalent to a website, and so such apps are quickly indexed. And, in fact, you could show different layers of content as different apps, particularly, for content-centric apps such as blogs, magazines, and more.
Accessibility via Browser: As per ComScore’s 2017 mobile report, 49% of users download just 1 or more apps per month, while 51% of users don’t install any apps. Though these stats shouldn’t concern the enterprise apps industry, the fact remains that users are not happy downloading apps due to constraints like bandwidth and space.
PWAs can help circumvent these issues because customers don’t need to download them. PWAs don’t live on any app store, so they don’t require any installation. They can quickly be published and can be opened in a browser.
- Universal Access and Shareability: As it turns out, app publication is a straightforward process. Simply put, it’s not bound by geographic restrictions or unreasonable practices imposed by the app stores. Likewise, PWAs could be shared in the same way as you share a website.
- Mobile Data Savings and Offline Accessibility: The current web standards make it easy to build PWAs that enable you to store data on your local device. This helps to use certain features of the app without an internet connection. For instance, you could edit a document in a PWA without using the internet.
Offline-first applications are crucial in markets with slow internet access. The unstable network connection could make apps drain your phone’s battery.
Experiences of Early Adopters of Progressive Web Apps
Pinterest: This trending social media app had a meager conversion rate of just 1% on websites. But with the inclusion of progressive web apps, the customer engagement rate has accelerated by 60%, ad revenue by 44% and, most importantly, the time spent by the users within the app has also gone up by 40%.
MakeMyTrip: Asking people to download your app for just a single purchase could annoy the users. MakeMyTrip.com used to ask its users to download the native app to enter bookings and more. But last year, it adopted PWA, and now it’s witnessing three times more bookings.
Tinder: Tinder, the dating app, was able to cut down their overall page load time from 11.91 seconds to 4.69 sec* thanks to PWAs.
Conclusion:
PWAs enable web developers to experiment in new development technologies and allow businesses to offer the top class digital experience to customers and, in turn, gaining an extra edge over the competitors. Sure, there are lots of gaps that need to be plugged in terms of progressive web apps, but the fact is, PWAs will be replacing native apps, in no time. Put another way, it’s going to revolutionize the business world.
This is the guest article contributed by Team Goodfirms.
