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Start With a Mobile Form, End With an App

If you think about it, most mobile apps are centered on one feature. We have taxi-apps like Uber, apps that find you coupons like Groupon, even apps to help with your mental well-being like Thinkspace. All of them are positioned on a singular idea – everything else in the mobile app is made to supplement that one idea as much as possible.

When considering a mobile app for your business, the best place to start is usually at the beginning of the work-flow for your particular industry. For most businesses dealing with field-work, this usually entails recording data on a sheet of paper. Once the data is recorded, it gets sent back to the managers, or superintendents, that archive the data in a main computer. This allows them to see the data at a glance, and gives them the chance to see trends and pick up on problem areas using their analytic software.

Mobile forms make all the difference, and with Snappii’s online app builder, you can recreate any paper form into a mobile app that will function on any tablet, smartphone and even desktop. Try out Snappii’s app builder today to see how easy it is.

 

Mobile forms are useful for many different businesses, and many would consider it the first step in constructing your own mobile app. Let’s take a look at why mobile forms are creating such a splash in so many industries.

 

Upload your form first

Creating your first mobile form is relatively easy depending on what form editor you use. For most form editors, they have a drag-and-drop system where you can arrange and rearrange fields on the fly. This makes it a breeze to recreate a form that you may already use, but more importantly it allows you to address areas that could be choke points. Further refinement of your form means improved efficiency – all at the cost of a few minutes of tinkering in the DIY editor.

Snappii also has a feature where you can load your PDF into the mobile app editor and it will automatically generate fields for you. This can be useful to create a bare-bones mobile version of your form that can be further refined to match, or even be better, than the original form. Because the form will look the same, it’s extremely easy to teach other employees how to use it. If they own a smartphone, there’s a good chance that the employee will instinctively know how to operate it. There’s no extra equipment needed either – just download the mobile app on the employee’s phone, create credentials for that employee and they’re good to go.

 

Paper vs Digital

Recording information on paper can be tricky. If the paper gets ruined, the information recorded on it is no longer valid. If it gets lost, there’s no way of recovering it. With paper forms often switching hands many times throughout the day, scenarios like this are bound to happen. But what if we take out the messenger and leave that part up to technology?

By using a mobile form the user can input the information directly into their phone and send it off to their manager without ever having to pick up a pen or paper. The manager receives the report, and can instantly archive it for further review. With built-in analytic tools, mobile forms can be a one-stop shop for all software needs.

Digital forms also have the benefit of utilizing the phones capabilities to further enhance the quality of the form you’re filling out. If you’re an inspector and you’re checking machinery on the jobsite, you can take pictures to show parts that look faulty, or record your voice if your hands are ever too tied up to tap the screen. Mobile forms even give access to geo-location services, which will tell a superintendent where the form was submitted from without the worker knowing they’re being tracked.

And of course, let’s not forget about the money you’ll save from not buying ream after ream of paper every month.

 

 

Having a mobile form grants obvious benefits to the user, but the best feature is its ability to expand to other realms of the app world. Using Snappii’s online mobile app editor, you can take your one-trick-pony mobile form into a full-fledged toolbox of applications and features you would like to use on your jobsite. Transforming your mobile form into an app is as easy as loading your app and clicking on which features you’d like to see – Snappii will handle the rest.

 

Think it’s too easy? That’s the way we planned it. Try it out for yourself and see how a mobile form can level up your business today.

 

 

4 Must-Have Gadgets for Construction Workers

 

Construction worker working at a building site

Construction has come a long way in a short amount of time. What once only involved metal machinery has now evolved into a technological playground, with tools to solve virtually any problem a worker could have.

I’m glad they’ve been leveraging the technology for safety above all else. Construction workers operate huge machinery all day long, with dozens of opportunities to get injured, or worst, get others injured. For workers that work around pedestrians, roadways and other civilians, these tools have quickly become indispensable in their day-to-day. From a manager’s standpoint, gadgets allow them some extra peace of mind while giving them more analytics and statistics than ever before.

We know that a mobile app is a cost-effective way to improve productivity (check out how easy it is here) and keep your workers engaged. So, what else has been coming out in the construction industry that your workers will praise you for?

