Your Mobile App Sucks

Written by | 10 Comments

Siri doesn't think you need that app.

In my never-ending search for knowledge, I was exploring an old bastion of wisdom yesterday when I came across a curious post, paraphrased for your reading enjoyment.

If you build your website correctly, mobile apps are simple to create…and should be free to every organization.

While this post was specific to a mobile developer, I have heard a similar sentiment before.

First, let’s get over the free hurdle.  If you are getting a free mobile website or app, you are getting what you (did not) pay for.

And yes, it is true, you can create a pretty nice looking mobile website or application with a plugin, a hack and a whole lot of ‘don’t give a damn’ about the end product.

But why?

If your destination’s mobile strategy is taking the exact same content that is currently on your website and shrinking it, how is that a strategy?

And tell me, how does that help the consumer who, following standard DMO travel funnel logic, has already visited your site multiple times (sure they did) to plan their trip?

They have already seen your site, what good is a smaller version?

Taking the phone book and jamming it into a mobile app does not make the phone book more useful, it just makes it smaller.

Throw out the phone book.  Start over.  Put your consumer first.

What do they really need from your mobile app?  Are you building inspiration or technology?

Guess what, they don’t need more listings.

Already have them.

Google, Yelp, Urbanspoon, Foursquare, Fodor’s, Frommer’s, TripAdvisor…should I go on?

Sure, you can replicate your site and put a ton of promotional effort behind an app no one really wants, but to be successful, your mobile app needs to give the consumer something useful.

If not, well, maybe we don’t need an app for that.

  • http://twitter.com/malden Meghan Alden

    Excellent post. Working as a builder of mobile apps for our destination clients, it’s usually a struggle (often to no avail) to get clients past the phone book everyone else is doing and try something new. Unfortunately this can also be true of folks inside the same office building.

    • http://www.travel2dot0.com/ Troy Thompson

      Hey Meghan, thanks for the comment.

      I know it is a tough change for most DMOs, and frankly, a lot simply don’t have anything but ‘phone book’ content.

      But that fact should cause them to rethink and reconsider their overall approach, content and usefulness to the consumer….rather than simply ‘using what we have got.’

      - Troy

  • http://twitter.com/timbrechlin Tim Brechlin

    Mobile in the DMO space is such an odd beast. Over the last, oh, 18-odd months, there’s been such a mentality of “We have to go mobile,” without ANY question whatsoever of WHY you have to go mobile. It’s as insane as saying, “We have to redesign our website, because it isn’t fresh anymore and our traffic has gone down.”

    Not nearly enough people actually bother to ask “why,” and it’s why this industry is hurting so much.

    When we went mobile (website in September, apps in October), we were very clear about our strategy: Who we were talking to, what we were saying, how we hoped they’d use it. When it came time to determine platforms, I experienced very, very strong pushback from my recommendation to not develop for BlackBerry, instead punting those users to the mobile website. But, in my mind, it was a simple decision: RIM hasn’t made a phone worth owning in years, and the market share is in absolute free-fall. I wasn’t going to fork out another (X amount of $) to develop for what is effectively a dying platform.

    The day you tell yourself that you HAVE to make a deal or move in a direction, without pondering the how, when and why, is the day you’re dead.  You can always recover from the the action that you don’t take. The bad decision you made because you decided that it HAD to be done, though? Those are the ones that hurt.

    • http://www.travel2dot0.com/ Troy Thompson

      Tim, I am disappointed.  Meghan posted the first comment 8 minutes ago.

      As always good stuff.  I love the Blackberry story, a great lesson for all of our DMO friends considering a fringe platform.

      - Troy

  • http://twitter.com/scurvypirates Captain Ahab

    Well said, Master Troy. Give the customer something useful. A novel idea, that competes with make the logo bigger, and put everything on the home page.

    • http://www.travel2dot0.com/ Troy Thompson

      Captain on deck.

      Well, I soon as they make the darn iPhone bigger, we can start making the logos bigger.  I have already issued my request with the Genius bar.

      - Troy

  • Jeff Kohn

    Troy- Well said as usual.  You’re right, many times a DMO initially doesn’t think about WHY they need a mobile app before they start building it.   When advising our clients, we’ve found that it helps to first examine the life-cycle of how a visitor consumes information about a destination:

    Step 1:  The visitor sees a creative mass media advertisement for the destination that sparks interest, and they are prompted to go to http://www.destination.org to find out more.

    Step 2:  The visitor goes to the destination website,  where they learn the destination’s “story” and make the decision to come visit.  They like the comfort of their big computer screen, where they can check calendars, compare hotels, make flights, book  a car etc (something that will always be difficult to do on a mobile screen).

    Step 3:  The visitor arrives in the destination and checks into their hotel, and then what happens?   Our research shows only 12% of visitors use the destination’s mobile website / app once they arrive.  Visitors told us that this is  because their mobile solution feels just like the website, and isn’t helpful for HOW they need information now that they are in the destination.   In frustration, they often turn to Yelp, Google Local, etc. as their source of information going forward.

    Whoa, what just happened?  The official DMO just lost control of the visitor conversation. 

    And why is this a problem?  Well, because the DMO loses the opportunity to direct revenue to their merchant stakeholders and ensure the visitor has an excellent experience.  A DMO knows their destination better than some computer in Silicon Valley; why should they give up control of conversation with their visitor that they worked so hard to get?

    A DMO needs a Mobile Concierge (envision the high-touch real-life hotel concierge experience).  They need an mobile solution that was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of the IN-DESTINATION visitor.  That means creating a portable “trusted adviser” that helps the user quickly decide “what do next” based on their specific preferences, current location, and time.   And like a real concierge, it should also be transactional with the ability to make dinner reservations / book an attraction, and find insider deals.

    A DMO shouldn’t blur Steps 2 and 3 of the visitor-destination information life-cycle.  A website is used for pre-travel research; a mobile solution is used for those already in the destination who are trying to decide what to do next.

    Jeff Kohn
    CEO, VisitMobile.com

  • http://www.GoWeb3D.com Dave Elchoness

    Love this. Sharing widely. Dave

    • http://www.travel2dot0.com/ Troy Thompson

      Thanks Dave, greatly appreciated.

      And yes, I would consider your work in the ‘useful’ category.

      - Troy

  • http://www.travel2dot0.com/ Troy Thompson

    Thanks Jeff.

    If the DMO can provide that ‘concierge’ service and make it useful, I completely agree.

    But for most DMOs, concierge = listings.  And that is not the answer.  Concierge means you are actually going to have to hire someone to communicate with your consumers.

    Yes, in real-time.

    - Troy