The Untold Story Behind Viral Addictive Apps

The Untold Story Behind Viral Apps

Development of an Addictive App that gets its first thousand users straight under 24 hours of its app store launch, is believed to be a privilege that is only bestowed upon the brands that have already established themselves in the crowded market, like Rovio or King.

However, the belief is far away from the truth. Every brand that knows the formula for creating an app that gets hooked in users’ minds, can become the next Rovio or King or much bigger.

But, is there a secret formula behind giving the users exactly what they need? An app that they would not just become a regular user of but would also make their friends and family follow with same dedication?

Here is the secret, backed by human psychology, to developing addictive apps

In his book Habit-Forming Products, Nir Eyal attributes app virality to the elements of a circle, which he calls a hook model.

The model helps understand the human psychology that works at making an app viral in the market.

Let us Look at the Model that Paves the Roadmap to Develop Addictive Apps:

Hook Model: The Secret to Creating Addictive Apps

The Hook Model - Simply Explained by Nir Eyal

The model portrays that there are four elements – Trigger, Reward, Action, and Investment which run in a circle and together lead to the conversion of an app or a product into a habit. Thus, making an app the most viral app in the app store.

These are the four elements explained in detail –

Trigger: For an app to become an addictive app, it should be able to hook the user using triggers. The triggers, which are divided into –

External Trigger: These simulations are based entirely on the outside information. Those triggers could be an ad image, notification,  a review or rating, recommendation, emails, or CTA buttons etc. These are how the user reaches an app or gets triggered to use any of the app’s functionality.

8 Types of Push Notifications with Great Examples

Internal Trigger: These are mainly the reasons behind the development of the app, i.e. they define the real intention behind the creation of the addictive app. For example: The apps could have been the response to users’ boredom (Social Media/Games/Music or Video Streaming), need to productivity (Slack), or for making a difference by introducing a unique concept (Sea Hero Quest).

Both the external and internal triggers affect each other. For example: One external trigger, like suppose an image of some beautiful top shown on a Facebook or TV advertisement creates an internal trigger, which then forces the users to order the top. Here, an advertisement, our external trigger, is directly responding to purchase, our internal trigger.

Action: Once your users get the push, the time comes to take a planned action. Now, the action entirely depends on the users’ ability and motivation. When the user’s desire to take action comes in sync with their capability to do so, it brings you one step closer to the realization that you have developed an addictive app. Just take a simple, real-time scenario.

The Untold Story Behind Viral Apps

Here are two real-life scenarios to help you understand the Action element of the model better –

  • Suppose you are feeling bored and are logged in some social app. Now the net connection suddenly becomes low and the app is not able to show the content. Here, even though the motivation for using the app is pretty high but the ability to stick with the app is very low.
  • Next, imagine you open an app that is offering news. You are able to read the articles and are even able to share the one you like with your friends. By a single tap on Facebook Share button, you are done with the sharing. Here, both the motivation and the ability to finish an action were present.

To develop addictive apps that mix motivation with ability, ensure that your app has bare minimum hooks to help keep all the users invested.

So what you can do to ensure that you hit upon motivation and ability at the same time? You do this by offering features even when the internet is low. Plan your app in a way that the users are able to work around the app even when the speed and network conditions are not in their favour. Allow them to continue what they were doing when the network reestablishes.

Reward: For doing even the simplest of the action inside the app, the user must be rewarded. The reward can be anything – appreciation, a form of acceptance, or special attention, all in return for an action, which they perform within the app.

The Untold Story Behind Viral Apps

Here is an example to explain the point:

Suppose you are enjoying your time in a puzzle game app and after reaching the 50th level, you get a notification saying that you are top 5th player of that round and then soon you start seeing praises flowing in from all directions in your notification feed and you get 5 extra lives to use in the game.

The puzzle game here is offering you appreciation in form of the extra lives and attention in form of all the messages you are getting from the other users.

You can offer a reward through your app in any form. For example:

  • A cashback
  • Name listed as the top player among other names
  • Free access to content

Investment: as soon as the user gets hooked on the app, they start investing. The amount of investment user has is directly proportional to their reaction towards the hook. The blend of triggers, ability, and motivation together create Hook, which is what keeps your user invested in your app. Hooks are the features that keep your users coming back to your app. They can be anything – Name Mention Tweets, comments/likes/share on Facebook, live stories on Instagram, or picture filter on Snapchat.

Good hooks work, irrespective of with what intent the users are involved in the app with.

So now that we know how the users’ psychology works and what elements your app must have, to make the users get hooked with it, let us now move on to looking into some other time tested ways that are known to have set the standards for the top mobile app development companies.

1. Develop Something That Users Would Get Inclined to Share

Guide to creating user personas - Justinmind

The number one way of getting the users hooked to an app is through giving them an app that they would love to share. Now, the kind of apps that users tend to share have either of these three and at times a mix of these features –

  • Apps Offer Some Value
  • Apps Evoke Emotions
  • Apps Offer Something Interesting

The route to offering all these features starts with a valuable app idea, the one that users would get some benefits off.

2. Select your Target Audience Right

How to create the right target audience for your Facebook ad | by Manjunath Bangera | Medium

The mobile app time belongs to the millennials. A generation that is impatient, loves everything that has a buzz and craves being updated with everything that is happening around the lives of people they admire or are even remotely acquainted with.

Snapchat, one of the most popular social platform, got their first 10,000 users through word of mouth of high school students and as the history of Facebook goes, the app was first launched to enable students to rate their classmates and schoolmates.

So, to successfully develop an addictive app, find a way to include millennials in it, one way or the other.

3. Have Sharing Buttons Visibly Present in the Right Places

The no brainer but sometimes gravely ignored secret of creating an addictive app is having sharing button placed at steps which the users would want to share.

How many times have you visited a mCommerce site, liked a product but have not been able to share it with your friends in a single click because the social APIs are missing? I am sure it’s a common occurrence. As users, we always end up copy pasting the product page link to another window.

If you want yours to be an addictive app, it is time to enable single click sharing to social platforms in your app.

4. Get a hold of your app analytics

The Ultimate Guide To Mobile App Analytics | Instabug Blog

You can only keep the users hooked to your app when you know why they are leaving in the first place. The right set of tools when integrated into your mobile app, will give you the numbers and highlight the problem areas.

Every information related to – the stage where your users left, the season in which your app saw maximum uninstalls or bounce rate, and even the acceptability of your app sharing reward can be measured and acted upon in time using the analytics.

While there are a number of other ways you can make users get addicted to your app, our secret as the top social media app development company for addictive apps, has been the inclusion of features that – make an app useful, make it different from what the users have worked around, and offer something that the users need in return of them sharing the app with their friends.

Although the framework, language, and tools that go into the development of an addictive app in no way different than what goes into creation of apps that get uninstalled after two runs, what brings in the difference is the development process that is followed and above all the app idea.

