Insights: Here’s what consumers want from their apps today

We often take for granted just how much how we interact with brands has evolved in just the last three years. The pandemic of course was the major accelerator of the shift toward digital channels, and consumers who found themselves forced to navigate their daily lives in new and restrictive ways lauded brands that rose to the occasion and ramped up their digital services.

However, this adulation quickly turned into expectations. Today, it is second nature for consumers to use applications (apps) for everything from streaming and shopping to banking and booking taxis.

Consequently, that sense of gratitude has all but disappeared; replaced in many cases by one of frustration. Expectations for digital experience have skyrocketed, with people becoming increasingly fed up with apps and digital services that don’t perform as they should. Significantly, with consumers now feeling far more in control of their lives than during the pandemic, they feel empowered to act against brands whose apps let them down.

This is evidenced in the findings of Cisco’s latest report: App Attention Index 2023: Beware the Application Generation. The report, which studied 15,000 global consumers, including over 1,000 in the UAE, reveals that individuals are becoming far more sophisticated and discerning in their use of apps, and completely unforgiving when they encounter bad digital experiences. So here are three of the most significant behaviour shifts apps owners need to concern themselves with.

Consumers are actively addressing ‘apps clutter’

While the number of apps being added to stores is ever-increasing, people are now taking a much more considered approach to their use of apps than previously. Acting far more judiciously, they are thinking long and hard before they download and install new applications onto their devices.

Sixty-two per cent of consumers say they are looking to limit the number of apps they are using, and 68 per cent report they are keen to get rid of ‘app clutter’.

A reason behind this shift could be that people’s lives are now completely different from during the pandemic. Consequently, many of the digital services they once considered essential are simply no longer relevant. With consumers saying, on average, they could live without 40 per cent of the applications on their devices, they are becoming far more discerning about the applications they use.

People still want to enjoy the benefits applications bring them in terms of convenience, accessibility and enjoyment, but they don’t ever want to feel overwhelmed, or that they are wasting their time.

Consumers now want the ‘total app experience’

Today, it is not just the tech-savvy youth, but rather consumers across all age demographics who want to enjoy the very best digital experiences. Indeed, 66 per cent of consumers state they only want to use the very best applications and digital services on offer and expect an exceptional digital experience as standard.

Whereas two years ago, consumers were content with apps that provided the basic functionality they needed, today it’s all about the extra mile with qualities and features that stand out.

The ‘total app experience’ must still deliver reliability, security, simplicity, and speed. But consumers are now demanding more: they want apps to be intuitive, fun to use, personalised and meaningful. They want every moment when they’re using a digital service to enrich their lives.

Consumers will “punish” app owners who fail to impress

With so many choices out there, and with the expectations for digital experience higher than ever, people have lost any kind of tolerance for apps that don’t perform. Sixty-four per cent of consumers state they are less forgiving of poor digital services than they were 12 months ago, and many admit they are becoming increasingly frustrated and angry when they encounter bad digital experiences.

These consumers also have plenty of ways to channel their frustration – all of which can be disastrous for brands. They’re immediately deleting apps, switching to alternatives, and sharing their negative stories far and wide.

In the past year alone, consumers deleted an average of five apps because of bad digital experiences.

Unsurprisingly, this figure climbs above seven for consumers aged 18-34. Other people are even ditching digital services altogether and reverting to traditional channels to engage with companies, such as contact centers and physical locations such as stores and branches.

Worryingly for brands, 67 per cent of consumers claim they are now more likely to warn people off applications that don’t perform than they were 12 months ago.

App observability is key to addressing heightened expectations for digital experience

With so much at stake, brands can’t afford to deliver anything less than stellar experiences. For this, their IT teams need the right tools to always deliver seamless and secure digital experiences. However, the rise of cloud-native technologies means IT teams are trying to manage an ever more complex and dispersed app landscape.

Many lack full visibility into Kubernetes environments and struggle to achieve a clear line of sight for apps running across cloud-native and on-premises technologies. These challenges make it incredibly difficult to quickly identify, understand and resolve any issues with their applications.

App observability provides a solution to these challenges and is now a must-have for app owners. It delivers unified visibility across hybrid environments so that IT teams can detect issues and rapidly understand root causes.

Additionally, by correlating app availability, performance, and security data with key business metrics, application observability enables technologists to analyse issues based on potential impact on customers, in real-time. This allows them to prioritise those issues which could do the most damage to the end-user experience.

Apps are now an integral part of our daily lives, and with this increased digital dependency comes greater expectations. Any slip-up in app availability, performance, or security will inevitably result in customer churn, reputational damage and financial loss.

Brands urgently need to recognise that app users are back in control and, as a result, the bar for digital experience is rising to new heights.

The writer is the CTO advisor EMEA, Cisco Observability.