  1. Solar Power Charger

It’s normally used for camping, but this piece of tech seems like a no-brainer for employees that need to use their smartphones on the job. While it won’t charge everything, a solar powered charger usually has enough juice to repower a USB-connected device a few times over. If workers are frequently using an application that eats up a lot of battery, or if they’re listening to music while their on the job (which we know is more likely) the solar powered charger will make sure they always have enough to finish the job.

They also sell battery operated devices which require to be plugged in every once in a while to recharge the juice. As some construction workers only work at night, this can be a great alternative. It would definitely be better than holding your solar powered charger up to a headlight!

 

  1. Smart Helmets

One of the most futuristic gadgets I could find, the smart helmet is the Google Glasses of hard-hats. Smart Helmets enable the user to have situational awareness outside of the control room. They can track and monitor different aspects of their job, without ever being distracted from something they need to do.

If that didn’t put you into the future enough, the helmet also has a sensor to track temperature just by looking at things. The helmet also passively records the temperatures, so you never have to pull anything out to record it. Thermal vision seems cool enough in movies, but being able to have an excuse to apply it to everyday jobs is awesome.

 

  1. Halo Light

This ultimate safety light watches over you like a guardian angel. The common problem with hard hats was that it is a single-direction light that can only be seen in the dark if the worker is facing the same direction. For construction workers that work on streets, oncoming automobiles may not seem them until it’s too late.

The halo-light works by showering the user in light from every direction. Not only does this enable the user to see what they’re doing, but it allows others to see them – blindingly, might I add. Check this youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYJogj3-hgM) video to see how bright these things are!

 

  1. Smart Clothing

It’s not actually available to the public yet, but I’ve been keeping an eye on responsive clothing as well. Here in New Hampshire, there’s a lot of construction going on year long. Even on those nights right after a snow-storm where temperatures drop to a literally staggering low, you can see workers pushing machines. The smart-vest works by reading the bodies temperature, and regulating the heat between you and your clothing. Even on days where the sun is beating on you, the smart vest will know to allow more air to pass through to cool you down. Likewise, if it’s cold out, it will retain your body heat to warm you up.

 

 

If you’ve been reading up to now, I’ve shown you quite a few neat gadgets. As indispensable as some of them will become to your business, none are going to help you build-up your workflow to be an efficient powerhouse like having a mobile app. Using Snappii’s powerful app editor, you can have an app that will effectively replace all of your paper forms, and add functionality to the smartphone that most of your employees already own.

Try out Snappii today for a free trial, and see why having a mobile app is becoming just as standard as a hardhat.

5 Ways to Improve your Social Media Marketing

With so many outlets to push your business out there, it’s difficult to discern which methods should be focused on.

Truth is, there’s plenty of ways improve your social media presence. Mobile apps, for example, can go a long way in giving your customers a medium to contact you. Being more engaged with your customers can promote a good brand image, and will also give you insight on areas you need to improve.

Snappii makes creating mobiles apps easy with their no-coding DIY app builder that can take an app from idea to your phone in MINUTES. Click here to try it out for free!

That said, there’s other ways to improve your social media marketing. Here’s some of them:

  1. Blogging

Who reads blogs anymore, right?

Well, I guess you do.

Thing is, there’s plenty of ways blogs can help your business even if your audience isn’t reading your blog.

People are going to discover your business in one of a few ways:

  • They could type your name into the browser. But, chances are, if they already know your name, then they’ve already made their decision. They’ll either come, or go, but either way it’s an audience you’ve already captured. On top of that, they’re going to find you using keywords you probably had to pay to get a good position on.
  • They might have seen an ad you put up on the internet somewhere, maybe Google or Youtube. Ads are effective, but the problem lies in that ads are expensive – as soon as you’re out of money, the ads stop working.
  • Word of mouth through blogging and social media

Word of mouth is the hardest to produce, but the most profitable in terms of what you’re getting in return for the amount of effort and money you put in. Blogs provides a means for people to find you. Sure, you might have plenty of information on your website about your business, and that will do something to create traffic. However, Google indexes pages that have not been updated further back in the line. How often are you going to go back and “update” the same pages?

