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2016 Year in Review

19 December 2016
Sell mobile apps to your clients or target new ones.

bobile - 2016 Year in Review
During the last 12 months, bobile has expanded its: support, R&D, programming, marketing, and translation & documentation teams. We have tirelessly strived to make life easier for you, by offering intuitive mobile apps for your small businesses. All of us at bobile will continue to improve and develop ways for you to expand your enterprise and customer base and increase revenues!    

From changing our name to developing new features, this blog post summarizes our innovations from 2016 and details some of bobile’s endeavors.

Changing PapTap’s name to bobile

Goodbye PapTap, Hello bobile!

Someone to somebody:

“Our name is PapTap.”

Somebody to someone:

“What?”

“PapTap!”

“TapTap?”

“PapTap!”

“PepPep?”

Yes, it was a hard time for us.

Since the company was founded in 2014, the idea of changing PapTap’s name has been the subject of much discussion. After all, changing the name of a service already used by over 100,000 people is not an easy decision.

But there are many successful name changes. Plenty of other companies have done it and the change was a very wise choice. Did you know that:

  • Google started as Backrub?

  • Pepsi was called Brad’s Drink?

  • Nike’s first name was Blue Ribbon Sports?

Do you think that any of these brands would have become that successful with their former names?

One of our main goals was to select a name that would be simple to pronounce, catchy, and relevant to our field. The words “business”, “mobile”, “apps”, and “grow” were our starting points. It was a serious challenge given the amount of domains and trademarks that are registered. bobile (business + mobile) represents our powerful tools for businesses as well as our future mobile innovations. Our new name meant a complete redesign of every screen across our desktop workspace, website homepage, and mobile apps. This modification kept bobile’s commitment and promise to always put our customers at the center and to solve the needs of small businesses around the globe.

Introducing bobile’s Completely Redesigned WorkspaceThe new workspace includes all the original capabilities of the former version, plus a lot of innovations that make it easier to create and manage mobile apps.

The new workspace includes all the original capabilities of the former version, plus a lot of innovations that make it easier to create and manage mobile apps.

Over the past year, our team focused on rebuilding and improving the bobile experience

with one goal in mind:

Taking small businesses from scratch to success: guiding you, step-by-step, through all steps from building a mobile app to engaging customers and generating sales with it.

What’s New?

Dashboard Notifications

We’ll notify you every time an important activity is performed on your mobile app.

The notifications appear on the upper-right side of your workspace. Also, some of these notifications are sent to your email. Dashboard notification examples:

  • Getting notified when a customer makes a purchase

  • Scheduling appointments

  • Redeeming couponing

  • So much more

To receive instant notifications directly to your smartphone, install the ‘bobile Admin’ app:

Step-by-Step Guidance & System Rewards

Every 100 credits are worth $1 USD that you can use to upgrade your app with: features, plans, and more.

Credit System

We now offer various opportunities to earn credits, which means saving money on bobile fees.

Some credits are awarded to you without extra input on your part. For instance, some may be rewarded for holidays and special occasions, while other opportunities are offered to you when you follow the progress-bar tasks or perform marketing activities (detailed in one of the following sections, Marketing Activities – App Promotion Guidance). Every 100 credits are worth $1 USD that you can use to upgrade your app with: features, plans, and more.

Progress Bar

The Progress Bar functions as an assistant that always notifies you regarding which action is the most effective for you to perform next.

Following the specified instructions, you are awarded with credits. Every 100 credits are worth $1 USD that you can use to upgrade your app with: features, plans, and more.

or How Can I Get More Downloads to My Mobile App?

Marketing Activities – App Promotion Guidance

(or How Can I Get More Downloads to My Mobile App?)

We crafted some DIY (Do-It-Yourself) tools, built as short and simple marketing activities to assist you with the biggest challenge of your mobile app: boost awareness, drive consumers to install it, and keep them engaged. (Read More)

Top-of-the-Line Mobile App Redesign – iOS & Android

The two most popular platforms, iOS and Android, each come with their own unique user-interface pattern. They offer similar functionality, but are executed in different ways. Each platform has their own specific standard for interface elements, such as: buttons, menus, and headers. (Read more)

Based on the differences between the platforms, we created two versions of your app.

New App Layouts

While your website represents your online business presence, a mobile app deepens engagement with your customers and increase revenue. We strived to create layouts that focus on key features, creating a call-to-action experience that encourages your customers to: make a purchase, schedule an appointment, call you, get directions, redeem a coupon, and more.

We’re proud to introduce our four new templates: 1-Button, Bubbles, Mobile Shop, and Appointments.