If you have an app idea that you know people will fall in love with, contact our team of developers who have developed apps that have hit the million download mark, today.

Ways you can guarantee Your Enterprise App Chances of Failure

Why Your Company Needs an Enterprise App Store | PCMag

*Disclaimer*: The Blog Is Meant to Wake you Before You Make Grand Enterprise Application Mistakes. We don’t want you to fail.

While it takes a lot of effort to build an app into success, it’s fairly easy to plan its failure well in advance. The chances of pushing your app towards making it a failure is not difficult. All you have to do is miss out on things that the employees need or you can simply keep users out of the enterprise app development process.

If that was not enough, here are the five ways you can guarantee your enterprise app failure

1. Wrong Problem Identification

innovate.d - A key reason for failure: Solving the wrong problem

In your typical corporate setup, there can be over 500 different functions, when the primary ones are broken down to different processes. Identifying which ones of those functions would benefit and become more efficient when mobility is introduced to them, is a crucial decision to make.

There can be many work process issues which might seem crucial and long term right now, such as managing mass recruitment processes, but they might be seasonal in nature. So, wrong identification of which problem actually needs to be solved or which process needs to be changed is your shortcut to enterprise app failure.

2. Poor App UX

5 Reasons Why a Bad UX Can be dangerous for your App

If it’s getting too difficult to navigate within the app, if the app is filled with functionalities that are not important for moving a task from point A to Point D, or if your enterprise app asks users to sign in with different credentials to view a report, or by simply not allowing them to leave your app to perform even the basic of their device’s functions, they won’t stay for long.

The second employees realize that they were better off before there was even an app to “ease” their processes, your enterprise app is doomed.

3. No Access to App Analytics

Google Analytics - Wikipedia

You develop an enterprise app that was meant to streamline the teams, make them more efficient, and enable better tracking and you see it working right in your favour. You see evident changes in team’s performance. But when the management asks you to show numbers, you are lost.

While you see the positive changes, there is no way to translate them into numbers. This happened because you missed out on adding app analytics in your enterprise app development process.

By missing out on adding features that would showcase how employees are working inside the app and what are their pain points, you close down all scope of further improvement.

4. Lack of Marketing

Half of small business owners lack a marketing strategy for 2019 - Agility PR Solutions

While the top management knows that you are creating an enterprise app that will be floated down to the concerned team once done, but the team doesn’t have an idea. They have not been given any heads up on how their working process is going to change, how it is going to save their time and make them more efficient.

What do you expect the first reaction would be when one day suddenly, the team is asked to move their reports on ABC Enterprise App?

I know I would have not taken it easy nor I would have invested my time in knowing the app’s functionality and plus points.

If you are not following the golden rule of greater the marketing efforts greater the acceptance rate, your enterprise mobile application development process is going to fail, massively.

5. Not involving the Team Seeking Change

Collaborative leadership: moving from top-down to team-centric | Slack

Imagine you are developing an app for streamlining the offshore and in house sales team. So you meet up with the management team who give you a basic idea of the issues that are there and just at the back of that discussion you start developing the app.

You don’t bother to sit with the offshore and the company’s in house team to understand exactly what issues they are facing, if it’s on site network issue or lack of a platform where the reports are present.

If that was not enough, you don’t involve the team when deciding the app’s functionalities as well. You straight away go to the deployment stage even without passing the app across the team for review and feedback.

So here are the ways you would be preparing your enterprise mobile app for not just your failure but also for the failure of company’s efficiency.

To prevent yourself from making these app failures, contact our team of enterprise app developers today.

Elements That Are Making Your Food Technical: AI, AR, and VR

5 Technology Trends That Will Shape 2017 and Beyond — AI, AR/VR, Analytics, Cloud and Data Science | by Hari Gottipati | Medium

The Ways Artificial Intelligence and Augmented, Virtual Reality Are Impacting the Food and Beverage Industry are too many and too omnipresent to ignore. From inside the kitchen/ store to the food production chain, the three technologies have found their place right at the center of the industry.

While in one restaurant, diners are analysing their calorie count that has come attached with their order using Augmented Reality, on the other side Food brands are using AI based chatbots to send out messages to users according to their eating behaviour.

Although, it’ll be difficult to find case studies on the exact implication of the three disruptive technologies in the industry, but here are the use cases of Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality that have started surfacing over time.

In this article, we will talk about how the industry is transforming with the advent of the technologies.

Let us first look at the implications of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in the modern F&B industry

IoT use cases for food and beverage industry | IoT in Retail Industry

1. Educate Diners of Nutritional Components

With the help of Augmented Reality, restaurants can give their diners a detailed information of the ingredients and their corresponding nutritional value, which is present in the dish that they have ordered.

Using Virtual Reality, restaurants can also create a virtual chef and introduce him to the diners as they look at how their food is prepared in action.

2. Adding Gamification Elements to the Waiting Time

The long waiting time once the food order has been placed, is one of the biggest turn off points for a diner. In fact, it is also the number one reason behind diners not coming to the restaurant twice. To solve the non returning customer issue, restaurants have started introducing the power of virtual reality in their everyday process.

As customers wait for their order, they can join the kitchen and become a sous chef, or they can take a deep dive in the oceans with seals and dolphins in the ocean themed restaurant, all through the advancement of virtual reality.

Also, while the customers wait, Augmented Reality game where they have to look for hidden spoons on the table or count the cherries in the dish can be introduced.

3. Making Chefs, Bartenders, and Waiters More Skilled

With the help of Virtual Reality, Food and Beverage industry would be able to elevate the learning process. The technology can be used to impart skills related to anything – making impressions on cappuccino, carrying four plates at a time to diner’s table, and the art of mixing showman’s skills into bartending.

Real life simulation of tasks using Virtual Reality would lower both learning time and on the job mistakes.

While Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are more focussed on the experience part of the diners, Artificial Intelligence looks into the Food and Beverage system from the business or backend front.

Here are the ways Artificial Intelligence domain betters the Food industry –

AI in Food Manufacturing - FutureBridge

1. Slash Food and Drink Production Cost

An AI system, which closely monitors the level of dirt on cooking equipment to make sure that they are clean, holds the power to save over £100m in UK food industry.

The AI system, which is being built by the Derbyshire-based Martec of Whitwell uses optical fluorescence imaging and ultrasonic sensing to measure the exact dirt levels present in the equipment. The AI system is expected to save over 20 – 50% of the cleaning time and energy that the food industry puts behind this part of the production chain.

2. Assortment Management

By studying the buying behaviour of local purchasers, Artificial Intelligence will help in better management of Food Shelves in the supermarket. By giving the owners detailed information on which product is most in-demand, in what quantity, and in what season, the businesses would be able to concentrate on specific items, while cutting down on filling of shelf space with those that are not in demand.

