The 8 Benefits of Hiring Custom Mobile App Developers

Mobile app development is at a crossroads. At a time when more than 300 million U.S. adults (in excess of 85% of the population) own a smartphone, audiences expect to be able to interact with businesses via their mobile devices. But along with the expectation of availability, the demand for quality has risen just as fast, leading to the need to hire custom mobile app developers. 

Even when current and potential customers download your mobile app, you can't automatically expect loyalty from them. They're just as likely to uninstall the app after a single use, or never even use it to begin with. To satisfy today's digitally native audience, you don't just need a mobile app--you need a great mobile app.

That's no easy feat. Simply following the same template as your direct or indirect competition certainly won't be enough. Instead, it pays to invest in truly custom mobile app development, which naturally means hiring only custom mobile app developers.

Of course, embarking on that partnership is an investment—and one that you might need to justify to your business partners or stakeholders. Fortunately, it's an investment that will pay off significantly in the long run, thanks to these 7 benefits of working with a custom mobile app development company.

The Basics: Custom Mobile App Developers vs. Template-Based Development

Let's start with some of the basics. What, exactly, does custom mobile app development actually mean? The answer may seem simple, but it's important to consider the meaning of custom in every sense of the word.

As you might expect, it starts with not using a preexisting template. But the implications of this approach go much deeper. Because the app is built from scratch, your engagement with the developer will likely start sooner and last longer. The app becomes more of a strategic partnership and less of a simple deliverable received at the conclusion of the contract.

Related: The Complete Guide for How to Choose a Mobile App Development Company

And of course, it also means linking in with your existing capabilities. In a template-based approach, the deliverables are relatively set and standardized. Hiring a custom app developer, on the other hand, is different. It might mean solely getting strategic advice, only filling the gaps that exist in your in-house team, or having the entire app created across all platforms.

In other words, it's a custom engagement in whichever way your company needs it to be, throughout the development process.

8 Benefits of Working with a Custom App Development Company - A Detailed Look

Now we’ve explored the basics, let's discuss just what advantages you can derive from working with a custom mobile app developer to enhance your business and engage your audience.

Benefit #1: Strategic Alignment From the Start

The modern mobile app market is crowded. When you launch your own, it will be one of nearly 9 million mobile apps distributed across platforms like Android and Apple. Only a few apps will survive, and the ones that do will have a strong strategy underpinning their success.

Building that strategy takes time and effort. You'll need to identify your audience, their core needs, and how those needs align with your business capabilities. That's how you figure out your app's core value proposition, which will inform its entire build and execution.

Working with a custom mobile app developer means not being on your own at this stage. Instead, you'll get strategic help and guidance from the start, or additional insights into your proposed strategy as needed. That alignment remains a partnership throughout the development process, maximizing your chances of creating a successful app.

Benefit #2: Seamless Integration into Your Capabilities

Depending on your company's current size and composition, your app development needs will be very different. Startups are most likely to succeed with at least some level of technical expertise, but that expertise might be limited to a small staff. As businesses grow, so does their internal IT capability. 

Your company may have a full development team, a partial team, or no internal technology capacity. A custom app developer can work with you regardless, able to either take over the entire process or jump in to fill the gaps that your team can't.

For example, your team might have experience in iOS but not successful Android app development. You might be able to build a basic strategy, but not execute it. Or your expertise might lie in the technical coding but not the strategic planning of it all. Knowing what your team can do well allows you to hire a custom developer who can make your team better, addressing knowledge gaps and using their expertise to build an app to its full potential.

Benefit #3: App Development Expertise to Draw On

Sometimes, the clearest benefits are also the most obvious ones. In this case, it's about the expertise you gain when working with a custom app development partner. 

Put simply, creating an app from scratch—or jumping into the various parts of the development process—creates a level of expertise that is impossible to reach when following a preset template. It allows the developer to gain in-depth knowledge of the industries, app platforms, and more. 

Working with this type of developer allows that expertise to benefit your own project. Especially in a mutual partnership, insights into audiences and current trends in app development can help you create a better product that has a greater chance of success.