Whenever you add a blog post to your site, it adds another indexed page. Every indexed page has an opportunity to come up on Google when someone types phrases or words that are representative of what’s in the blog. This allows you to sort-of manipulate blog SEO by typing words that aren’t associated too much with your business, allowing you to effectively cross-pollinate your audience with another audience.

It also gives you something to talk about on social media. Blog posts about interesting topics, regardless if it has to do with your business or not, will pick up steam on social media’s largely millennial population. That’s not to say you can write about anything – I’d recommend always doing something pertaining to your business – but it gives you a bit of creative freedom when trying to come up with content.

 

  1. Encourage Customer Feedback

This one can be tricky because it isn’t contingent on you, it’s the people that support you.

One of the most powerful pages on your website is going to be the testimonial page.  Testimonials reveal to people the true nature of your product, and if other people are actually reaping benefits from it.

The problem lies in getting people to believe your testimonials. It’s obvious that a company will always put the people that talk big on their front page, and the lesser known ones will get pushed to the back.

This is where social media comes in. Because the content on social media isn’t not indicative of anyone in the actual company, people can take a more warm-hearted approach to the claims they see people making. With Facebook giving way to things like “Facebook Reviews, and LinkedIn’s similar platform of “LinkedIn Recommendations”, this has been a tried and practiced method of producing traction within your respective community.

Getting people to review your products can be difficult. The most obvious way to illicit this behavior amongst your consumers is to ask, but only if your product is ready for it. A simple email asking them their opinion on the product can kick-start the desire to write a review. However, if your product is less than stellar, it may not be a review you want.

Incentives can go a long way, but producing a product that listens to customer’s qualms and complaints will go even further. Let the product speak for itself – then all you have to do is ask.

 

  1. Pictures

This ties back into social media. Think about the way people use social media like Facebook. They scroll through endless conversations, advertisements and pictures. The only time they stop is when they see something interesting – maybe a friend finally graduated college and there’s a picture of them surrounded by people all throwing up their hat, invoking emotions within yourself to stop and stare for a while.
You need to do the same thing with your products. Pictures can speak volumes about your product in seconds, and social media gives you an outlet for millions to see it. The important thing is to stay relevant. And how do you do that?

 

 

  1. Know your audience

By knowing your audience, you’re able to build around their desires – which consequently is the same direction you should be taking your products (at least most of the time).

John Lee Dumas has talked about identifying your “business avatar”. That is, someone that is the ideal customer for your business. Dumas even goes so far as to name this person, developing a schedule for them and the hobbies they like doing. The better developed your “avatar”, the more you’ll understand your customer.

Something Snappii started doing recently is sending out surveys after we interact with our customers. This only works when you have an established base, but it provides an excellent example of what your audience thinks about when they think of your brand. You can ask really specific questions, like “Do you read our blogs?” to more general ones like “How did you discover us?” Either way, feedback is important and only lends to my first point of knowing your ideal customer.

Hey, do you know an awesome way to capture feedback?

 

  1. Build an app

Mobile apps can enable otherwise silent users to have a voice. By adding widgets like forums and FAQ’s, customers can interact with each other as well as provide direct feedback to you about ways you can improve your product. You can even create a form with survey questions and embed it into the mobile app to force users to complete the survey, but I don’t recommend this. The point is to get purely organic reviews – these will seem the most real and consequently will be the most effective at convincing new customers.

Snappii makes this easy by integrating widgets for every way a customer can contact you. Using our express app builder you can add:

  • Forms
  • Surveys
  • Forums
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Catalogs
  • Chat services
  • The list goes on!

Snappii’s Express App Builder is a DIY platform that allows anyone with zero-coding experience to try their hand at creating an app. Try Snappii out today for FREE and see how easy it is to boost your social marketing presence with a mobile app designed for your business.

 

Building a simple mobile app in Snappii’s Express Mode

Snappii prides itself on having one of the leading app builders on the market. Over the years, we’ve helped a lot of people realize their dream app and we’ve helped them bring that concept into reality. Through it all, we’ve learned a lot about how to make our mobile app builder more efficient, intuitive and all-around fun.