3. Planned Menu

By analysing the diners’ order request is not just your restaurant but also in those that they otherwise frequent, Artificial Intelligence will help you plan your menu according to diners food preferences. It would also give you an idea of their taste preferences, whether they like their food spicy or have a sweet tooth.

When broken down to a more atomic level, AI would also get you insights on diners’ food preference when there is a football match on or when they are nearing end of month with their salary level now standing at single or early double digits.

4. Lesser Food Wastage

The current Food and Beverage Industry is marked by a series of strict rules and policies related to food quality that is expected to be maintained in restaurants and fast food chain. The rules around quality of tomatoes that can go as slice in burger might lead to a lot of wastage in case they don’t meet the criteria.

With Artificial Intelligence, the actual expectation bar would be raised. The technology would give information on exactly what the users expect and the room they can work around when it comes to tomato slices size and french fries length.

5. Development of new Food Items

By reading the users’ reviews on what taste they are developing, what combination they would like to be introduced, and what they need as a blend of their health and taste preference, the world will start looking into more and more food items getting developed at the back of AI insights.

IntelligentX is one such brand that has developed a series of premium beers according to the users’ feedback collected with the help of AI, and so long the brand is seeing a huge success.

While these are just some of the ways Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence hold the power to alter and revolutionize the Food and Beverage industry, the time to come will look into more application of the technologies.

Technology Trends to Watch in 2021 and Beyond

Top 10 Technology Trends in 2019 | HP® Tech Takes

There are some technology trends that fizz out over time and then there are the latest technology trends that stay on the sidelines and then gain traction after it either gets major funding or an industry suddenly integrates it in their process.

There are many such technologies that have already made their prominent mark in the previous years and are only a few more advances away from becoming mainstream. These technologies are the ones that we have listed as the latest and upcoming and latest technologies that would be setting a global trend in the coming years.

Without further ado, here are the ten technology trends for the future years –

1. Artificial Intelligence

Technology Trends

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is constantly making its place in the list of top tech trends since quite some years. It has found a place in the future technology trends 2021 technology predictions as well.

AI is already known for its superiority in image and speech recognition, voice assistants, navigation apps, automation, and whatnot.

In the artificial intelligence trends 2021, we hope to see tremendous demand and rapid development of AI and modern industrial automation technology. As manufacturing and supply chains are getting back to full activity, labor shortage will turn into a serious issue. Automation with the assistance of AI, robotics and IoT will be a key solution to operate manufacturing.

Other than that AI development companies will be utilizing AI further to analyze interactions to decide basic underlying influences and insights to predict demand for services such as healthcare sector empowering specialists to make better choices about resource use, and to identify the changing ways of customer behavior by dissecting data in near real-time, driving incomes and improving customized experiences.

Its present-day tasks of enabling computers to read (studying messages and reports), see (through facial recognition), listen (by enabling Amazon Echo to answer your command), speak (Siri being able to give you an answer), and even record emotions (through affective computing), will help AI become a technology that no longer needs human intervention to aid its learning. The mass usage of AI in the world is leading to its adoption in a number of sectors: Customer Experience, DesigningHealthcare, Fintech.

2. Voice search

A Healthcare Marketer's Secret Weapon in the Voice Search Battle

The trending technologies in 2021 will remain incomplete without voice search technology. The time is long gone when the only relation between voice and technology was to talk using our mobile devices. The importance of voice search in today’s time cannot be ignored, as this emerging technology trends 2021 uses speech recognition to identify what a user is saying with high accuracy. As a reply, it delivers the message to the user through voice.

While Google Action SDK and Integration of Siri into apps have already acquainted us with the power of voice in conducting everyday tasks, the applications have still remained very limited. But the future that it has set for itself, has placed voice based applications in the list of top technologies in 2021.

The near future with a set of upcoming new tech trends will find itself conducting more operations with a voice command. In only a matter of time, every device that we have surrounded ourselves with will be able to function and perform actions with a command of our voice. Mixed with Natural Language Processing, AI, and Machine Learning with voice-based applications will find a greater place in users’ everyday activities.

3. Natural language processing

Technology Trends

In a year or two, Chatbots would have reached their market potential, with the majority of the businesses employing them to redefine their customer engagement policies. However, the new technology in software development would reach a whole different level through the integration of Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Presently NLP is broadly utilized in financial marketing. It shares a thorough insight into market sentiments, tender delays and closings, and obtains data from huge repositories.

The requirement for a semantic search is another top tech trend to affect NLP in 2021. This search would draw both NLP and NLU (Natural Language Understanding) requiring a granular perception of the central thoughts contained inside the text.

E-retailers would utilize NLP and Machine Learning methods to build customer engagement, analyze their browsing patterns and shopping trends.

A report by Business Insider predicts that the chatbot market which was worth $2.6 billion in 2019 will reach US$9.4 billion by 2024.

4. Blockchain

Will 2020 Be The Year Cryptocurrency And Blockchain Becomes Operational?

The rate at which Blockchain is growing has placed it at a pivotal point in the list of latest trends in technology. While prevalent with cryptocurrencies currently, the world will see its mass adoption in the coming years, and Blockchain technology trends will definitely stay here.

Cryptocurrencies, the important Blockchain element, will also find itself divided in a number of currencies and would be floated in the market just like fiat currencies. People who are currently unaware of what Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies are and where they can spend them, will start doing their everyday transactions with them. The future will see Blockchain development solution being explored beyond cryptocurrencies.

In 2021, the technology will scale with updates and better implementations of smart contracts. When it comes to securely exchanging data, the updates to Blockchain tech may mean that it can be used whenever and wherever there is a case of secure, immutable data exchange. For that people can opt for companies like blockchain development company in USA to avail the benefit of this technology.

According to reports by Markets and Markets, thglobal blockchain market size is expected to grow from USD 3.0 billion in 2020 to USD 39.7 billion by 2025, at an impressive CAGR of 67.3% during 2020–2025.

5. Internet of Things

Technology Trends

Internet of Things (IoT) has been finding itself in the list of latest app development trends 2021. Our homes that already have a series of smart products such as TVs, water heaters, microwaves, yoga mats, and the voice-enabled personal assistants like Amazon echo, etc., will find a series of new entries in only a matter of time.

The Internet of Things is the future, and has facilitated devices such as home appliances, cars and much more to be connected to and exchange data over the Internet. The IoT technology trend enables better security, efficient decision making for businesses as information is collected and analyzed through the internet. It is said to provide predictive maintenance, speed up medical care, improve customer service, and offer various benefits in the coming future.

According to Statista Forecasts, around 50 billion of IoT devices will be in use around the world, creating a massive web of interconnected devices spanning everything from smartphones to kitchen appliances.