Benefit #4: An Agile Development Process

Hiring a custom mobile app developer also allows you to leverage one of the most beneficial development philosophies in the industry today: an agile workflow. 

Put simply, agile is a less linear approach to software and app development in which the product is built in multiple, smaller stages called sprints. Multiple sprints can be built in parallel, and include individual testing and feedback steps. As a result, the development process becomes more transparent, changes are more incremental, and the chances of success rise dramatically.

Don't take our word for it. Agile projects are 1.5x more likely to be successful than more traditional, linear 'waterfall' methods. Meanwhile, a McKinsey study found that 93% of agile companies reported better customer satisfaction than their non-agile counterparts.

App development almost necessarily has to be custom in order to be agile. Flexibility is a built-in necessity that creating a mobile app based on preexisting templates cannot achieve. This flexibility can pay off big time as you create and iterate on an app designed for your audience to love and engage with.

Benefit #5: Project and Product Scalability 

The above-mentioned flexibility also becomes essential when you define and refine the scope of your app development project.

Generally speaking, setting the scope early is crucial for reliable budget and timeline planning. But at the same time, early audience insights and test results may require a slight adjustment in scope to ensure the app will serve the needs of your users.  For example, you may find that a feature in the app needs to be developed further and with more in-depth functionality than you initially thought.

Related: How is Agile Methodology Used in Mobile App Development? 

Scalability also becomes an important consideration after your app launches. Will introducing new features help to keep your audience happy and engaged? The right custom app developer can help you answer these questions, then create a plan to accomplish the appropriate scaling—not to mention embracing a process that enables this scalability to begin with.

Benefit #6: Customized Mobile Integrations

Users love mobile apps and are more likely to convert to customers when engaging with such an app. But they don't love them as exact replacements or replicas of mobile-optimized websites. Instead, they are looking for specific features that make pushing that download button in the app store worth their mental and phone storage investment.

Here, mobile apps have a unique advantage. Because they operate on a mobile phone they can integrate with the phone's features, including:

• The phone's camera
• Relevant push notifications
• Location-based services and GPS
• And more

Of course, there is no simple 'best' integration for all mobile apps. That depends entirely on your core value proposition, business offering, and audience needs. A custom app developer helps you understand which integrations can enhance your app, and build those integrations to optimize functionality and user experience. 

Benefit #7: Complete Transparency Throughout the Process

Custom mobile app developers embrace transparency, in part because they have to. For the development process and launch to be successful, they need to become a trusted partner and extension of your own business and technology team. The only way to accomplish that is by openly and frequently sharing and discussing all relevant information.

For your engagement with a custom developer, that means expecting regular check-ins to review sprint and testing results, provide feedback, learn new insights, and get basic status updates.

There is no black hole of one-way information that eventually (and hopefully) turns into an app you can use. Instead, it's a close partnership that ensures you always know the latest about where your app is headed and whether it's staying on track with its goals, budget, and timeline.

Benefit #8: Launch and Post-Launch Partnership Opportunities

Finally, expect your engagement with a custom developer to last as long as you need it to—up to and including post-launch maintenance of your mobile app. With the right partner, you will get guidance for planning the launch itself, along with maintenance service to ensure your app stays up to date with the latest trends and developments in technology and user expectations.

Think of it as bespoke vs. assembly line manufacturing. Because a custom developer takes time for each client and partner, there is always an opportunity to plan in time for an extended engagement. The goal for the developer becomes not the fast delivery of a finished app to move onto the next project, but ongoing client satisfaction to develop long-term partnerships.

Finding the Right Custom Developer to Build a Great App

As you can see, there are many benefits of working with a custom mobile app developer. Of course, these benefits aren't automatic; instead, you need to find the right partner to work with when developing the right mobile app for your audience and business.

That partner needs to embrace all of the above considerations in their development process and philosophy. They'll also need to embrace working with you, helping you through the process to launch and maintain a successful app. That's what we do at Milo Mobile, and we'd love to bring our philosophy to your app project, as well. Contact us to schedule a free consultation today to discuss creating the ideal app for your business.