ServiceFriday: Four Factors that Make Customers use Your Mobile App Regularly

Since mobile technologies and apps have become a core element in people’s daily lives, branded apps have become an essential marketing communication channel to attract new customers and to enhance customers’ brand loyalty. Apart from acquiring users to download the app, it is even more valuable to persuade your customers to use the app continuously.

So, how can you successfully gain customers’ continued use?

In the service industry, there are four main factors, that directly or indirectly contribute to getting customers use the app continuously. These factors are, argument quality, source credibility, usefulness and parasocial interaction (PSI). While argument quality describes if the app content is informative, helpful and valuable to the customers, source credibility comprises trustworthiness of the app. Usefulness depicts whether the app really meets customers’ needs, and PSI refers to media-enabled connections between users and media personalities, which enhance the relationship between the customers and brand. The paper, by Seonjeong Lee in the Journal of Service Marketing, shows that argument quality and source credibility enhance usefulness and PSI, and usefulness and PSI have a direct positive effect on a continued use intention of the customers. Also, PSI affects the usefulness positively. This means, in order to gain competitive advantage, you need to understand how and why customers engage and then improve argument quality by contributing high-quality content with accurate information, e.g. convey updated and relevant information. In addition, you should enhance source credibility since this is another factor having a significant impact on usefulness and PSI. As a way of source credibility, you should incorporate trustworthy perceptions and integrity. If applicable, you could use live videos and photos to ensure believability. Moreover, PSI can be improved when integrating the app with communication channels such as social media. This way customers are more likely to use the mobile app in their daily lives.

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