6. Edge computing

Top 5 Edge Computing companies you should follow in 2020 | TechGig

One of the least talked about but one of the latest upcoming technologies will take the center stage the day IoT becomes a mainstream technology. While businesses are presently working comfortably in their Cloud setup, things are going to change pretty soon with edge computing.

Edge computing supports computation and data storage together on the collection device, inplace of depending on one major location that can be miles away.

It is a computing element where everything from – information processing, content collection, and delivery etc. are situated close to the source of information. Latency and connectivity challenges, bandwidth restrictions, and higher functionality are some of the benefits that get embedded at the edge of the source.

To be a part of the future technology trends enterprises should start using edge based design patterns in the infrastructure architectures, especially in those that come with notable IoT elements. For achieving this, the starting point can use edge-specific and co-location networking abilities.

Being a prominent part of a new technology, we with our IoT app development company are expected to witness increased attention being paid to edge computing for enabling intelligent networks, in which the connected devices will be performing the necessary analytics right at the location and would use the results for performing the specific actions. It will all happen within a few milliseconds, as compared to a few hundred milliseconds – the time it takes today with cloud computing. The promise that edge computing comes with, makes it an important addition in the top 10 new technology trends.

7. Predictive & personalized medicine

Free Vector | Doctors and personalized prescriptive analytics. big data healthcare, personalized medicine, big data patient care, predictive analytics concept. bright vibrant violet isolated illustration

Innovation is pushing the healthcare sector forward at a growing rate. The potential to get information about an individual’s lifestyle from a smartwatch (like Samsung, Apple Watch, Fitbit, etc.) is giving healthcare professionals the ability to forecast and even treat possible medical issues before a patient even has any symptoms.

When it comes to treating these patients, this technology trend will help doctors prescribe more personalized medicine, often referred to as predictive medicine. The info-driven understanding of how useful some treatments are on people will boost the healthcare market forward in 2021.

With regards to treating the patients, this technology trend will assist doctors in prescribing personalized medication, generally known predictive medicine. The data driven comprehension of how helpful treatments are on individuals will support the medical services market in the coming years.

Reports from Juniper Research reveal that wearables, including health trackers and remote patient monitoring devices, will be the must haves in delivering healthcare with the forecasted annual spend of $20 billion on these devices by 2023.

8. 5G

What is 5G | Everything You Need to Know About 5G | 5G FAQ | Qualcomm

The 2021 technology predictions show that the world in the coming years will be under the spell of fast internet connection and all the various perks that come attached with it.

5g will find its place in the market very soon, bringing with itself benefits such as high internet speed, lower latency, and higher capacities.

The benefits would make it possible for autonomous vehicles and wireless VR to work with minimal technical hesitancies. The benefit of 5G would be two-fold. Not only would it enrich the user experience by offering higher data rates when we talk by VR or AR, but it will also be much safer, which is where the latency point comes in.

But just how fast would 5G be? It is anticipated that when it takes 26 hours for a movie to download in a 3G network, in 5G the time would reduce to 3.6 seconds.

9. Facial recognition

Facial recognition utilized by protestors around the world to identify police | Biometric Update

Your face will become the ideal technology partner by 2020. What started with iPhone X with its face ID will be taken ahead by a number of industries who would now be using your face for a series of different applications.

From the present ability to unlock your phone just by looking at it, the latest technology in facial recognition will allow you to unlock your house and car, which would be connected with the internet. In the future it is said that an individual would be able to withdraw money from the ATM using nothing but your face.

10. Automation

Sales Automation Process – Everything You Need to Know in 2020

Automation has moved ahead from its involvement in the production lines. There are a number of ways automation will create its presence around us by becoming one the most awaited technologies.

From packaging juice boxes to delivering pizza in self-driving vehicles, automation is fast climbing the food chain from doing routine tasks to a lot more complex, decision-making tasks.

Mixed with Robotics, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence, processes across multiple industries like Food and Beverage, Medical, and Customer Service will become further streamlined and automated by the time future hits our doors.

So here were the latest technology trends that will see the mass adoption in the future years. Are you ready for them?

The Three Technology Entrants That Will Additionally Redefine the World in the Upcoming Years

1. Big data

What is big data and why is it important? | by Raghav Sharma | Noteworthy - The Journal Blog

With the ever growing amount of interaction between machines and humans, the devices that we carry with us every waking hour have become a massive repository of data. Data that is waiting to be converted into meaningful information and insight for businesses to use for offering better service.

2. AR/VR

The world of AR/VR and what it holds for us in the future - Blog by Intern

If there is anything that Pokémon Go has taught us it is that users are very open to the idea of losing the sense of their reality for a good time in the virtual world. Taking the cue from the interest that Pokémon Go managed to create, a number of business models have come up in a number of different industries like Healthcare, Retail, and Education etc. focusing on giving the users a chance to introduce fiction in their daily life and find something of value at the back of the whole experience. That’s why AR VR app development company like us help the clients to achieve their technological goals.

3. Chatbots

The Ultimate Guide to Chatbots: What is a Chatbot? Why Are They Important? | RingCentral UK Blog

It has already been established that Chatbots are shaping the business growth story by making business available 24*7. The coming years will find the conversion magnet becoming more personal and intelligent with the power of machine learning and predictive analytics technologies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Which technology is best in future?

Artificial Intelligence in the best technology for the future. The technology, with its potential to mimic human brain, has offered a myriad of opportunities/functionalities to different business verticals, such as Real Estate, Healthcare, Education, Travel, Finance, and more.

Q. What are future technology trends?

While there are various technologies that exist in the market and will continue to disrupt the market, here are a few that are newly entering the market and are poised to bring transformation:-

  1. 5G technology
  2. Edge Computing
  3. Prescriptive Analysis

How might the Discovery Phase aid the survival of your Mobile App?

What is the Discovery Phase of a Mobile App Project?

With numerous mobile apps entering app industry daily, the biggest challenge for app developers is to make their app survive. How can one develop an app that beats 2.8 million mobile applications? How can one make his app stand out of the crowd when user hardly use 30 apps a month? How can one create a mobile app with lifetime success like Pokemon Go, Candy Crush and SnapChat?

One word answer to all of these questions is App Discovery.

App Discovery

App Discovery phase, in simpler terms, is the phase where you put your app idea on paper. You consider your business objectives and user expectations and plan how your mobile app will look and feel. You define all the crucial requirements, estimate the cost of app development and all the major milestones. In a nutshell, you create an effective blueprint for your mobile app project.

To ensure impactful results, the mobile app developers should consider the following stages/steps of application discovery:

How Discovery Phase of App Development Can Help Your App to Survive Crowded Market

1. Concept Analysis – To determine if your app idea is feasible as per the business and technical aspect.

2. Market Analysis – To find out your target audience and market based on different demographics like Age, Gender, Income, Region, Occupation, etc.

