Should you invest in native mobile apps, bots or web apps? This presentation gives examples from different business areas and discusses the reasons to choose between native apps and web apps. Also it covers few latest examples of Facebook Messenger bots.

1. Perttu Tolvanen, North Patrol / J. Boye 2016 Aarhus /
@perttutolvanen
Deciding your digital touch points
Native apps, bots or just a responsive website?
This is a summarised version of the original presentation version. Several case stories and other examples have been excluded
from this version. However, plenty of additional text boxes and explanations have been added to this version.

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North Patrol
– your advisor in complex web renewal projects

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This already happened.

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It is not a question of whether to build mobile services, it is about HOW to build them – what kind
of apps, what kind of websites, what channels to use? How to reach customers? How to offer a
good user experience?

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This presentation explores different cases where organizations have
decided to either build apps or, instead, focused on building great
websites without apps – and what the practical and business reasons
for their choices have been.

6. A few things to note
1. We’ve seen a big rush to apps during the
last few years – yet app development
hasn’t become easier or cheaper.
2. We haven’t solved the discoverability
problem either. Apps are hard to find,
hard to install, and they keep their stuff
in siloes.
3. Yet there are plenty of things that can
only be done with apps – such as
notifications, access to camera,
continuous access to location, offline
usage.
4. The biggest change is the user
experience gap between apps and
websites. Nowadays websites can be
built to work almost as smoothly as
native apps.
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Especially connecting to
and controlling different
devices (e.g. at home) is
something that will
require native apps now
and in the future.

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Apps are often the only
way to reach new
devices, especially in
Apple’s ecosystem. There
are no signs that this
would be changing.

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What are strong reasons
for creating native mobile
apps?

10. Example: banking apps
• Strong contractual customer relationship and plenty of self-service tasks. Banks can be seen as
being almost “tool providers” for your “money management”.
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11. Example: doctor/healthcare apps
Healthcare often has
strong contractual
relationship, especially
occupational healthcare.

12. Examples:
Personal chat with a
nurse, €15 per 20
minutes.
Video discussion with
a doctor.
Example: doctor/healthcare apps Healthcare can have good
business case for providing video
appointments and other
demanding interaction sessions
which can only be done with
native apps.

13. Example: telecom operator’s app for
customers
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Telecom companies also have strong contractual relationship and they often
want to use that relationship to expand into new business areas.

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Native app remembers
your credentials.
Strongest advantage of native
apps for businesses is the better
capability to remember login
details.

15. Example: airline apps (=ticket apps)
One of the biggest areas of native apps
has always been travel. Their business
case is typically built around easier
access to ticket details (and bar code)
and the possibility to offer upgrades
and other additional items (directly to
customers!, not through brokers).

16. Example: Helsinki public transportation
ticket app
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Example: Helsinki public transportation
ticket app

18. Example: taxi and other travel apps
Customer expectations should also
not be underestimated. Uber set
the standard for taxi ordering and
Uber did it by using apps. Nowadays
most people expect taxi ordering to
happen with an app (Uber or not).

19. Example: taxi and other travel apps
For example, Finland’s most most
popular taxi ordering app
(”Valopilkku”) would not really
require to be an app – there is no
contractual relationship, nothing
that would _require_ to have an
app. Still, it probably makes sense
to have the app, because Uber set
the standard for this category.

20. Example: car rental apps
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Sometimes apps are also
done because of competition.
If the leading player builds a
rich app, others might follow,
even though having an app
might not be technically
required.
Having a good app, and being
the first one, can also be a
competitive advantage,
especially against new
competition since big players
can ”teach” their customers
to use their app directly
(instead of going to price
comparison websites).

21. Example: car rental apps
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Car rental apps are a good
example of a category which has
been ”on the edge” for a long
time. Apps can make sense for
most loyal customers who have
contractual relationship (and
special prices) and want the best
possible service. For other
customer groups, the app is
probably just a distraction.

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User experience can be
better.
Especially complex ordering and
delivery processes (e.g. food
delivery, car rental) can benefit
from having an app, because apps
remember ”the state” of the
process better than websites and
apps can provide notifications.

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Apps have already
replaced traditional self-
service channels, a.k.a.
extranet services, for
many consumer brands.

24. Example: B2B app forreportingemployment pension(andrelated
documents)
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In general, B2B is not building
plenty of apps, and probably
shouldn’t. But there are special
cases where it makes sense to
build apps that provide
additional service on top of a
full-featured extranet service,
e.g. for scanning documents
and making quick changes
when on the road.

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Access to a phone’s
capabilities:
- notifications,
- camera,
- offline saving,
- continuos access to GPS,
- ability to connect to other devices
Some of these can be
(technically) done with
web apps already, e.g.
access to camera and
offline saving of content,
but they often require
special tricks and can be
very hard to implement so
that they work reliably in
every device (Android,
iOS, and others). If these
are critical factors, it still
typically pays to go with
native apps.

