You might be wondering why the offline mode is important in mobile business applications, apart from allowing customers to access your app without the internet?
Well, there’s so much more to it.
Here’s a list of reasons why you must build business applications that work offline.
1. Get A Competitive Edge
There are various factors based on which users select one app over the other – functionality, performance, UI, and UX.
With millions of mobile applications available, there’s no scarcity of sufficient mobile apps. Many apps with similar features like – Telegram and WhatsApp, Spotify and YouTube Music, or Lyft, and Uber compete for user’s preference.
Launching an offline applications over the online app or adding an offline feature to it can give you a competitive advantage.
2. Improved Customer Loyalty
Users love mobile apps that work without any delays or difficulties. Adding offline functionality to your business application will make the users more loyal to it because:
- Users can access their data, regardless of an internet connection
- The app becomes faster & loads quickly
- Offline apps are less likely to consume your phone’s battery
3. Saves Mobile Battery Power
Apps with consistent high battery drainage are highly unpopular among users. Users particularly face battery drainage of their phones with prolonged network connection, say while traveling.
Offline business and compatible applications with a fast loading speed, and efficient data storage management, result in the phone’s battery saving. It is quite helpful when the user isn’t sure when they’ll find a place to charge their phone.
4. No Roaming Expenses
Some apps need massive data and you can only get access with a data plan. Users get a roaming data plan while traveling in other countries or states and is expensive.
An offline feature in your app can save you money and data at the same time.
Offline Mode in Business Applications: Typical Use Cases
Even if you want it, Internet access is not ubiquitous. All of us can relate to the frustration of being offline.
When you design a mobile app for your business that will work without the Internet, you will be choosing exactly where and when your app will be used.
But there are many instances where your users won’t have Internet connectivity.
- Imagine you’re traveling to a new country, and you can’t afford the data plan there.
- Don’t want to pay for Wi-Fi while on the flight.
- Currently on a trip to a remote destination with friends.
- On the road traveling, and there are certain areas where the connectivity is poor.
Let us check some typical scenarios where offline mode in business applications may be essential
1. On-demand Delivery
A delivery guy loses connection while on his way to a customer’s location. Even if he knows his way, he has no way to report back to the employer or to communicate with the client in case:
- He can’t find his way into the apartment building.
- The driver is sitting in traffic and is late.
But, with an offline mode, the delivery guy updates the order form – “I’ll be there in 10 minutes”. The driver ca continue his way with updates sent automatically once a proper connection is re-established.
2. Online Cash Transfers
Imagine a customer wanting to pay for a service order done on site. And you’re in a building with a poor connection.
What will you do about it? Will you go all the way out just to make the transaction requested or let the customer wait until circumstances will eventually let the customer forego the payment?
With the offline mode, you will enter all the transaction details and make payments and generate invoices faster. The application will start completing an actual transaction when a connection is re-established.
3. E-commerce
Suppose you have a supermarket shopping app that you are trying to use in the basement of a friend’s house, where the Wi-Fi signals are intermittent.
With a traditional online app, filling the cart requires the app to go back and forth to the server at regular intervals, but it’s slow and frustrating because of the poor connection.
With the offline first, content (directory of the supermarket products) of the app is moving to the app. It speeds up your shopping experience. You can make start paying and schedule the delivery once your connection is re-established.
4. File Uploads
File uploads do not stop entirely in the offline mode. In using an offline app, file uploads are queueing-up when there is no connectivity. The file uploading will automatically resume as soon as it finds the connection.
5. News Portals
Commuting time provides many of us the perfect time to catch up on the stories of the day with our favorite News App.
With unreliable connectivity, the content available will be dated from the time we were last online. The offline version will not play any videos or share content.
Get Mobile Business Applications That Work Offline
URDesigns’ Business Applications can work offline no matter where you are. When users enter an area without network services, our business apps still continue to work. The applications will update changes you’ve made once it has re-established connection. This is perfect for companies who send out employees out to site that have choppy internet connection.
Schedule a call with us now to talk about how we can build Business Applications for your company that can work offline.