The past three years and the shadow of COVID have seen the end of the traditional Online Interaction based digital customer ecosystem. Mobile penetration and consumer trust and understanding of mobile technology has finally allowed a larger age demographic of consumers to use their mobile devices for things like banking, cashless payments and other services that traditionally where reserved for devices that didn’t leave home or couldn’t be lost or damaged amid increased trust in “mobile” amongst the over 50s.

Indeed mobile broadband usage out performed traditional PC broadband usage during the pandemic and during 2021 the number of contactless payments made in the UK increased by 12 per cent to 9.6 billion payments.

Overall, contactless payments accounted for more than a quarter (27 per cent) of all UK payments. In the last four years contactless payments have jumped from being just seven per cent of all payments to 27 per cent.

83 per cent of people in the UK now use contactless, with no age group or region falling below 75 per cent usage. Supermarkets were the most popular place to use contactless payments in 2020, accounting for 41 per cent of contactless payments

Source:Ukfinance.org

With advancements in connectivity and mobile device functionality and superfast broadband infrastructure providing significant increases in speed of service, we live in an always on, always connected world where mobile has now become our device of comfort, choice and ease.

This change in user behaviour has been driven by our ability to be constantly connected and find things quickly which in turn shapes the type of consumer decisions that are being made and how your customers interact with your business. 

“Mobile first is a phrase we’ve all heard many times over the years but the pandemic has helped to bring about faster change than any single event of the past decade. “

Our mobile phones offer easy access to users, the ability to access more users and provide these users with ever more services.  They are able to connect to readymade third party ecosystems depending on if you have an Apple Device (iOS ecosystem) or an Android device (Android ecosystem).  This means you have two gateways for your users to access a plethora of content and services that work seamlessly with your mobile device and where its easy to plug in third party services that allow you to perform tasks more intelligently, work smarter, increase revenue etc..

The adoption of 4G and slowly 5G services has given us a new breed of mobile user – the “intensely attached” to their device and the most likely to say they cant live without their phone.  These are a mixture of late Generation Xs, Millenials (1981 – 1997) and Generation Z (those born 1997 to 2010) with Gen Z users having the moniker “Digital Natives” given they have always had digital technology at their fingertips.

The next Generation… Alpha (born after 2010) will automatically challenge the here and now, demanding even faster service, better information and results and will expect an integrated and omni channel digital customer journey across every business they interact with.

There has never been a better time to understand your customer base than right now. Tailor your comms, offers and experiences to the generational type of consumer you work with.

Offer an integrated set of services and use Big Data methodologies and tech to understand your consumers like never before and then implement your findings across your mobile first digital consumer journeys, creating true value for each customer based on their own needs and wants.

In the second part of this two part blog I will focus on the key elements to focus on when building out a mobile first eco-system for your business and how to make the most out of your mobile customer journey and increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through bespoke personalised experiences.

Thanks

theUCexpert