In addition to Concept analysis and Market analysis, it is also profitable to invest your valuable time in Competitive analysis. It will help you understand competition your app will face and how to deal with it.

3. Requirement Gathering – To study and decide what features and functionalities you want to add in your mobile application. While deciding app features, mobile app developers should consider the needs and expectations of their end users. This will help in creating a user-centric application and hence, improve the chances of app survival.

4. Wireframing – Wireframe is yet another phase of mobile application discovery that you can’t miss. It let you design a visual layout of the app project and determine what features/specifications can be achieved by certain layout and UX.

5. UI Prototyping – This phase helps mobile application development companies to visualize the end product via graphic designs that empower target users to experience the in-app flow.

6. Development Tools and Technology – In this phase, you decide the technologies and tools to employ for building a successful mobile application.

Now, as you know the perks and stages of the App Discovery phase, let’s move to tips for effective app discovery. Ones which can be applied in addition to taking advantage of Apple’s App Clip, Google Instant Apps and similar discovery-friendly functionalities.

Tips for Effective Mobile Apps Discovery

1. Consider ASO

6 ASO Factors You Should Consider to Improve Your Ranking

Irrespective of endless marketers efforts, App Store is still the leading source of app discovery, which implies mobile app developers should learn and implement the best practices of ASO (App Store Optimization) to enhance app visibility.

2. Turn towards Social Media Marketing

Building Your Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2021 | Sprout Social

Employ social media networks to engage the target audience. Share the screenshots and short videos of your app to engage them. Allow users to share your posts/tweets on their timeline and get leverage of exciting offers.

3. Invest in Referral Marketing

Referral Marketing For Startups to Boost Conversions. | InviteReferrals

This mobile app promotion strategy is to attract new users while keeping the existing ones hooked with your mobile app. All you have to do in this case is to allure existing users to share the app with their near and dear ones and enjoy lucrative offers/incentives.

The most overwhelming example of this kind of app discovery practice is Dropbox. The app saw an uplift from 100,000 to 4,000,000 users within 15 months, all thanks to this method.

4. Team up with Bloggers

Why It Helps to Hire a Team of Bloggers

Finding bloggers with experience in your niche and asking them to write about your app is also an effective strategy. You can pay them for writing about your mobile application on their blogs, or can let them try a free version in return for the same.

5. Go for Third-Party Advertisements

How it started, how it's going: Performance advertising on Twitter

Apart from focusing on a respective app store, you can also submit your app on third-party app stores like Amazon app store and Samsung app store in order to increase your app visibility.

With the uprising competition, the need and searching style of consumers have also changed. As per Google’s recent research, users these days are becoming more particular of how and what they search in mobile apps. So, it is advisable to look into the app search trends before building a mobile application.

App Discovery Trends for 2018

Here are the top four app search trends that the top app development companies would be focussing on, in 2018:

1. App with Productivity and Convenience

Top 5 productivity apps in 2020

Smartphone users are looking for apps that make their daily life easier and effective, like note-taking apps, calendars, office suits, etc. Google disclosed that searches for apps with features like placing an order, discounts, and tracking orders have increased 120% YoY. This implies mobile app development companies can turn to productivity apps for enjoying better outcomes.

2. Apps that teach new skills

Key to Balancing Work and Family Responsibilities While Working from Home

Users are more interested in learning new skills or polishing their skills more than ever. As per the reports, searches for learning-based apps like ‘guitar learning app’ or ‘painting learning app’ has experienced a rise by 80% YoY. Besides, the language-related apps have seen an 85% YoY rise in searches. So, if you build an education mobile application or an app that let the users learn something new, your app will have higher chances of success in the market.

3. Health and Fitness Apps

The Essential Guide to Successful Functional Fitness App Development | by Dmytro Dvurechenskyi from openGeeksLab | Medium

With time, the smartphone consumers are becoming more fitness-freak. They are searching for more fitness practices and products than before. According to Google report, the searches for fitness shoes and activities like weightlifting has been increased by 135% YoY. Besides, users are searching for apps that improve their physical as well as mental health, such as meditation apps.

4. Finance mobile applications

5 Essential Elements That A Finance Mobile App Must Have - Bhupesh Kalra

Whether it comes to reservation, purchase or enrolling in a gym, users are looking for discounts and other offers. In other words, users are more conscious about finances and are looking for means to save more. Google revealed that brands with ‘free services’ and coupons facility have grown to 90% YoY. This directly indicates that personalized offers and referral marketing should be taken into consideration for app success.

While there are various other ways to enhance your app visibility and improve its survival chances, the above-mentioned are our favorite.

What are your favorite hacks to reach a wider audience and promote your mobile apps? Share your tips in the comment section below.

Must learn Blockchain Programming Languages in 2020

Top 5 Blockchain Programming Languages

Unless you are living under the rocks, it is likely that you would be familiar with what is Blockchain and what is its potential when it comes to reforming the tech world. The technology, that have been the driving force of Cryptocurrencies, has taken the front seat and come up with a myriad of options to mitigate the traditional challenges that a myriad of industries face, helping them grab better opportunities. It has proven to hold the potential to revamp the whole economy – be it healthcare, travel, education, or legal domain.A ripple impact of which is that today, both startups and Fortune 500 companies like IBM, and Accenture are putting efforts towards making their presence known in the Blockchain arena.

Because of this, rather sudden, mass adoption, the number of Blockchain jobs are increasing in the market exponentially. A clear indication of which is that a 517% rise is predicted in the number of Blockchain jobs in 2019, compared to 2018.

And, behind the curtains, the type of blockchain development platforms and programming languages are also evolving. While many traditional ones are proving to be undisputed leaders, many new entrants are bringing radical changes in the development environment.

This, as a whole, is making it necessary for all Blockchain enthusiasts to be familiar with the best Blockchain programming languages to headstart with. Something we will cover in this article.

But, before that, you will be able to earn brownie points if to go through a blockchain development guide to have a clarity of concepts, and to get familiar with the challenges developers come across while starting their journey in  this innovative technology.

Challenges You Might Face While Entering the Blockchain Development World

A. Resource Management

How to be a Great Project Manager - K2 Partnering Solutions

In the Blockchain arena, it is imperative for developers to ensure that they are familiar with real-time network demands and that they are well-versed with opportunities to handle remote and local queries. This, in turn, can be challenging for them to manage their resources efficiently and effectively.

B. Isolation

Another issue faced by Blockchain developers is that all the hash functions operate in a deterministic manner. Meaning, they do not act in two different ways depending on the circumstances.

In such a scenario, the development team has to opt Isolation mechanism to bring non-deterministic nature into their blockchain solution.

C. Lower Performance

Poor sleep tied to kids' lower academic performance | Arab News

Last but not least, Lower performance is also one of the challenges of Blockchain programming that developers often have to deal with. Especially when choosing the right Blockchain development language.

