Originally published June 22, 2019 , updated on May 31, 2023

As a mobile app maker, if this question hasn’t crossed your mind from time to time, it really should:

Am I doing everything in my power to keep my customers engaged and happy, all while leaving them with a positive and memorable experience?

If you’re wondering why user happiness ranks above all other metrics, it’s as simple as this – if your users are happy with your app, they will engage more, convert more and spend more. They will talk about your app to friends and family, forgive the occasional technical glitch and most importantly, these happy app users are going to be the ones who become loyal customers. Let’s unpack some of the ways that you can ensure your app users are happy with your app.

Make Onboarding Painless

First things first – users downloaded your app for a reason. Help them address that reason as quickly as you can. Onboarding is a crucial process for app developers to get right: no bugs, no crashes, no usability problems allowed. The faster they get to using your app and fulfilling their needs, the better .

If they are there to play a game, then don’t have a billion pop up screens telling them about your other apps. Skip the upselling get the game started right away. Get to the point quickly, and first finish the primary task they downloaded your app for. All the other chores like logging in, creating an account and learning the new features can be done later.

Check the Metrics to Boost App Users’ Happiness

One of the easiest ways to check that your onboarding process isn’t sending users away is to check the action cohorts tool, a visual that shows the relationship between one event in the app and another. By setting a filter to see how many users signed up for the app and then went on to complete a purchase in the same week, you can really measure happiness.

You can also keep an eye on app sessions, which will show the level of session user engagement. Keep in mind though, a shorter session duration does not necessarily have to mean a bad app. If the user got what they were looking for in your app fast, it can actually be a good thing.

Ask with Intent

When formulating survey questions, don’t ask about features that you don’t actually plan to develop for the app. That will just let the app user down as they will be expecting you to activate this feature in the future. Ask questions with intent, with the end goal being to improve the end-users experience.

Short and Sweet Surveys for Better App Users’ Satisfaction

When surveying consumers on if they like an app, remember they don’t want to be given the 3rd degree. Get to the point with short precise questions, such as: Do you like this x and y feature? If the app is more complicated in terms of functionality, then in the next session on the app, ask another question, like: “Would you recommend this app to a friend?”

Reward Participants

There may be times where app users are not opting in to give you feedback. You could give them a nudge by offering incentives like a month free of the premium version of your app, or extra credits or points that can spend in-app.

Customer Service is Key to Increase App Users’ Happiness

It is vital to make your support team easily accessible to the users at all times. Live chat, phone support, whatever means available to chat to consumers, just be there when the users need you.

Many consumers will uninstall an app that provides no support or is slow in replying to user queries. In online spaces like social media, public forums and app store reviews, how well you interact with a user will establish your persona with every other user who sees it. Answer questions, resolve problems and offer solutions promptly to make users happy. A mobile app with tons of poor reviews and dead silence from the developer spells trouble.

Another way to improve customer service is to create a community who can chat to each other or even solve each other’s queries within the app. By creating a community for your target market within the app, you can listen to your customers and then deliver.

Make Sure the App is Working at All Times

This is the most obvious way to increase the app users happiness – making doubly sure that the app works flawlessly. Make sure it is up to speed, loads up quick, no bugs and crashes. If you secure all ends and get the work done, your users will stay happy. Besides the obvious workings of the app, keep content short and sweet, and avoid practices that make reading on a small screen harder to do, such as columns of text or lengths of text that involve a lot of thumb scrolling.

Happy users make for successful mobile apps, which is why it is of paramount importance to make sure that above all the dozens of KPIs you manage, user happiness remains your core focus. Use the above guides to effectively measure and increase your users’ happiness and keep your app thriving in what is always going to be a competitive space.

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