Establish a Holistic Guest-Facing Mobile App Strategy
Extend the boundaries of physical and digital through “phygital.”
- A mobile app is a transformative disruptor, especially with the accelerated pace and direction for digital transformation.
- Mobile development is fast paced and is continually evolving and therefore, any pain points in the project will create a domino-effect from employees to guests.
- Your organization doesn’t know where to start when it comes to a mobile program or have tried mobile development with little success.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
A mobile app is key to building an omnichannel hyper-personalized platform business as it becomes the glue that holds the phygital experience together; housing and supporting functionalities and content that serve the entire guest journey ecosystem and your various lines of business on-property and online.
Impact and Result
- Transform organizational objectives into key drivers when selecting and prioritizing mobile app functionalities for your mobile app roadmap.
- Choose the right mobile app deployment approach, taking into consideration business and IT complexities and capabilities.
- Evaluate the mobile app developer landscape to ensure that your organization is prepared for the selection and implementation phase.
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Establish a Holistic Guest-Facing Mobile App Strategy
Extend the boundaries of physical and digital through “phygital.”
Analyst Perspective
View a mobile app as a product rather than a feature.
To truly accomplish the ideal “phygital” mobile app experience, operators must first understand the time and resources required to enable, develop, and maintain a mobile app. Developing a mobile app is like building a house. It requires such organizational objectives as a solid foundation, a design that makes sense, intuitive and user-friendly curb appeal, tight security, and the feeling of "home" (or behavioral intention). Time spent on initial strategy is neglected. This report focuses on Info-Tech’s approach to establishing a holistic guest-facing mobile app strategy for the gaming and hospitality industry.
Monica Pagtalunan
Research Analyst, Gaming & Hospitality Research Center (GHRC)
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary
Your ChallengeA mobile app has become a competitive product as a disruptive technology, especially with the accelerated pace and direction for digital transformation. Mobile development is fast-paced and continually evolving therefore any pain points in the project will create a domino effect from employees to guests. Your organization doesn’t know where to start when it comes to a mobile program or has tried mobile development with little success. |
Common ObstaclesOperators sit on the extreme ends of the scale, either implementing functionalities without a future-forward strategy or attempting to carry out all desired functionalities at once. Operators struggle with the overwhelming number of moving parts and refresh cycles that often don’t align. Deployment decision points and approaches are not properly considered but are required to ensure a mobile app initiative does not fail. |
Info-Tech’s ApproachTransform organizational objectives into key drivers when selecting and prioritizing mobile app functionalities for your mobile app road map. Choose the right mobile app deployment approach, taking into consideration business and IT complexities and capabilities. Evaluate the mobile app developer landscape to ensure that your organization is prepared for the selection and implementation phase. |
Overarching Info-Tech Insight
A mobile app is key to building an omnichannel, hyper-personalized platform business. As the glue holding the phygital experience together, it houses and supports functionalities and content that serve the entire guest journey ecosystem and your various lines of business on-property and online.
Mobile provides convenience, flexibility, and personalization
A mobile app is a downloadable digital solution for mobile devices. It serves as a key touchpoint between the operator and the guest to elevate the customer experience depending on the services that are being provided (hotel, casino, integrated resort functionalities).
Offering mobile technology differentiates the gaming and hospitality industry in sustainability efforts. The mobile app enables convenience, ease of access, flexibility, personalization, and omnichannel.
A mobile app requires strategic choices in feature functionality and user experience (UX) design, making it a valuable initiative that must be well-thought-out.
Guests’ digital expectations are disrupting the industry
Consider Hospitality Technology’s 2022 Customer Engagement Technology study results:
Customers consider these technology features important when selecting one operator over another.
73%: Ability to make reservations and check-in and out from a mobile device
73%: Texted important information about your reservation before your stay
50%: Operator provides personalized service based on purchase history
48%: Operator offers contactless payment
— Hospitality Technology, 2022
These guest expectations can be delivered through a mobile app.
