Success in the online marketplace depends on your ability to deliver a good experience to your customers. If you are not offering them what they want or an experience that meets their expectations, most of them will switch to the competition fast.
Working with iPhone app developers to build an awesome native app is one way to offer a great experience for many of your customers. With that said, native apps might not reach everyone. What can you do to reach consumers that might not be interested in your iOS or Android native apps? A progressive web app (PWA) might be the answer for many businesses.
In simple terms, a PWA is an application delivered through the web and accessed in a browser. They are built using web technologies. However, they behave in a way that is similar to a native mobile app. Some people might describe them as mobile websites that offer the features of an app.
It is important to note that while a progressive web app does use a lot of web technologies, it is more than just a mobile website that offers some basic application features. The app must meet specific guidelines for it to be considered a true PWA.
Some customers might not want to download and install your native app. Having a mobile website can be one way to offer services to these customers. But, you won’t be able to offer a complete experience with a simple mobile website. That is where a PWA can come in to help you offer a better experience for these customers.
PWAs might depend on web technologies and run in browsers, but they offer an experience that is more like a real app. You can use a variety of different types of inputs. This means users can interact with them in more ways than standard websites. They can then connect with many of the hardware features of the device. You can even install them on your device to make them easier to access.
Speed is an obvious component of a good customer experience. Many customers will get impatient if they have to wait for pages to load. While the first experience with the PWA might require a loading time that is comparable to a website, it will be faster after that. These apps cache resources on the device for faster performance. This feature even allows progressive web apps to offer an offline experience.
The fact that you don’t have to install the app can make progressive web apps an attractive option for a lot of consumers. They won’t have to download and install something on their phone. But the app will still offer all of the features they need to shop with your business. All the customer has to do is open a browser and go to the address of the progressive web app.
One thing that really helps to set PWAs apart from your average mobile website is that they can connect to features of the user’s device. A great example is the ability to use push notifications. Unlike a standard responsive mobile site, a PWA can send notifications to alert customers to sales. Or, it could be used to remind them of items left in the shopping cart. With these expanded capabilities, a PWA can serve both you and your customers better.
One advantage progressive web apps have over native apps is that they don’t need to update on the customer’s device. Since the app is on the web, you update the app on the web and it updates for all your users. All without them even having to think about it. That means that it does not update in the background on their device. Nor, does it make them wait as it updates before they open it. It updates on the web, for every user, all at the same time. In fact, users won't even notice that an update is occurring.
Unlike native apps, PWAs are very light. Since they run on the web, they don’t need to take up a lot of space on the device. Even if the customer chooses to install the PWA on their device, it won’t take up nearly as much space as a native app.
A progressive web app can be a great solution for offering a better customer experience. They can outperform mobile websites in a number of ways. But, they don’t require your customers to download and install your app. Best of all, they can reach customers on any device that has a browser.
