Christopher Egan

Date: June 22, 2017

Name: Mobile Growth Vancouver with Staples, Koho, Curatio and PayByPhone

Presenters: Stuart Congdon, Christopher Egan, Christopher Rowntree, and Lauren Bates

Mobile app has revolutionized the way business operates in any industry; moreover, leaders must understand the importance of the mobile app trend. Mobile Growth Vancouver, powered by Branch, invites the mobile experts panel to discuss their perspectives on mobile applications. They will share the essential tools for their businesses. They will share their user acquisition strategies. Furthermore, they will share the best practices for retention and engagement.

The mobile experts panel includes Stuart Congdon, the Product Manager of PayByPhone, Christopher Egan, the Vice President of Product Management for Staples, Christopher Rowntree, the Product Manager of Curatio, and Lauren Bates, the Product Manager of Koho. This presentation will be moderated by Elizabeth Kinsey, the Director of Branch. PayByPhone is a solution to make parking less painful in Vancouver. Staples uses mobile strategy to optimize customer experience for long term growth. Curatio creates a social health platform to connect peers together. Koho is a FinTech company that helps people organize their personal finance.

Discussion with the mobile experts panel

When the moderator asks the panel what animal would their mobile app represents, Rowntree shares Curatio mobile app is like a baby giraffe. It is still a startup, but it is trying to put one foot in front of another. Bates believes Koho mobile app is like a salmon. It is trying to swim upstream every day in every industry. Congdon believes PayByPhone mobile app is like a dog on a skateboard. There is no worry because it takes any situation to painless. Lastly, Egan believes Staples mobile app is like a chameleon. It targets the specific needs and works with other channels.

When it comes to the initial mobile campaign, Egan shares the story of PNI Media acquisition. When PNI Media got acquired by Staples, Egan did the “Mad dash” strategy. The sales were sky high with the new sales injection. The cart flow increased and they managed to disrupt the market with the right timing. Congdon mentions PayByPhone had the opportunity to work along with the rise of Apple Watch. Apple was leading the market and PayByPhone received good publicity. The problem was even though many cities were aware of PayByPhone, they need to go through city by city to win other existing market. There was a spike in brand recognition, but in reality, transactions were still low. Bates shares during the public launch of Koho, Apple noticed the movement. Koho received great press. However, the problem is that opportunity was risk for Koho since it overwhelmed Koho’s existing deadlines. The CEO of Curatio was on Dragon’s Den. The exposure allowed Curatio to realize the current platform was very limited. Curatio needed to open up more community with meaningful connections. However, Curatio was struggling with retention rate. The lesson for Curatio was that they should have make it more specific group instead.

There are many great online tools to manage teams and leadership. Congdon and Rowntree both suggest Slack, and the company has already integrated fully with this application. It is easy to share and it has screen sharing ability, which improves team responses. Bates suggests Intercom and Typeform. Intercom makes marketing easy and Typeform provides great engagement through simple survey. Rowntree suggests ProdPad. It is a product management system that collects user feedback and covert the idea into roadmap. Egan suggests FullStory. It monitors user engagement. To help users discover mobile apps, Rowntree suggests Branch. It welcomes users into the community right away, and it helps companies to discover where users spend most of their time.

To maximize the conversion rate, Bates emphasizes 3 keys.

1. Make it clear of what benefits are in the app
2. Minimize the effort for users to get onboard
3. Provide instant user experience by avoid any delay of notification

Based on statistic, most downloads happen during the weekend due to less stress. Congdon believes it is important not to give too much during the registration. By producing simple steps, it can retain massive attentions from users. For Staples, they still focus on the web based strategy. In order to fight the internal battles and to stay on top, Egan must build the bridge with the big corporation with meaningful dialogue. Everything links to interaction, and since the barrier is now broken, users are looking to see transparency.

Egan believes companies need to use the same KPI on desktop and mobile. They need to identify and measure the behavior between both platforms. It is a great way to see the missing links. There are many simple strategies to engage with users. Rowntree recommends leaders not to send email immediately after users download the app. The key is to capture the journey of the application experience, not creating distraction. Bates emphasizes there is a fine line between push notification and in-app notification. Push notification happens when it involves with important action, yet in-app notification is mostly for feedback and personal connection. Timing is key, and Congdon believes by understanding what users’ primary goals, users will appreciate the notification instead of thinking of it as interruption. Egan mentions leaders can analyze user’s history to create individual experience.

As the role of product, there are tools available to help leaders learn why people are behaving in certain ways. Bates wants leaders to setup tracking to analyze user’s behaviors. It also allows leaders to get feedback quickly. When users are leaving, it gives leader critical information. Typically, there are 2 kinds of user experience: in-app experience and product experience. For PayByPhone, users will engage experience when they find parking, when they choose to use the app, and while they park. PayByPhone needs to meet city’s regulation. By working with the city, it creates compliance, which is another user experience. Congdon believes by looking through the lens of mobile app, users are able to understand the city’s obligation and limitation. Egan wants leaders to remember that mobile app is integrating even heavier in the future.

Question and Answers

When mobile app releases new feature, the panel believes the ability of care and attention is important. Leaders need to start testing as soon as possible. Just to name a few, there are internal testing, technical testing, and even VIP beta testing. They need to keep their eyes on the aftermath.

When machine learning involves with mobile app, there is an expectation of how user actions facilitate user experience. Users are looking for recommendation from other users. Machine learning allows mobile app to make things quicker. It can provide leverage and streamline the complexity of current procedure.

Rowntree advices leaders to get themselves into users’ shoes. Bates advices leaders not to underestimate the great value of support groups in mobile app. Congdon advices leaders to everyone. A majority of users are quiet. When leaders discover what is important to a user, they are able to capture their attention and bring out the best from them. Lastly, Egan advices leaders never let perfection get to them. Leaders need to learn to take risks.