Mobile app usage surged during the pandemic. According to data.ai ‘s 2020 report, mobile app usage increased by 40% alone during the month of April 2020 (data.ai, 2020). It has dramatically altered the lifestyle of many.
Digital native shifted to digital adaptive. All consumers adapted to the mobile app ecosystem, no matter the demographic, and altered their own lifestyle to adapt to the increasingly digital environment they’ve grown to live in. With greater adaption comes greater expectations. The gaming and hospitality industry is no exception. As other industries adapt to digital preferences and expectations, the industry can’t be left behind or customers will face a disconnected experience. In fact, as highlighted above, customers in the space have been vocal in their technology requirements.
Operators can meet guest expectations through mobile app enablement. A mobile application is an added digital touchpoint to the operator’s portfolio, acting as the umbrella that delivers the various functionalities a guest looks for. Asking guests about the importance of various technology features is not much different than asking them about the importance of the provision of a mobile app.
A mobile app enables a phygital platform strategy
A mobile app is one of the key catalysts in digital transformation as a phygital enabler, developing interactions that can jump from physical to digital, and vice versa. A mobile app keeps the identity of the customer intact in both environments by curating content, delivering seamless interactions, and orchestrating value across the ecosystem.
Mobile supports digital transformation goals.
Goal: Enhance guest experience
- Shift from paper to digital communications.
- Seamless, omnichannel guest experiences across devices.
Goal: Increase workflow and efficiency
- Use of data to improve process efficiency.
- Use of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) for intelligent automation.
— Broadridge, 2022
The industry is optimizing digital experiences
Differentiation
Organizations are seeing the value of digital experiences. The digital functionalities mentioned above provide the guest with an optimized experience, either providing personalization, convenience, or overall increased engagement. Based on the numbers, these capabilities do exist but are not as apparent.
Sustainability
More must be done to realize the value. There is opportunity for more organizations to optimize their digital experiences since numbers are not as high. COVID and prevalent digital guest expectations, preferences, and demands are key drivers for these functionality implementations to grow further.
Organizations have difficulty starting a mobile app strategy
Developing a mobile app is not as easy as it sounds.
Mobile app challenges have a massive impact on success. Any one of the following areas will lead to low success rates or in other words, high mobile app uninstall and abandonment rates.
- Difficulty understanding the scope of the project. Operators don’t take the “bigger picture” into consideration.
- Having multiple verticals in this industry causes competing priorities for departments.
- Organizations still see the digital and physical environment as two distinct realms which discourages and limits an omnichannel, hyper-personalized experience.
- Choosing the wrong development approach will lead to shaky back-end support and maintenance and poor UX design and testing.
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53%
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25%
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78%
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No matter your mobile app state, (re)building a proper strategy is necessary
52% of surveyed casino operators do not have a mobile app but are evaluating options. – G2E, 2022
Current state #1: Your organization does not have a mobile app but is ready to engage in strategy.
Your organization is keen to make this initiative a business priority for the future but has no idea where to start or is overwhelmed with the number of moving parts in a mobile app strategy.
Establish a holistic guest-facing mobile app strategy.
Result: Planning before engagement helps address potential risks up-front (proactive rather than reactive), find opportunities for optimization, and communicate with the business to ensure tight alignment and determine future roadmap.
41% of surveyed casino operators have a mobile app. – G2E, 2022
Current state #2: You organization has a mobile app but is dealing with its complexities and must reassess.
Time and money is wasted on unnecessary or erroneous activities. Additionally, you’ve developed people, process, and technology gaps due to your mobile app initiative.
Establish a holistic guest-facing mobile app strategy.
Result: Learning from your past attempts gives you insight on the opportunities and impact changes will have on a properly documented mobile app strategy and its people, processes, and technology.
Establish a holistic mobile app strategy
Info-Tech’s approach
A mobile app is key to building an omnichannel, hyper-personalized platform business. As the glue that holds the phygital experience together, it houses and supports functionalities and content that serve the entire guest journey ecosystem and your various lines of business on-property and online.
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