Although Snappi’s Express app builder is one of the easiest on the market, we know the prospect of building an app could seem impossible to some people. Especially when the average price for coding an app by hiring developers can easily reach 6-digits, it almost seems weird that Snappii can offer a similar product at such a low price.

Today, I’m going to take you on a step-by-step of how to make your own app. I won’t go into too much detail, but this will give you a foundation  of how to work our editor to make magic.

Create an account, then create an app

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Apps are going to automatically save to the account you use to sign into Snappii. Because
all of our data is cloud based, or saved to your account, you will never lose your data. Even if you upgrade phones later on down the line, the process to get it working on your new device will be seamless.

Form, Express or Guru

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After clicking on “create an app”, the following screen will ask how you to build your app. I’ll go over the differences in a little more detail:

  • Express Form Builder – Used for users who only want to build a form and are not interested in building an app (yet!). This editor looks slightly different in that it doesn’t give you the opportunity to add widgets (which we’ll discuss later). Perfect for someone that is trying to make an app based off a paper form. If the only thing you need in your app is a couple of forms, this is the way to go.
  • Express App Builder – Express mode is our easy app builder. Express allows you to simply drag and drop elements you would like to see in your app, and Snappii will take care of the back end stuff. Express mode gives you access to templates, which are pre-made apps made for each industry. There’s a good chance that you’ll find exactly what you need in the templates, and then you can continue building from there.
  • Guru App Builder – Guru is for the experts. Guru has everything that the previous two avenues had, but gives you the freedom to customize literally ANYTHING within the app. If you have a line of JS or HTML that you want to add, Guru will help you do it. From placement to users, Guru has it all, but we don’t recommend it to someone building their app for the first time.

For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to stick to Express mode. Feel free to experiment though!

Apps built in Express Form Builder can be taken to an app builder. If you find that building a form was pretty easy and you want to have a go at making your own app, it’s as easy as going into your profile and clicking edit on the mobile app you want to work with:

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For the purposes of this blog, we’re going to stick to Express Mode

Pick a template – any template.

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You don’t really have to pick one. But it does make things a lot easier. Templates will have pre-made forms and fields that have to do with your industry ready to go. Click the drop-down to see all of the industries we work with, or you can type into the box what you’re looking for and Snappii will check the catalog to see if we have something that meets your needs.

If it doesn’t look cool, it’s no good.

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Snappii has a lot of color schemes to work with. Viewing them on this screen will give you an overview of what we have, but if nothing satisfies you then I’ll show you a way to change the colors yourself a little later. This is crucial if you want to make the app look like it came from your business – try to match your colors to your brand!

Snappii’s Express Editor

Welcome! You made it to the fun part of the mobile app editor. You’ll probably spend most of your time here, but it’s only because we have a bunch of options to customize the app exactly how you want it.

In a later blog, I’ll go over every specific setting inside the Editor. For now though, I want to stick to the ones that are going to help you actually get the app finished – remember you can always go back and edit the app whenever you want.

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  1. Viewing Mode
  • Preview mode is the default setting in which you will see the app as you are constructing. This is not how it will appear on the phone, but it makes things a bit easier to edit.
  • By clicking HTML 5, it will show you exactly how it appears on your phone, and it also allows you to interact with the phone on the screen as if it were a real phone. This feature is still being developed, so it might not work with every widget. Regardless, it’s useful to see how your work will appear on the final product.

2. App Settings

  • App settings has some important stuff, such as editing your visual style or your payment settings. It also gives you a date for your trial period, and the opportunity to change the name of your app.5-2
  • Visual Style is the most important feature here. Remember how I said you could customize the color scheme? Visual Style will also let you adjust where your navigation bar goes. Most modern apps have side navigation, but chose whatever works better for your business.app layouts

3. Widget Settings

  • Depends on what your app entails, you may or may not need to mess with your widget settings. Each of these are extremely different from the other, so showing examples won’t be much help. However, we do have a widget FAQ with plenty of information on each widget.

4. New Widget

  • This is the bread and butter of your app. Widgets are the features you would like your app to have – and Snappii has a lot of them. If you’ve seen it in an app somewhere, we probably have it in our widget catalog.

Clicking “add widget” will open this dialog.6

For the sake of our demo, I’m going to add “PDF View and Annotate”, one of our more popular widgets.

