5 Ways to Lower Barriers to Entry for App Users
This article is part 2 in a series of 5 on how Gamification can improve your app.
You might have gotten a ton of people to install your app. Congratulations! What’s next?
Even an app with 10 million downloads will struggle to stay profitable if users drop off. Use these tips, learned from our staff’s experience working with game companies, to create a smooth and easy onboarding process for app users.
Avoid “Too Many Clicks”
If you’ve got a mobile app, keep your download as small as possible. If your onboarding process is too long, people will just stop and get out of it. If the loading times to run a query take too long, they’ll just stop. They don’t have the time.
Optimize for Mobile
Many people use the internet primarily through their mobile phone or tablet, so it’s essential to make your site mobile friendly. The number of mobile-only users in the US grows each year, up to 52.3 million in 2021. Don’t prevent people from paying you because they solely use an iPad!
Eliminate Early Bugs
All software will have bugs, but we don’t want them to ever get in the way of beginning use of an app. Don’t let a text or email confirmation take one hour to send out. You’ll lose that customer. Avoid “dying by a thousand cuts”. Often, it’s not one big bug that gets in the way, but the small ones that stop it from being worth it.
Get Out of Your Own Way
Every second you add to the on-boarding experience reduces the user’s ability to get to the “a ha” moment of using your app or site. Eliminate little barriers so users can start using your product. For example, wait until the user has been in your app for a while before popping up a customer service chatbox. You’re not that important to your user. It’s very easy for them to close out and find something else.
One common pet peeve is an app that immediately asks for a rating after downloading. You can’t judge an app you haven’t used yet. You’ll only end up with ratings from someone who hates your user interface or company. Work with your marketing team to understand when to bring the review/rating up- every 7 days, or every 3 weeks makes more sense. The best time to ask for a rating is after they had a good experience with your app- not within 2 or 3 uses. Build passion in order to get the good reviews.
Don’t get in the way of the customer experiencing what you’re trying to do.
Minimize Early Questions
During your onboarding experience, only ask for absolutely critical information. While your marketing team might want to gather a lot of information to identify cohorts of users quickly, wait. Every question reduces the “stickiness of your application.” You generally only need 2 or 3 questions to get a start. Once users are actually engaged in the app, they’re more willing to give you information.