Users nowadays install a lot of apps; most of which are in social media, messaging, and game categories. Setting aside the popularities, lots of apps are being installed every second and that is a good thing for app owners and developers because chances are high their app will be installed on a handful of devices. However, there are downsides to it, that people are unconsciously installing apps and will delete them after a short while or never use them again. Let’s be realistic: there is no way — enough time and memory storage — to use all the apps that are developed around the world!
Taking all of this into account, you as an app owner need to make sure your app is one user do keep on their phones, interact with, and buy from.
Reasons Behind App Uninstalls
Before doing anything, you need to understand why this — users uninstalling your app — is happening. Is it because your app isn’t what they expected it to be? Or is it because rivals are doing much better than you?n
App uninstalls are primarily caused due to user dissatisfaction with the utility of the app, the credence of the app, or the performance of the app. Some of which are described hereunder.
Tedious Sign-Up Process:
A long sign-up process is what throws most users out of the app. The app should have a quick and easy signup process. To simplify things, apps can allow login using Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts.
Too Many Permissions:
Privacy is a major concern of people when installing new apps, and they quit apps that ask for too many permissions. To avoid this, apps should not ask for permissions that are not relevant to what they offer.
Storage Availability:
App uninstalls happen when users find it’s not worth the memory it’s holding, and they need free space on the phone memory.
Data Usage:
If an app is guilty of eating up too much data then the chances of uninstallations are very high, because users don’t like to misuse their expensive purchased data. However, this is not always true if the app offers something special. For example, Instagram uses a huge amount of data but is widely used.
Battery Usage:
If an app happens to cause rapid battery drain, the chances of it being uninstalled are pretty high. A huge number of app uninstalls happen because of this issue.
Messing with the Phone:
Users might uninstall an app if they notice a sudden spike in the number of times the phone freezes or hangs after they have installed or opened the very app.
Irrelevant Notifications:
Apps that send too many push notifications end up annoying the users and lead them to uninstall the app; especially if the notifications are not relevant.
Installed a Competitor’s App:
There are multiple apps for anything and everything. If a user has installed a new app that has similar functions with better values, they will probably no longer keep the former app.
Addictiveness or Inactiveness:
Users often find themselves addicted to some apps, and when realizing that they are spending way too much time on a certain app they uninstall it. Uninstalling an addictive app is a trick to get rid of the addiction.
On the contrary, if users haven’t used an app for a while, they might not need it anymore and tend to uninstall it.
Being useful no more:
Sometimes users install an app to get something in return. Businesses run campaigns that are only valid through apps or give out promotional codes only in their apps. Users will install apps in order to use these promotions, but uninstall them after they get what they have been looking for.
Quick Churn
The term “churn” refers to when customers stop using your product or service. This may happen by uninstalling your app or unsubscribing from what you offer. Churn can happen voluntarily or involuntarily; but either way, it will hurt your business.n
In this case, “quick churns” are the worst. This term means that users uninstall the app almost immediately after they install and use it. Quick churns may be a result of bad onboarding within the app. If it is hard and frustrating to figure out how to use an app after installing it, then they will instantly remove it from their device. It will also happen when users are not sure about what they are opting for and decide to opt-out of it when they find out the app is not what they were looking for.
Low quality installs
Have you ever used advertising agencies as a mediator to get you more installs for your app? Right after you run these campaigns, everything seems perfectly fine and the number of installations for your app will boost. After a short while, you might notice that the churn rate is constantly growing and you are losing a lot of your users.
If you have seen this, you might reconsider spending money on advertising agencies to get more installs. The agencies are only interested in your money and want to get it from you as much as possible. Hence, they will promote you through channels that are not good for your business and can only get you fake users.n
We also mentioned in the “Reasons behind uninstallations” part of this article that when an app is only useful for a short time, people tend to uninstall it when they don’t need it anymore. If a business is running a campaign with promo codes or special offers within the app, they will get installations in the first place, but will also lose most of it after the campaign ends, because users no longer see a value in keeping the app.n
All of these installs are considered low quality and will result in quick churns.
How to calculate user retention
What should you do to keep your users?
If you have invested a lot of resources and energy in getting new users, and you think they are going to leave your app in the near future, you should obviously do something about it. A large number of app uninstalls mean a waste of time and resources for you, and it is not good. But what should you do?
Personalize your marketing campaigns
Try to become more relevant to users. Personalizing marketing campaigns is one way to do that. The more you seem to care about the users, the more likely they become to stick to your app.
If your customer base is not very big, or you have a specific segment you wish to retain, you can reach them individually and take care of their needs. Make them feel important and they will be loyal to you.
However, if the number of your customers is big, you can’t contact each one of them individually. This is where smart messaging comes in. Hengam is a great choice for sending the right message to your users through push notifications. With its churn prediction and smart learning about the users, it will prevent your users from uninstalling your app before it’s too late!
Another perk of having better marketing campaigns is that you can increase the chances that your installs are of high quality, people are coming through the right channels and they will probably stick to your app.
Think of your users as your friends
It is all about loyalty. Remember that your users are what keeps your business alive and going, and you need to do everything that is possible to keep them that way.
Let your users feel appreciated for using your app by giving them special offers and suggestions due to their behavior.
Customer support is something else that also fits into this category. Unhappy users are a part of your business and you need to know how to respond to them in the right manner. Talk to them; figure out what their problem is, and if it is reasonable or not. If there is a problem with your product or service and the user is right, you need to be understanding and help them out; letting them know they can reach out to you whenever something else comes up.
And of course, in cases that the users are not being reasonable about what they want, you need to respond as politely as possible, explaining what you can and cannot do. Bad customer service is what drives a lot of users away, and you don’t want to have it.
Communicate through different stages of using your app
Walk together with the users as they go through your app. Send them relevant messages when specific milestones are reached; for example, when they install and sign up, or when they take an action within the app. Let them know they are not alone while they’re figuring out what to do with your product. If it is really hard to figure out what your app does and how it works, chances are users will uninstall it in a short while, and by helping them during this process you can decrease the risks of uninstallations. You can also share posts on your social media accounts about tips on your app from time to time.
Use tools that are just made for this purpose
You might be tired of putting all your resources and energy into keeping the users you have acquired. If you are a marketer or a product person, you must have other tasks and responsibilities to take care of and you need to find a balance between your tasks. Well, the good news is that there are tools that can help you with everything we just mentioned.
Thanks to the galloping rate at which technology is developing, you have many different options and can do a lot of these tasks automatically in the smartest way possible. Adjust is one tool that helps with retargeting users based on the segmentation it has made on your users. You can also use the marketing automation tool, localytics, or a personalization tool like moengage, to decrease your workload and improve the results.
However, most of these automated tools are very expensive and not reasonable for small or medium businesses to purchase. Hengam is an affordable product that segments your app users based on their behavior and tries to keep them engaged automatically with smart push notifications. The coolest thing about Hengam is that it predicts whether users are at risk of leaving your product and uninstalling the app, and how high that risk is. Based on that prediction, users are prioritized and approached automatically. It prevents them from detaching from your product right in time, with minimum costs.
All in all, less churn means more revenue for your business. Reduce churn among users, especially the paying ones, and you’ll be rewarded with higher revenues, guaranteed. All you need to do is figure out where your weak spots are and what to do to improve them. Take a look again at the first part of this article and start working on keeping your users right now!
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