What now?

Now that your app is where you want it to be, there’s only a few steps left to complete it. Remember, you can always go back and edit anything you don’t like, so don’t worry too much about having a perfect app just yet.

Under the main part of the editor, you’ll see a few options.

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Save and Run on device

  • This is where you’ll click when you’re ready to try the app out on your phone. Note that the builder does not automatically save at any point, so you’ll want to click here every once in a while to make sure your progress doesn’t get lost in case of an outage.
  • You’ll also use this button after you’ve downloaded the Preview app. This will be how you refresh your changes after you make them – I’ll explain more in a bit.

Invite Users

  • Snappii makes it easy to invite your coworkers or friends to try out an app you built. Click on the ‘invite user’ button, and this dialog will appear:invite 1
  • Type in as many users as you want in the “add email” box towards the top of the pop-up. Then when you’re ready, click ‘invite’ towards the bottom:invite 2

Publish

  • When you’re satisfied enough to push your app out into the public world, the Publish button is next. Snappii’s streamlined the publishing process as much as possible. To view the FAQ, click here.

Snappii’s Preview App

Until your app is ready to be published, Snappii’s preview app will be the tool you use to test how your app looks and feels on your phone.

Downloading the preview app is easy, and you only have to do it once. The method I illustrate here only pertains to Android, but the process is similar on iOS after you download the preview app from the store.

  1. Enter the Google Play store and type in “Snappii Preview App” in the search bar.9
  2. Click Install to download the Snappii Preview app10
  3. This parts important! Use the same Login you used to create your app to login to the preview app.11
  4. Select your app from the list that populates the screen.12
  5. Presto! You’re now using your own app!13

NOTE: If you make a change to the app in the editor, you must go back to the app selection screen and refresh (swipe down) for the changes to take effect. After refreshing, click back into your app and you should be good to go!

 

Snappii’s been hard at work to make the most complete, robust and easiest system to create and deploy your own app. We have developers and support working (almost) around the clock to provide you the best service ever, and to help you materialize the app of your dreams.  Whether you’re a small business just trying to build a local following, or a huge firm that is trying to reduce their paperwork, mobile apps have become the flagship for efficiency, and we want to put that power in everyone’s hands.

Try Snappii’s app builder today with a FREE 14-Day trial, and see why building your own app could be the best thing you’ve done for your business.

 

Use Mobile Forms to Improve Efficiency

You want your business to run as smooth as possible.

With things like emails, push notifications and Skype, it’s easy to see how technology can help a business run more fluidly. Communication is key.

To speed up communication, businesses developed forms. Someone goes out and finds the data to fill into their paper form, sends it to someone else to enter it into a computer, the data gets analyzed by specialist. Inspection companies rely on their workers to go out and record data, submitting it at the end of the day to the boss. Pharmacies capture patient data when prescribing medication to make things easier for repeat customers. Forms can be found in almost any business.

 

Going from paper to mobile.

Forms that can be used on your smartphone (or mobile forms) were reserved for the top businesses that could afford them. Over the past few years, though, online form editors have become popular. Now, converting that paper form into a button on your smartphone is easy and cost-effective.

Picture your workers accessing their forms like this: They pull their company app up on their phone. They can search for the exact form needed for the job, fill it out directly from their phone and send it to any email. No paper or pens, no exchanging of papers. Supervisors won’t have to go shuffling through a mess of paper, and employees don’t have to carry anything other than their cellphone.

 

What else can mobile forms do?

Forms don’t all have to be about questions and numbers. With robust online editors, like Snappii, you can take your form from useful, to essential. Features you can add to your forms include:

  • File-upload
  • Record Video and Audio
  • Barcode Scanners
  • Geo-tracking, which allows you to track where your employees submitted the form.

Snappii is so easy to use, it’s fun. Creating mobile forms is as easy as snapping tiles together and changing a few parameters, like the whether you want last name first or first name last. Snappii even has a catalog of popular forms for nearly any industry. Within minutes, Snappii can have your custom form on your smartphone and fully functional (click here for a free 14-day trial).

Try it out today, and see why Snappii is the leader in mobile forms.

