What business challenge were you trying to address with Bizness Apps?
We have used Bizness Apps for various niches, from restaurants to hair salons. We have started to focus on the heating-and-air contracting world, which makes up the majority of our current customers.
What is the ideal business use for Bizness Apps? What sort of project might not be a good fit?
With any home service provider, the challenge is not only getting leads but hanging on to them after the sale. By default, we built in rewards programs and physical coupons, and use the review builder from Bizness Apps’ marketplace in order to help dealers get Google Reviews from customers. Reviews are somewhat of a difficult thing to obtain from customers. There are different software packages which can help the process, but, at the end of the day, the customer needs to be authenticated with a login. People usually delete emails asking for reviews, so, presenting the customer with a tool at their home when they’re at their happiest, right after the contractor has finished being the hero, is hugely beneficial.
The apps are downloaded and used both by customers and the service providers. It’s important for a technician to have the app on their phone so that they can demonstrate its functionality, but we also coach them on different processes for getting customers to install the apps as well. Not everyone will, but this is the nature of mobile apps. Of those that do, they appreciate the ability to get value from coupons, discounts and so on.
The focus is to get the customer to install the app on their own device, since it enables the contractor to stay connected to them through push notifications and other things throughout the year, versus just being stuck wondering if the customer will ever call back for future service.
How did you come to choose Bizness Apps?
I’ve been using Bizness Apps since the beginning of the service. I was introduced to them by a friend around four years ago. I also investigated the prospect of mobile apps in general and decided if I wanted to make this a part of my company. I knew that there were many different tools on the market, but I didn’t want to get bogged down with 15 different choices, so I just went with Bizness Apps. They’ve been great.
What cost factors should be considered when using Bizness Apps?
Cost is a factor no matter what we’re choosing. It depends on the model of the business, but I’ve found Bizness Apps to be very economical. They provide a ton of value for what we have to pay every month, and there are different plans available for different volumes. As we grew as a company and added more apps, coming to around 96 in the marketplace at this time, our subscription changed accordingly. We have quite a big profit margin with the customer base, so I’m very happy.
My understanding is that there are different levels for resellers. I was part of Bizness Apps’ entry plan, out of which I received a set number of apps. As I installed more, I graduated to a bigger program, which made the cost-per-app even lower.
Paying one year in advance also provides a couple of months free, bringing the app cost down to around $5 or $6 per month. I haven’t done this, but there are still different programs.