Do I need an app for my business?

What an app is, and what it costs you in effort

An app is a program a customer downloads from an app store and keeps on their phone. It can send alerts and work with the phone's camera and location. It also has to be built, kept up to date, and approved by the stores, and every customer has to be persuaded to install it.

A website needs none of that. Anyone with a phone can open it from a Google search or a link in a text.

Ask yourself these questions

A bakery, a joiner or a physio is not usually opened every week. A coffee shop with a loyalty card might be. A business with a crew that needs a schedule on their phones might be, but that is a staff tool more than a customer app.

• Will customers use it often, such as weekly? Or once a year?
• Is there something they need to do that a website cannot?
• Would they really download it, or would they just search for you again?
• Is it for your customers, or for your staff and your own work?

The middle road

A website can be saved to a customer's home screen so it sits beside the other icons, like an app. This kind of site is sometimes called a progressive web app. It is described in Google's learning material as a website-style app that can be installed on a device from the web, built once to work for anyone, on any device. For most small businesses, a well made website that opens fast on a phone gets you nearly all of this.

Start there. If the website is clear and works well, you will learn quickly whether customers are asking for more.

When an app is worth building

• Customers come back often and would use a loyalty or ordering feature
• You need alerts, such as a notice when an order is ready
• Your team needs a tool for jobs, stock or a schedule, which may only run on their own phones
• You have a clear job it does better than a website, and you have the time to look after it

Tools for your own team

The best use of custom-built tools for a small business is often not a customer app at all. It is a simple tool that replaces the spreadsheet and the group chats: a crew board, a booking diary, a checklist that used to be on paper. You can see made-up examples of these in our work.

We build apps and tools when there is a clear job for them. We will also tell you plainly if a website will do. Start with your website, or get in touch.