Push Notifications vs. Emails: Not Better, Just Different

Customers want to be a part of your business. In our modern day techno-bubble, there’s a lot of ways they can do that. They’ll follow you on Facebook and Twitter.  They sign up for newsletters and emailed alerts whenever your business does something new. They may also give you their number when they want instant updates on certain products. It gives them a means to stay connected with your business, even when they aren’t shopping with you.

Push notifications work in a similar way – they’re a tool used to inform people. Through your mobile business app, you can send push notifications at the press of a button. When a customer receives a push notification, it comes up as pop-up that almost looks like a text.

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Publishers can send out a push notifications whenever they want – users don’t have to be using their app, or even device, to receive them. This provides a quick way to reach customers, and as certain studies show, is a great way to get customers to act on time-sensitive opportunities (like flash sales).

Around 70% of customers (surveyed by Responsys) found push notifications to be valuable to them. 43% said that they would exclusively use apps with push notifications, meaning just listing it in your description might net a few more downloads. Another study showed that when the message is time sensitive (today only, flash sales), push notifications are preferred over emails. When the message is about something that’s going to happen (future sales and promotions), emails are preferred.

However, using it irresponsibly could just as easily drive customers away. Remember the pop-up epidemic when the internet started? Recognizing when to use emails and when to use push notifications can make or break your mobile marketing campaigns. While emails and text can’t be turned off, most apps allow the flexibility to turn off Push Notifications – we don’t want that!

How do Push Notifications Work?

Every system is a little different, but the foundation is the same. Similar to an email,  you have to come up with a short message that captures user’s attention. Long messages may be a deterrent, but unclear messages will get your push notifications turned off even faster. Having a concise message with a strong call to action will go a long way.

Different mobile app makers have different means of sending out push notifications. Snappii, a mobile app development company, makes this process easy by setting their users up with a dashboard upon completing their app in Snappii’s code-less, visual editor. Within the dashboard, users can easily track analytics, view trends and, of course, send push notifications.

Email marketing can get you far, but as technology continues to evolve, competitors are going to get smarter with how they market to their (and potentially your) audience. Push notifications are just scratching the surface of mobile app capabilities. Mobile apps can offer small business’s a multitude of neat features (like loyalty cards and event calendars).

If your business doesn’t already have an app, check out Snappii’s zero-code, completely visual app editor and start sending your own push notifications to your customers today.

How These Days Mobile Apps Assist Plumbers

How These Days Mobile Apps Assist Plumbers We have entered the era of mobile technology. More and more businesses are considering smartphones as important as another employee. Today, app stores are full of various types of mobile apps for a wide variety of industries and businesses. In today’s post, we will pay special attention to mobile apps for plumbers.

Apps as a channel of convenient contact with consumers

Plumbers and plumbing contractors understand that staying efficient and profitable means they must embrace modern mobile technology. First, mobile apps provide a channel of communication between the service providers and consumers. Using mobile apps, plumbers can locate potential clients and consumers and quickly reach a specialist all with the same tool.

Apps as a powerful tool for work with data

Another useful feature is the daily log. Plumbers can instantly record data from their jobs onto their phone, allowing them to instantly access their library of logs at a moments notice. Specialist can easily access clients information, as well as send it to their boss with just a few swipes and touches on their phone.

Apps as an instant payment system

Mobile apps can even connect consumers to online banking modules. In other words, they can make cashless payments using credit or debit cards. This is also useful for plumber supervisors as they are able to track all payments and store check information right on their smartphone.

Create the best app for your business yourself

Despite the huge number of ready-made business apps in the app stores, it’s difficult for most companies to find the one app that meets all of their specific needs. However, plumbing services’ owners, and even the plumbers, can create powerful mobile apps themselves.

Snappii, an app builder the requires zero coding ability, enables everyday users to create powerful mobile apps. Snappii is a rapid app development company that offers over 400 pre-made apps, and over 100 features that can be changed within them with absolutely no programming. With Snappii, any business can have a mobile solution. Start building yours today.