These layouts include interactive features to allow your customers to perform business activities directly from the Main Welcome screen of the app.

We’re proud to introduce our four new templates: 1-Button, Bubbles, Mobile Shop, and Appointments.

1-Button

The 1-Button layout is based on the method of strategic calls-to-action (CTAs) that maximize the potential of engaging customers.  

The main call-to-action button appears centered and large, encouraging your users to click on it and perform an action.

Users can immediately schedule an appointment and redeem a coupon the moment they land in your mobile app.

Bubbles

The Bubbles layout allows you to choose app key features and place them on the primary screen.

This layout encourages your customers to instantly engage with you, directly from the welcome screen of your app.

Types of Bubbles:

  • Schedule an appointment and redeem a coupon
  • Share your app
  • Call us
  • Write us an SMS message
  • Join the VIP Club
  • Link to content screens, such as About us and Photo Gallery

Mobile Shop

If you’re using your mobile app to sell products, this layout is for you.

Mobile Shop allows you to promote specific products on the main screen of your app. This encourages your customers to start shopping when they land in your app.

Appointments

This layout is great for service-based businesses. If you’re a beauty salon, hair stylist, spa, or even a personal trainer, use this layout to increase bookings. With Appointments, your clients can schedule appointments directly from the main screen of your app.

New Feature Alert – Meet the New Mobile Shop

Whether you’re a local store, retail business, e-Commerce website, or an individual who wants to sell online, with bobile you can build the ultimate shopping experience on mobile. (Read More)

Create a dedicated app to generate more sales by engaging shoppers to make a purchase from their mobile devices.

New Feature Alert – Loyalty Programs

With our loyalty programs, your customers can easily earn points and redeem them as gifts, based on prior purchases. (Read More)

Keep your customers engaged and coming back with customized rewards.

Personal Zone – My Account

Personalization is the key for successful marketing.

Your app is a main marketing channel of your business so to make it more engaging we developed the Personal Zone, also known as My Account.

This section includes your customer’s unique content:

  • Customer’s personal information and profile picture
  • Purchase status
  • Upcoming appointments
  • All push messages from your business
  • Your chat conversations
  • Redeemed coupons and loyalty card awards

This way, your app is far more personal and engaging.

This section includes your customer's unique content.

New Content Elements

In a nutshell, the mobile app is all about tools and content. Standard features, such as: making a purchase and scheduling an appointment are the tools. All additional screens, such as About Us and the blog, are content based.

Since we received a lot of requests regarding content elements, bobile dedicated a specific team to further develop and improve these content components.

The new content elements:

  • Weblink – URL that is directed to an external webpage, linking to: business site, customer testimonials, or customer website
  • Quote – Text elements to place inside quotation marks
  • Uploading PDF files – Highly requested element, allows viewing, for example a menu or pricing list that is in PDF format
  • Big text – Text element to emphasize or bold text entity to catch the eye and get attention 

The new content elements

Help Center

Need guidance with bobile’s workspace? Looking for answers about your mobile app?

We compiled a collection of answers to the most common questions you may have about bobile and mobile apps in general.

Here are some good-to-know features about our new Help Center:

  • You can leave comments on articles and recommend new topics of interest. This will help us continue to improve our content.
  • You can rate the article as “helpful” so bobile can determine which articles and themes are more relevant to our readers.

We compiled a collection of answers to the most common questions you may have about bobile and mobile apps in general.

Chat Widget


Need an answer right away?

As part of the effort to improve our support system, we added a new widget on the bottom right of all our pages, which serves as 24/7 live support.

If you still can’t find the answer you’re looking for, just contact us by email.

Our support team is here for you at anytime! support@bobile.com

Introducing – Awesome New Themes

The new appearance helps you effectively and creatively customize your app by choosing more relevant themes for your brand. They are multi-purpose and can be used by different kinds of businesses, throughout the year. For example, use the new festive winter holiday themes for the end of the year. (Read More)From today, you can choose from more than 200 different themes.

The New Reseller Program

Grow your revenue now with the new bobile reseller program. Sell mobile apps to your clients or target new ones. Our app-developer account enables easily creating as many mobile apps as you want, with no previous programming knowledge. (Read More)

Sell mobile apps to your clients or target new ones.

Saying Happy New Year, But Not Good Bye

We hope that you found this blog posts informative, insightful, and enjoyable. bobile is always open to suggestions, advice, and various points of view from different business experiences – both successes and failures. Feel free to tell us your story and make feature requests. support@bobile.com

We wish all small businesses around the globe a fruitful and prosperous 2017.

2016 Year in Review