This is because some of the Blockchain operations are parallelizable, while others are not. Meaning, it becomes important for them to bring a language on table that is versatile in nature.

Now that you know what Blockchain programming problems you might encounter while heading your journey to Blockchain development, let’s jump to the core part of this article, i.e, unveiling of the top Blockchain programming languages.

15 Programming Languages to Consider for Developing Blockchain Applications

1. Solidity

Solidity — Solidity 0.4.24 documentation

Influenced from JavaScript, Powershell, and C++, Solidity is the first blockchain programming language that one must learn. Especially when they have to develop dApps or are looking to get into the ICO development game.

The Solidity programming language was developed by Vitalik Buterin, the mastermind behind Ethereum, and serves blockchain development firm with a myriad of benefits, such as:-

  • Developer-friendliness,
  • Accessibility to JavaScript infrastructures, debuggers, and other tools,
  • Statically typed programming,
  • Possibility of inheritance properties in smart contracts,
  • Precise accuracy, etc.

2. Java

How to develop a blockchain application if you only know Java | Corda

Java, the official language of Android mobile app development and a preferred option for backend development, is also considered a great programming language used for Blockchain development.

The language is derived from C-syntax and is widely chosen for building sophisticated Smart contracts and dApps because of its following properties:-

  • Robust support for OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) methodology,
  • Ease of memory cleaning,
  • Availability of ample of libraries.

Some of the best examples of Blockchain solutions developed using Java are NEM, IOTA, NEO, and Hyperledger Fabric.

3. Python

What is Python Coding? | Coding for Kids Ages 11+ | Juni Learning

Python has not only ruled the world of app development, IoT app development, and network servers’ development, but is also proving to be an asset in Blockchain-as-a-service arena.

The language, created in 1991, is widely used for dApps and Smart Contracts development because of ample of features it avails. Some of those features and functionalities are:-

  • Easy to learn,
  • Access to dynamic architecture,
  • Perfect for both base and scripting approaches,
  • Open-source support,
  • Efficient for Prototyping, etc.

Steem, Hyperledger Fabric, and NEO are a few popular Python based Blockchain projects that are prevailing the industry.

4. JavaScript

JavaScript Core Language Learning Path | Pluralsight

Considered for a wide range of app and game development needs, JavaScript is also one of the best Blockchain programming languages to keep an eye on.

The language, in the form of frameworks like Node.js framework, offers developers ample of benefits like:-

  • Easier and earlier entry to market,
  • Enhanced Scalability,
  • Availability of multiple JavaScript frameworks,
  • No hassle of integration of respective resources, and more.

5. PHP

PHP - Wikipedia

Released in 1995, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is another programming language that every reputed mobile app development company recommend for creating Blockchain solutions.

The language, though considered as a backend development tech stack in the form of best PHP frameworks, is often used to develop blockchain solutions of different complexity range. Something that is a ripple effect of its huge open-source community and object-oriented features.

6. C++

Three Optimization Tips for C++ - Facebook Engineering

C++, introduced back in 1985 by Bjarne Stroustrup, is the best programming language for cryptocurrency development.

The language follows OOPs methodology and is highly used for developing cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Projects like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, Stellar, and EOS. Something that is a direct result of the following set of features and functionalities it offers:-

    1. Efficient CPU management and memory control,
    2. Ease of running parallel/non-parallel threads,
    3. Option to move semantics for copying data effectively,
    4. Compile-time polymorphism for enhanced performance,
    5. Code isolation for different data structures, and more.

7. C#

Five C# Features You Might Not Know

Created by Microsoft as a substitute of Java, the OOP language offer a huge number of features for enterprise-powered apps, cloud, and cross-platform development. The language comes loaded with features of C, SQL, and .NET frameworks, and is highly favored for Blockchain development because:-

    1. It is open source.
    2. Its syntax is easy to understand and learn – thanks to its identicality with C++ and Java.
    3. It empowers developers to write portable code across devices.
    4. It is cost-effective to use because of BizSpark program.

The programming language is majorly considered for building dApps, Smart Contracts, and infrastructure in Blockchain environment.

8. Go

Top 10 Online Courses to learn Golang/Go in 2021 — Best of Lot | by javinpaul | Javarevisited | Medium

Go programming language also lands in the list of top Blockchain coding languages with a blistering success.

The language is not just easy to comprehend, but also comes with the best features of JavaScript and Python such as user-friendliness, scalability, flexibility, and speed. Something that makes it the right option to deliver bespoke Blockchain solutions.

Two of the best Go-based Blockchain solutions prevalent in the market are Go-Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.

9. Simplicity

Simplicity: High-Assurance Smart Contracting

Created by Russell O’ Connor, Simplicity is a high-level Blockchain coding language that hit the market in November 2017.

The Simplicity programming language is based on Ivy and work with a Haskell-like syntax which makes coding easier and effective. Besides, it is highly mathematical in nature and makes the codeline human-readable. Because of which, it is highly used for developing Smart Contracts and blockchain solutions that works with both Bitcoin and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

10. Ruby

Interesting facts about Ruby Programming Language - GeeksforGeeks

Ruby is yet another top Blockchain development language to headstart your career with.

Developed by Yukihiro “Matz” in the mid-1990s, this high-level and general purpose programming language empowers developers to prototype their vision effectively and effortlessly through open-source third party APIs and plugins. The language also gives developers an opportunity to mix its features with that of other languages to build an enhanced platform.

It is highly considered by Asian developers for building Blockchain-based software and platforms.

11. Rust

Rust Programming Language

Though newbie in the Blockchain ecosystem, Rust is also being widely considered for building innovative, immutable, and secure solutions.

The language enables open-source developers to create quick and effective Blockchain frameworks. It also serves them with highly-capable mechanism of managing mutable states, amazing code optimization, better memory options, and concurrency-based opportunities.

12. SQL

The Best Way to Learn SQL - Learn to code in 30 Days

SQL (Structured Query Language) is also one of the top blockchain programming languages to consider in 2020.

The language was designed by IBM to make communication with databases like MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQl, and Oracle easier and efficient. It has more than 7M developers in the industry and is used for building secure and effective enterprise solutions in Blockchain domain. A clear evidence of which is Aergo.

13. Erlang

Erlang (programming language) - Wikipedia

Erlang is another top Blockchain coding language you must consider for a brighter future ahead.

The language, though less popular than reputed names like Java, JavaScript, and Python, serves Blockchain development companies with options like:-

    1. Unparalleled backend facility,
    2. Higher scalability,
    3. Immutability
    4. Inherent fault tolerance, and more.

Something that makes it the right choice for building peer-to-peer networks in a Blockchain environment.

14. Rholang

Documentation page for Rholang ? - Rchain network

Rholang is yet another impressive addition in the list of Blockchain programming languages. The language, unlike C++ or Python, operates with functional approach over Object-oriented. It also assess the whole app as a series of functions which are then solved in a sequential manner.