Mobile Apps Provide New Opportunities for Field Service Businesses

Mobile Apps Provide New Opportunities for Field Service BusinessesAdvanced tools continue to storm the field-service market. Business owners understand that the better communication they have with their clients, the more successful the development of their business. Companies are constantly working for clients who depend on their service, however, the degree of customer’s involvement in the process has changed. In Aberdeen’s State of Service Management 2015 report, “the top initiative to improve customer engagement for the best-in-class is to create a communication strategy that interact with customers on the channels and frequency they want”. Business owners want simplicity, flexibility and on-the go services.

Engage customers through mobile apps

Today mobile apps allow users to always stay in touch while keeping the whole process under review. Field service apps can help customers track the progress of work without the need to call the workers, track the payments with detailed calculations, get instant notifications, and a wide range of other features.

Maintain the workforce

Mobile solutions also provide benefits to the workers themselves. Through real-time access to information, specialists can significantly increase their productivity, speed and quality of work. Field service managers can make real-time analysis and decisions. Also, mobile inspections of equipment and workforce contribute the decrease of maintenance costs, prevention of incidents and improvement of services quality.

Start with Snappii

The range of features are wide. If you don’t know where to start implementation of mobile solutions to your field service business, Snappii can help you. Snappii has a directory of ready-made apps for a variety of industries. If you have any specific needs, our team will be glad to tailor any app for your business.

The uniqueness of Snappii lies in the possibility for anyone to become a real app developer and create powerful apps independently. A codeless platform allows users to choose from the huge collection of templates, tabs, color schemes, etc. and build a unique product with 100% meeting of your needs. Don’t waste time and join Snappii today!

Top 3 Trends of Mobile Apps for Hotels

Top 3 Trends of Mobile Apps for HotelsLike most other industries, mobile technology has become a critical part of hospitality, allowing for fluid service, modern features and passive marketing. According to HT’s 2016 Lodging Technology Study, mobile engagement is one of the top expenditures for hotels in 2016.The sudden interest is no coincidence – mobile apps enables multiple perks for both the end user, and the business owner. With the flexibility of having your business in every smart phone, the mobile phone influence on the hospitality market will be game-changing.

Room Keys Go Mobile

Smartphones can even be used as room keys. After a user checks-in using the businesses mobile app, the virtual key is generated and used on the special sensors found in every hotel room door. Hilton’s “Honers”, an app created for the Hilton hotel line, allows its users to open doors at over 400 hotels. “With the digital key, we are making the guest experience even more seamless through our improved mobile app,” said Geraldine Calpin, senior vice president and global head of Digital, Hilton Worldwide.

Smartphones as a hub for room electronics

Mobile apps can turn every room into a digital playground. Guests can control things such as the TV, lights and sound systems. Or they can turn the air conditioner before they get back to the room after a long day at the beach. Hotels can also save money by eliminating the in-room telephone and enabling guests to use their app to contact the front desk. Some of these solutions can already be found in Hub, an app published by the hotel chain Premier Inn, based in London’s Convent Garden.

Virtual Tours on the go

Virtual reality tours have been increasing in both the housing and automotive industry. When restricted to the scope of a website, though, this technology can be limiting. Hotels can now offer powerful virtual reality tools within their apps that allows guests to visit the hotel from anywhere. With additional tools that allow users to rate certain hotel rooms, a hotel can gain publicity without spending a dime in marketing.

Today’s mobile solutions are an integral part of the hospitality industry. Learn more about mobile apps in the hospitality industry and try to create your own app yourself with Snappii’s codeless platform.

Substantial Transformation in Logistics and Supply Chain Industry

Substantial Transformation in Logistics and Supply Chain IndustryThe logistics and supply chain industry is constantly growing to meet the demands of new technologies. These growing demands cause additional communication issues, and introduce new problems to previously working systems. To complete assignments, companies have begun to branch out into new technologies to improve communication and accuracy. For industries that are constantly on the road, or sizing up the warehouse, mobile apps provide a solution.

Easy and convenient way to manage warehouses

Apps are extremely malleable, and can be created to fit any need. Warehouse management tools allow paperwork to be reduced, or even replaced, by mobile forms that can be printed or emailed right from the device. A user can also check inventory at a glance, without going to a computer or accessing a confusing program. It can also help to reduce human errors with its ease of use, and cut costs generated from paper and supplies. A report from Intermec found that mobile technologies can save logistics and transport companies around $471,400 a year!

