The super app is a base that integrates multiple services providing a complete ecosystem of services tailored to users’ daily lifestyle demands. For entrepreneurs, it is a huge opportunity to target customers with multiple facilities and leverage them for convenience and smart services. This blog is about the pros and cons of multi-service apps essential to know before investing any penny in them.
Let’s start from the start.
Earlier, Nokia 6110 launched an inbuilt application for basic arcade games. Then comes the iPhone and App store with over 500 applications. Then comes Google Play, the Amazon App Store, and Blackberry’s App World also provides more people the capacity to relish numerous apps on their devices. Afterward, with time applications were not just used for entertainment but also for convenience, adding it to their lifestyle. Some of the categories are productive apps, on-demand apps, news apps, and a few more.
Each application offers a single value to the users. And then comes the concept of a multi-service application, which serves customers for multiple purposes within a single app. And that is what is going on now. Many businesses are taking a step ahead with the current multi-service app trends reaching out to a huge customer base and planning to stay ahead of the game.
This is how the evolution of applications has happened to serve convenience, upgrade lifestyles and utilize technologies at max. Multi-service apps, also popularly known as super apps, were the concept first ever initiated in China and then in many other parts of the world, like Southeast Asia. And now, it is a concept that targets many parts of the globe.
Without delaying any more, let’s jump into our topic to discuss the pros and cons of multi-service apps.
The Pros of Multi-service Apps
Multi-service apps came into the real world to actually solve problems faced by customers, which is to minimize the usage of phone storage using multiple apps for multiple purposes.
Also, there were market conditions that helped multi-service apps or super apps to succeed. These are
- Mobile First
- No existing incumbents
- Aspirations for better lives
To get a close look at the market condition, check out the Foolproof report, which thoroughly explains the points mentioned above.
Besides, there are customer-centric advantages a multi-service application, in general, offers. A few of these are mentioned here.
Convenience
It offers convenience in offering the customers multiple services.
- To get served for multiple purposes in one place.
- Saves their phone storage eliminating the need to get multiple apps.
- Gives multiple choices to choose service providers.
- Multiple payment methods, and many more.
- It also offers convenience to the entrepreneurs of a business
- Managing multiple verticals of business in one platform
- Handling customers of multiple interests within one platform
- And so, like the payments from all the verticals
- Get real-time status of all the business tasks operating within one platform.
Time-Saving
For customers
- Eliminates the time of decision-making to search multiple services.
- Saves time for the customers to pay within one platform for all their services
For entrepreneurs
- It saves time for entrepreneurs to build an application for multiple purposes instead of single apps for each.
- Reaching huge customers becomes easier and saves time from multi-service apps.
- Saves time to market separately for each service.
- Managing the tedious tasks of multiple services businesses under one roof.
Cost-effective
- It is definitely a cost-effective solution for entrepreneurs saving costs like
- Developing a separate app for each vertical
- Time to market and acquire customers.
- Analyzing profits for each business
- Scale separately for new vertical
The Cons of Multi-service Apps
Quality Control
- Maintaining the quality of the multi-service application becomes a tricky task as the business admin has to deal with the various service providers and partners for coordination.
- Quality of the application, including the UI UX of the multi-service app and technical support for customers and partners, working flow, accuracy, and relevancy of the functions.
- Quality of the payment systems for the entire business, which includes customers, partners, and service providers, so as to make and ensure a transparent and reliable platform.
Risks in Security
Multiservices applications are more vulnerable to security breaches than single services applications, and this is due to the multiple entry points for attackers.
Mainatince of Applications
Making updates to the application with multiple services is, again, a tedious task; it makes it harder to make the new updates compatible with the entire workflow of the application. Maintaining multiple service features becomes even more tedious. One update affects all other tasks.
Challenge in Scaling
Same as with updating and maintaining the application is a challenge to scale one service will require more tasks and resources than another, and this overall causes problems in performance and user experience.
Besides, there are many drawbacks to developing and launching and making against the business through multi-service applications like high cost, deployment, operational complexity, hardware utilization, and many more.
However, every business has pros and cons. All the mentioned above applications can be sorted and overcome with resourceful and strategic planning, staying ahead of the problems, and being prepared to minimize the impact of these drawbacks.
Key Elements Of Multi-service Application
Business offering multi-service apps has to ensure definitely being a super for the customers. It has to take into account all the characteristics of users and their problems and solve them efficiently. That would require following trends, reliability, and constant presence.
Inclusiveness
Being a multi-service application, the customer will have multiple dependencies on the App. So it is necessary to maintain the availability of the application effectively and eliminate the boundaries of the digital and physical world.
Social Responsibility
While offering multiple services, a business is trying to change a customer’s lifestyle, acquiring most of the dependency, so it is their responsibility on they are changing. Taking care of the services that cause good social causes. It would help your customers be satisfied to get services.
Data Security
Data breaches happen every now and then. And ensuing data security of the customers when they trust the business. It is very important to approach confidentiality with the utmost responsibility in order to prevent fraud and other attacks by intruders on the users’ privacy.
Conclusion
Multi-service apps are a revolution for the world and the app development industry. And it seems to be the future. Businesses require to jump into this category of business model with entire awareness of the pros and cons of multi-service apps. Some of them are mentioned in the blog. The drawbacks can be overcome when there is strategic planning with the
If you are an entrepreneur looking for a technology partner to build a multi-service platform, we, Elluminati, offer the finest platform to launch in any region around the world. It is built with the latest tech stack and all advanced functionings.
