No sooner have we all got to grips with eCommerce, than mCommerce appeared on the scene.

Once both of these things existed it wasn't going to be long before customers expected to be able to move seamlessly across all touchpoints with a brand, online or offline, using whatever devices and platforms are most appropriate at the time, and so now we are faced with the challenge of multichannel retailing – and how we provide the best experience to the customer wherever they are.

Mobile can often be the weakest link in a multichannel strategy as it is the latest component, and as such, untested. However, the upside to this is that you should be able to skip a lot of the trail and error process other platforms went through, having learnt from your experiences with them. SV Mobile App Monitor, used as part of the SV-Monitoring Suite provides the information needed to help all departments in an organisation to understand both users mobile experience and to ensure a cohesive and seamless interaction with the brand at all points and on all platforms.

Despite fears at the time the internet did not “lure shoppers away” from the high street, but it did change their reasons for going there and they adapted different needs and behaviours in town and online. Now, with the widespread use of mobiles things are fragmenting again. Just like the last time, though, it is not about loss of customers, it is about customers wanting to do some thing differently.

This different behaviour means different measures of success will be needed, and different measures of success need to be monitored in different ways.

According to a recent study by Verdict Research this is how those customers are using their phones,

• 11.5% of UK shoppers are using mobiles to research before shopping

• 3.8% of UK shoppers are using mobiles to research, engage and interact with retailers while out shopping.

In turn this gives you an idea of what to focus on when defining your critical mobile user journeys when you begin monitoring:

• Search plays a critical role. Due to a combination of restricted “screen estate” and extremely goal driven behaviour on mobile devices search is the primary means of navigation for most mobile users.
• Product reviews and comparisons of features/prices are used by many mobile users when shopping on the move.
• Local availability is very important to mobile users so it is vital that your inventory management system is updating your mobile site or app correctly in real time . A very bad brand experience would arise from visiting a bricks and mortar outlet only to find that all your time researching and travelling had been wasted when the item was not in stock.
• For similar reasons a “reserve to collect in store” if you have one can be the crucial element in a multichannel user experience.

Online retailers and content publishers are ramping up their mobile delivery mechanisms, but the mobile opportunity is also a pitfall for the unwary. Many companies have outsourced the coding of their apps, and so have little direct control over how well it meets the users needs. The performance problems that can bite the unwary range from simple slowdowns and code errors to more problematic situations due to a range of issues to do with network limitations, and server software delivery design.

Speed is of the essence in content delivery. Although page and journey delivery speed is important to a desktop user, it is much more vital to a mobile one who is often using the device at specific location and wanting instant access. The SV-Monitoring Suite reports and alerts (if required) on slowdown for both entire journeys and for steps within those journeys, ensuring you can proactively address any problems in this area.

Working closely with clients of all sizes SciVisum developed the new Mobile-App Monitor service, a flexible system that enables full visibility of the performance of mobile apps and services and can provide exactly the information organisations needs to ensure they are not losing sales, loyalty or customer engagement through the mobile channel. The technology builds on the existing flexible Application Synchronicity platform that underpins SciVisum's monitoring of its unique Dynamic User Journey and can tell you:

• Know when your application appears but users are unable to interact.
• Know when your application reaches threshold for time to load.
• Know hwhen your application reaches stress point
• Know when intermittent communication errors happen between the application and the server, be they slow downs or full blown errors.
• Fact reacting SMS and email alerting to notify you of live problems experienced by users
• Detect sporadic application errors and performance slowdowns
• Montitor the amoung of data sent required to use the application
• View lost sales, opportunities and KPI performance

While traditional static website monitoring can only tell you if the checkout URL or search URL is up or down, the Automated Mystery Shopping that is at the the heart of SciVisum's dynamic user journey monitor tests the whole process, end to end, by 'Doing what the customer Does'. In turn this frees your IT teams to plan effectively for hardware and IT infrastructure to cope with varying demand – such as “rush hours” and quiet periods, seasonal fluctuations and major campaign activities.

Taken as a whole multichannel monitoring means that full strategic development, planning, prioritization, resource allocation and prediction of true company wide costs and ROI can be made with a much more stable foundation that is based on real data, not gut feel.

The SV Monitoring Suite includes a number of web and mobile user journey products, designed for the needs of different teams, but which all us the same data and the same common language to provide a "single point of truth" to enable easy collaboration across the organisation.

All SV-Monitoring Suite Products:

• Use a single, intuitive performance monitor portal accessible anywhere via the cloud.
• Allow easy navigation, and live in-depth drill down as well as summaries and overviews.
• Are built on SciVisum’s unique approach to dynamic monitoring: including multi-page routes, that can ‘Do What The Customer Does’ for all aspects of site functionality.

Request Demonstration

View our client testimonials If you would like one of our service professionals to contact you to arrange a demonstration of our web testing services or discuss your web site performance goals/needs free of charge please contact us. To contact a service professional call us on +44 (0) 1227 768276 or request a telephone/email call back