26. Summary: Reasons for creating native apps
1. Strong contractual relationship
with customers, e.g. banking,
loyalty program.
2. Your customers frequently do
business or interact with you – and
they want to start where they left
off previously.
3. Your app requires access to
hardware features like camera,
offline saving or notifications.
4. The user experience benefits greatly
from a native app that remembers
the state and sends notifications (e.g.
ticket apps).
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27. Summary: Reasons for creating native apps
1. Strong contractual relationship
with customers, e.g. banking,
loyalty program.
2. Your customers frequently do
business or interact with you – and
they want to start where they left
off at previous time.
3. Your app requires an access to
hardware features like camera,
offline saving or notifications.
4. The user experience benefits greatly
from a native app that remembers
the state and sends notifications (e.g.
ticket apps).
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This reason is greatly
challenged by web
apps and messaging
bots.

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Examples where you don’t
need a native app.
… in this presentation hybrid apps are not discussed at all,
because no one should be building them. Real-life
experience has shown that too often hybrid apps offer
’the worst of both worlds’, so the true choice should be
done between native apps and web apps. (Especially
because building native apps has become slightly easier in
recent years, e.g. because of React Native and Xamarin.)

29. Example: Helsinki Journey Planner app
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https://beta.reittiopas.fi

30. Example: Helsinki Journey Planner app
https://beta.reittiopas.fi
You can even set your own preferences,
e.g. how fast walker you are. Additionally,
you can set your favorite locations, your
favorite stops, your favorite
transportations categories – and the web
app remembers those even though there
is no login or anything.
Marketing challenge: Web apps
can be harder to advertise and
promote since ”Download from
App store” sounds better than
”Go to this URL address and make
a bookmark to your home
screen”. 

31. Example:
complex travel
ticket ordering
processes
(Tallink)
E-commerce is actually a good
”counter-example” to the case of taxi
apps. In e-commerce, customers are
expecting the check-out to happen in
browser. Only the biggest players are
building apps (Zalando, Amazon) and
even they say that apps are not hugely
succesful way of getting sales.
Especially complex ordering processes
are good cases for web apps since
typically ordering processes happen
inside one session.

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Web apps / websites can
offer a rich user
experience if your typical
user session happens
inside a short time frame
(e.g. e-commerce checkout, shopping
assistants).

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The world beyond apps?

34. WeChat is a similar messaging service to Facebook Messenger, but there
are also brands and apps inside the service, and you can use them to
book doctor’s appointments, order taxis, pay e-commerce orders and
plenty of other things.

35. One of the key concepts of WeChat is that you can make simple
transactions inside WeChat, but brands can also offer the
possibility to download a special app for more complex
transactions. So in China, WeChat is not trying to replace apps, it
is just offering an easy way to try out the services and work as
the notifications channel.

36. Case KLM and Facebook Messenger
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• When buying tickets at KLM.com you can authorize KLM as your Facebook Messenger contact.
• Check out the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLASey3MAE

37. Case KLM and Facebook Messenger
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• When buying tickets at KLM.com you can authorize KLM as your Facebook Messenger contact.
• Check out the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLASey3MAE
For KLM, the Facebook
Messenger bot replaces the
need for a native app
completely. The Messenger
provides offline saving,
gives an effective
notifications channel and
even a channel to do
upgrades (seats, business
class) and provide customer
service.

38. Case New York Times and US election (and Facebook
Messenger)
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New York Times is running a very interesting experiment, where
they report about US elections using a Facebook Messenger bot.
Most likely travel industry and media companies will be the first
wave of companies that start building Messenger bots to
provide notifications and simple functionality to customers.

39. Final advice
• When choosing your touch points, consider user experience requirements and your
business requirements.
Messaging bots for transactions that
have several steps, but not a strong
contractual relationship (e.g. travel).
Web apps and responsive websites for
applications and services where
transactions are mostly made without
logging in and during one session. (e.g.
e-commerce, assistant apps).
Native apps for transactional services
that require logging in and are used
frequently. Also if access to phone
features is critical.

40. Contact:
Perttu Tolvanen
Web & CMS Expert, Partner
@perttutolvanen / www.perttutolvanen.com
050 368 5199
perttu.tolvanen@northpatrol.com
North Patrol Oy
www.northpatrol.com
North Patrol Oy
Mannerheimintie 18A
00100 Helsinki
Finland
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41. North Patrol is your expert in selecting the best vendors
and technologies for your next web, intranet, extranet,
or online store project.
Our main focus is on the critical stages of project
planning, defining requirements and selecting the best
partners. Additionally, we support the implementation
and assess the results.
www.northpatrol.com
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Advisor in
buying web projects

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Buyer’s Guide to
Web Projects
Our blog covers the CMS market in Northern Europe
and offers advice in planning and buying renewal
projects.
www.northpatrol.com/blog
PS. Im also writing about bots, mobile apps and
web apps in my Medium Journal:
https://medium.com/stories-behind-the-screens