Because of this, it is a favorite of developers when they wish to build a high-level project like Smart Contracts.

15. CX

CX: The Next Generation Blockchain Programming Language | by Skycoin | Skycoin | Medium

CX has also entered the list of top Blockchain programming languages.

The language has the potential to work as a contractual digital intermediary, and comes loaded with features like simple error control process, and opportunity to use propelled cuts, pointers, and arrays. It also assembles over Go and give users an escape from executing discretionary codes, which has been a critical issue for present day businesses.

What’s more, the language integrates with OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) efficiently and helps developers reap better benefits in terms of GPU’s capacity.

So, these were some of the programming languages that can be considered for entering the Blockchain world and make the best of the flourishing opportunity. These languages, as already covered in this article, holds different potential and thus, can be used for building different forms of Blockchain and cryptocurrency-based solutions. It implies that you must know which language is best for what type of Blockchain development and eventually, polish your skills in the same.

Now, while learning through online tutorials and training programs is a good effort to be well-versed with its theoretical concepts, if you wish to do some practical stuff under the shade of a reputed Blockchain development company, connect our recruitment team for an internship opportunity today.

Mobility integration and risk management challenge in healthcare

10 Top Healthcare IT Certifications - Healthcare Management Degree Guide

Providing mobility to busy clinicians is increasingly recognized as an essential part of delivering care to patients. There are, however, issues regarding development, integration, and security that need to be overcome.

Consideration must be given to the user interface. If it isn’t intuitive and user-friendly, adoption will be lower, and an investment in a solution that is not adequately used is wasted. In addition to a focus on usability, the organization must prepare clinicians for any workflow changes mobility will bring about and provide the right support and training to ensure a high level of adoption.

It’s also important to consider integration with legacy systems. Developers will need to ensure that the solution works with the various healthcare systems of record employed by the organization. That raises some interesting questions about whether current systems need to be updated to integrate with the solution. Will the mobile solution allow for bi-directional flow of information? And if that’s made possible, what is the source of truth for information?

For example, while speaking to a patient’s spouse, a doctor might find out that the patient has an allergy to peanuts. But there’s no information in the system indicating any allergy. It should be possible to update the patient’s records in real-time so other clinicians can immediately see that information. Conversely, clinicians’ access should be limited to their function. For example, nurses should have the right to view and administer medication information but not to prescribe medication (other than those approved by their registration and qualification).

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards are driving a new level of data interoperability and aggregation, enabling records to be provided to mobile users in real-time. But, organizations will have to look at their underlying systems of record, not just mobility.

Risk management

Laying the Foundation for Strong Healthcare Risk Management

As healthcare organizations prepare to embrace mobility, it will be important to ensure that corporate policy is addressed governing access to patient data — where, when, and by whom. The right governance structures need to be in place for implementation to ensure that organizations adhere to policies about how patient information is accessed and how records are tracked with mobility.

A breach of patient data would be a serious issue. One way to guard against that might be to implement secure sign-in options such as multifactor sign-in and biometric login. But that does require the device to support such functions as facial recognition software and/or fingerprint readers.

While organizations might worry about the loss or theft of a device, there are fairly simple ways to address this. For example, it’s possible to enable mobile access without storing data on the device. And even if data is on the device, it should be encrypted when stored, sent, or received to prevent interference or misuse. Device and application profiles can also enable data to be wiped from the device remotely or enable the device to be locked or formatted to prevent further use.

Preparing for mobility

Preparing for Emergencies When Using a Wheelchair: Healthcare - Braze Mobility

Clinicians want mobility and while challenges exist, there are many ways to overcome them. Ultimately, mobility allows clinicians to access records and data in real-time and to send important patient information back into the systems of record in real-time.

Mobility has been successfully implemented in other industries and in some digitally advanced healthcare organizations. The objective should be to allow mobility to become commonplace to improve healthcare workflow and enhance patient care.

Mobility stack up-ROI weight against overall healthcare outcomes

How To Calculate The ROI Of Mobile App - Techcronus

There is growing evidence that mobility brings significant benefits to clinicians. However, some of the common sticking points with any new technology are cost and choosing the right solution for the organization.

Let’s start by assessing the financial factors or return on investment (ROI) and what approach to mobile makes the most sense.

There’s a cost to making mobility a reality and healthcare organizations must weigh up whether the investment will yield the returns expected. However, the ROI on mobility should be looked at from higher level, one that affects the healthcare institution and even healthcare overall. One of the purposes of mobility is it improves data availability, which in turn should result in fewer unnecessary tests and treatments and less delay. If a hospital isn’t doing unnecessary tests, this not only reduces costs but potentially frees up beds sooner for the next patient. Mobility also enables workflow efficiencies and ensures more accurate information is available as and when required, improving clinical care and reducing readmissions.

It should also be remembered that most facilities have a budget for technology advancements, so rather than thinking about mobility as an additional cost, it should be considered as part of the overall package of advancing the organization’s technology capabilities.

What investment makes most sense?

10 Best Investments In 2021 | Bankrate

If an investment is considered worthwhile, the next question is, what or which mobile solution should organizations invest in and how will this decision be made?

The investment decision will depend on the size of the organization and its needs. For example, a hospital will have a different mobile focus than a community organization. Decision-makers need to ask what will make the biggest difference to a mobile workforce and enable them to achieve better and more efficient workflow, 24/7. The advantage of mobile is it allows users to access information without being deskbound.

Before choosing the solution, it’s important to first identify the problems that need to be solved and pick a solution that best fits the users’ needs, within the confines of the organization’s budget. Thought should also be given to the longer-term needs of the organization, such as the expansion of telehealth services and hospital-in-the-home capabilities.

Does BYOD make sense?

BYOD explained: The good, the bad and the who-knows | ITProPortal

There’s also the cost of the hardware to consider. Will the hospital or healthcare organization be supplying the device or will clinicians be encouraged to bring their own device (BYOD)? How will mobility work with the health facility’s current internet services? Are WiFi speeds and connectivity suitable for mobility?

It seems likely that this will become the preferred option for several reasons: Most clinicians have their own mobile devices and people typically are more comfortable using technologies they are familiar with. Furthermore, they typically upgrade more often than an organization might, and BYOD delivers a cost reduction to the organization.

While healthcare facilities may relinquish some security and control with BYOD, there are new alternatives and solutions. Devices are increasingly offering dual SIM compatibility and dual user profiles, which means clinicians can use a different SIM at work to the one they use privately. And the organization can implement greater controls over work-based SIMs/profiles. It’s also not difficult to block certain sites and applications when a device works off the organization’s WiFi. Mobile application management tools now have a host of features to support a BYOD model compared to the traditional mobile device management tools.