Streamlined tracking system

When delivering products, the most important elements are the time, and destination. Apps enable users to track processes in a real-time GPS. It allows managers to communicate with their drivers, and grants the driver remote access to the database. It can streamline every process, creating unforgettable customer experiences.

Instant reporting

Instant access to detailed data provides another layer of accuracy when reporting, aside from the time it saves. Mobile apps allow paper forms to be reduced to a few taps on a touchscreen. Forms can be printed and emailed directly from the device, and will even automatically queue in an offline area. Specialists can even create spots for signatures, attaching photos and hidden location stamps.

Where to begin

The marriage of mobile solutions with the logistics and supply chain industry has created a lot of buzz in the way product and sources are managed, and it has caused significant increases in revenue. Snappii, a codeless mobile app development company, offers to start joining the movement with its ready-made apps (like Warehouse Inventory & Shipment, Invoice Assistant), which are 100% free and available in both iTunes and Google Play. Visit Snappii’s website to find more unique, and affordable, mobile solutions.

How to Create a Killer Design for Your App

How to Create a Killer Design for Your AppA new study from Kitewheel clearly indicates that today mobile apps are the fastest-growing channel of customer outreach and hold great potential for brands in 2016. However, Kitewheel also cautions us by saying that such mobile apps “will require a strong, real-time capability”. Below we discuss additional aspects a mobile app developer needs to consider when designing apps that win customers’ hearts and minds.

Color Scheme

First of all, you should determine what colors will have a beneficial impact on your customers and at the same time be associated with your brand. Next, carefully choose a secondary color, text and background colors, shades and shadows. Remember that color creates hierarchy, so use color shades and hues to help users distinguish between more important and less important elements. Like one fantastic article about designing creative mobile apps demonstrates, “If you make one button black, the next dark grey, and the third light grey, what you are in effect saying is this: “Button one is most important to the visitor, button 2 is less important, and button 3 is least important.”

Generally speaking, numerous online color palette generators like Adobe Color CC greatly assist app developers in this process. That being said, Snappii has created a number of killer ready color solutions themes so that you can make all these decisions in a matter of seconds.

Text

Less text is usually more. Keep it short, clear, and consistent. Make sure your font choices complement the overall design. Ask yourself:

– Can I easily use it on mobile/web?

– Is there a variety of weights?

– Is it legible?

Overall most users cannot tell the difference between Arial, Avenir, Roboto, or Helvetica. That is why as long as your font is clean and easy to read, you have nothing to worry about a more sophisticated font when you’re focusing on brand and less on usability.

App Icon

Icon design is another key factor determining the visibility and, hence, popularity of your app in app stores. First of all, you should make sure it communicates the core essence of your app, clearly conveying the main functions it can perform. Second, it should be beautiful, easily-identifiable, memorable, but not overly complicated. Ideally, it should complement the overall design of the app and the brand. Scalability is another important consideration because the icon should maintain its legibility and clarity in a variety of sizes. Last but not least, try to think what would appeal to your users since their demographic, cultural, and professional characteristics can greatly affect their preferences.

Thanks to modern codeless app development platforms like Snappii’s, today the creation of app is a matter of minutes, not months. Snappii offers a variety of mobile solutions so that you have less to worry about. We hope that the above-mentioned recommendations and resources will further assist you in the process of creating unique and sought after apps.

Free Webinar. How to Convert a Paper Form to a Mobile App in 10 minutes

Free webinar. mobile formsFree Webinar. Thu, May 26, 2016 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT. Join here

Got Paper Forms? Want to go paperless and just use Apps?

Come and learn how to convert Paper Forms to Mobile Apps in literally in minutes

We will do a live step by step demonstration after which you will be able to do this

All attendees to the Webinar will get a FREE help from our Support team to help you build convert your first form into an App!

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Paper forms are

– Expensive to print and ship

– Hard to read

– Require retyping of data into computers. Double entry

– Get lost

– And not cool anymore

Convert Paper Forms to Apps and

– Save money and time

– Collect information instantly

– Delight your customers!

See you on Thursday, May 26th 2PM EDT.

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