One concern might be that users won’t update their devices as often as is required for solution updates. This can easily be addressed with version control. Yes, that means those who aren’t willing to upgrade won’t have access, but data integrity should never be compromised. A flexible way to address the situation of users not wanting to use their own device or upgrade it as needed is to provide a bank of corporate facility devices that can be used on a day-to-day basis.

As with any new technology approach, there are always barriers, but in the long run the benefits to clinician efficiency and progressive care of patients is to enable mobility.

Dynamic nature of work- Digitally Transforming

The changing nature of work - The Monday Briefing

Long-anticipated, digital transformation is redefining jobs and roles. Digital technologies have transcended simple process acceleration and are deconstructing our old notions about work and the workplace.

Multiple gigs instead of one role

How to manage multiple gigs at the same time – Wired

Mobile technologies in particular have catalyzed the development of the gig economy. What constitutes a job, who is an employee, and how work gets done is being completely reshuffled by the ability to work anytime, anywhere — because the digital workplace doesn’t recognize physical or occupational boundaries.

In this new gig model, one person is no longer constrained to one role. An employee can wear many hats and be involved in activities that span many roles; much of the work that gets done is accomplished by teams who switch roles and tasks seamlessly. Collaboration happens intuitively and digitally across corporate, physical and geographical boundaries. As workers exercise more independence and pick jobs they’re truly interested in, businesses can focus resources and investments and gain the flexibility to contract with specialists as needed.

Center of innovation and change

Center for Innovation & Change - University of Evansville

Here’s another difference: The workplace is becoming an important center of innovation and changes through vehicles like crowdsourcing and cross-corporation collaboration. Employees want companies to rethink how they manage and reward employees. Companies that understand the digital workplace have learned to embrace those employees who are interested in change and technology and to adopt them as beta customers to accelerate innovation. Early adopters can help companies spot new use cases, products and technologies that can have broad application in the enterprise.

Crowdsourced help

10 Tips for Getting the Best Results from Crowdsourcing | Volusion

These trends and others have given IT organizations a lot to think about. IT can choose to stay the course with traditional policies and approaches, but this likely won’t end well. Today’s users won’t think twice about bypassing IT in favor of preferred devices and channels. Crowdsourced assistance is maturing and becoming more common. In the IT support space, for example, users are more likely to Google the answer to a problem — or contact a friend — than to wait for the company’s help desk to respond.

To prevent the inevitable friction between IT and users — and ultimately shadow IT, information silos, and productivity loss — IT should embrace crowdsourced help and introduce curation and knowledge management processes to ensure the correct answer is easy to find and productive help aligns with IT governance.

For example, gamification has been successfully used to reward good assistance and encourage participation from anyone with valuable experience. Whether in the form of badges, leaderboards, or points, employees are encouraged to help each other. An employee-run forum for technical support can award points to those employees who help others resolve their issues and close support tickets. Whether using points received for great help or awards based on the number of resolutions, a contributor can spend their reward in the company store.

Showing users their usage patterns can shape behaviors as well. A dashboard that details the number of Skype minutes a user consumed (encouraged) versus more expensive conference bridge minutes (discouraged) is a simple way to guide users toward the tools that are the most efficient and effective.

The workplace has changed, and with it, worker expectations. To get all the benefits from the new innovation-driven workplace, IT needs to offer employees the experience they expect or face the wrath of a digital mob.

User Adoption for a Chat Support Channel

The 10 Live Chat Benefits You Need to Know (Backed by Research)

In general, chat adoption rates are still not as strong as clients would like. Those who simply built a chat option with the expectation that user would adopt it by themselves are seeing between 7% to 12% of their volume via chat.

Most of these organizations are doing nothing to promote chat as a support channel, assuming that users would gravitate to chat as many of them already have in their personal lives. That’s a mistake because, when it comes to social behavior adoption patterns, it is important to realize that users do not behave the same way in the workplace as in their private lives. User who would potentially prefer chatting will fall back to calling the service desk if that is what most of their coworkers do. After all, one of our strongest drivers as human beings is our desire to fit in amongst our group of peers.  The weight that the old adage “When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do” has in our decision-making is often underestimated.

10 Best WordPress Chat Plugins | Elegant Themes Blog

The key, then, to overcome adoption barriers, is to find ways to modify the behavior of a small percentage of the population – enough that the social trend starts to pull the rest toward the new desired behavior. (This is why group subscriptions to gyms are often more successful than individual promotions). Studies by Alex Pentland and the MIT MediaLab suggest that the frequency of contact and level of trust between the individuals is much more important than the pure number of people pushing the adoption of new behavior. One of their research studies found that user adoption of a new tool (a company social network in this case) was almost guaranteed if the user received at least three invitations from their trusted peers in a short period of time.

So, what does it take to specifically increase the chat channel adoption? Here are a few approaches:

  • Promote it. Remind users not only that the chat support channel exists, but that it’s good. (You should, of course, also make sure that it actually is a good service.)
  • Identify service advocates within the user community.  Make them part of the promotion of the new channel and reward them for getting people to use the service. This can generate a domino effect, helping the social trend accelerate over time.
  • Make chat very accessible and easy to use. If picking up the phone on my desk is faster or easier, nothing will make me stop that behavior when I have an urgent issue. So, instead of giving chat the usual set of barriers — accessible only through a service portal that requires you to open a browser, find the URL, log in with credentials you may not remember, find the button on the page, provide basic info all before getting in a queue — why not allow direct access to support on a medium where users already chat, like Skype? This way, you tap into the built-in mental pattern that tools like Skype generate in our brains (I need to talk to someone, so I look for them in Skype, I chat with them).
  • Add innovative features that can make chat more appealing. For instance, AI virtual agents and automated translation would make service available 24×7 while improving quality, speed and accuracy.
  • Expose users to metrics on their personal contact behavior to incentivize the new behavior. For example, a campaign that makes them feel “out of touch” with the social norm can help. Instead of telling them “you should chat” or “chat is great,”  it’s better to tell them “most users in your department chat with the service desk as the first channel” or  “80% of your peers found chat more effective at resolving IT issues.”

With these recommendations, voluntary adoption of chat can increase from those averages around 10% to those around 20% or 25%.  And as virtual assistant technology becomes more available, embedding a chat function within a Skype or Microsoft Teams environment becomes a more viable option. These virtual assistants contain a good library of responses built into an AI engine and will greatly enhance usability.

Microsoft Teams or Skype For Business?

As things continue to evolve, many contact channel policies will change.  We expect to see a day when all IT issues are first sent to the virtual agent before trying any other channel. Some companies may not even make other channels readily available to users. Instead, built-in integrations with a virtual assistant could enable users to request a chat with a live agent as a secondary option, or automatically log a ticket without human interaction.  When paired with automated translation services, this will result in a smooth, seamless “chat-first” channel, and radically change how we think about global service desks in the future.

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