Why App Maintenance Is Crucial For Your Mobile Strategy

No one could argue that, over the last decade, the world has gone mobile. One figure is enough to support that claim – today, the number of mobile users goes up to 6.95 billion. It’s not that we need that figure to know the massive penetration of mobile devices in our modern societies. It only takes a look around to see how ubiquitous they genuinely are.

A huge part of that popularity has to do with apps. When Apple was pushing its iPhone a decade or so ago, they came up with the phrase “There’s an app for that” to appeal to users. It made sense. In no time, companies of all industries started developing their apps – a trend that keeps going up until today.

Apps became so quintessential to our modern lives that many businesses see them as must-have in their audience engagement strategies. However, many of them make a crucial mistake – they build the app, publish it in a mobile app store, and sit down to wait for users. While that strategy might work well in the short term, it’s useless in the long run. How come? Because a mobile app has to be on constant evolution to keep its appeal high.

Hence the importance of mobile application maintenance services. Through them, you can keep your app in top shape, update it with new features, and upgrade to meet new customer demands. All of that is part of the evolution that any successful app needs to stay in the consumers’ minds and why you need app maintenance as a pillar in your mobile strategy. Let’s see that in more detail – but first, let’s review the types of mobile app maintenance you can access.

Which Are The Types Of Mobile App Maintenance?

Depending on your approach, you can access five types of app maintenance, each of which might come in handy at one point or another. They include:

Emergency Maintenance:

the one that you go to when something in your app breaks down and stops working. As its name implies, it’s the maintenance you call for when you’re abruptly hit by a major issue that needs to be fixed ASAP.
Corrective Maintenance:

the one that addresses minor bugs that, while not compromising the app’s functionality, impacts the overall UX. Problems you can solve with this maintenance include design and app logic issues.
Preventive Maintenance:

the one that proactively improves the code to prevent bugs from happening in the first place. The mobile app development team actively monitors the app and reworks the underlying code before issues appear, enhancing the app’s performance.
Adaptive Maintenance:

the one that introduces small changes to the app to ensure its compatibility with new systems and hardware. The app per se doesn’t change, as this maintenance only updates it to keep running in newer environments.
Perfective Maintenance:

the one that makes significant changes in the app to add new features and functionalities. It’s often based on feedback from users and the proactive analysis of the development team.

Naturally, the best app maintenance strategy is the one that covers all of these types, as their combination is capable of addressing all kinds of issues. That’s precisely the approach we use at BairesDev with our mobile application maintenance services, as that’s the only strategy with proven success.

5 Major Reasons Why App Maintenance Is Crucial

Now that we’ve seen the types of maintenance, it’s time to dive a little deeper into why app maintenance is so crucial for your mobile strategy. The reasons you’ll find below come from our years of experience as providers of app maintenance services. Still, you should find a broader agreement around them in the mobile development community.

App Maintenance Prevents Downtimes.

The value of any app comes from the time it keeps the target audience engaged. If yours fails to do so because it’s broken, then you’ll pay dearly for every minute the app is down. App maintenance allows you to catch bugs before they make the app crash, thus avoiding downtimes that can cost you in terms of money and reputation. It can also come to your aid when a significant failure occurs, reducing the amount of time you’re offline.

Maintenance Keeps Your App Secure.

The biggest challenge all businesses face today is cybercrime. Malicious agents are growing more sophisticated with each passing day, and mobile apps are among their preferred targets. That’s why it’s so essential for you to keep a tight maintenance schedule, as it will allow you to strengthen your app’s security with the latest encryption and security features.

Regular Maintenance Keeps You Competitive.

Perfective and adaptive maintenance ensures that your app is up to date with all the newest systems and hardware while providing innovative features for your audience. This will keep audiences interested in it, which, in turn, will keep you competitive in today’s highly aggressive app market.

Maintenance Lets You Stay Relevant.

The new features and extended compatibility can keep you up to par with your competitors, but it also keeps you relevant in the eyes of your audience. People’s interests and behaviors change over time, and they expect their favorite apps to meet them organically. That’s why you have to keep an eye on new customer trends and use app maintenance to pour what you learned into your app.

Maintenance Helps You Comply With App Store Rules.

The two most important app stores are always making adjustments to their policies and regulations. Anyone that wants to publish an app in them needs to comply with those policies – or risk being left out. That’s why maintenance is so essential, as it lets you introduce changes to your app to keep it in compliance with any new regulations.

Embrace App Maintenance Today

The five reasons cited above should be enough to convince you about the importance of app maintenance and the need to embrace it. As the world is mainly mobile today, you’d be left out if you neglected your app’s support. Even when it might be a challenge to adopt all types of app maintenance, it’s well worth the effort.

App maintenance lets you keep your application bug-free and updated, so it’s up to you to instruct your team to see maintenance as the practice of capital importance it is. Don’t have a team to help you with that? Then you can trust in BairesDev. Our team has helped hundreds of companies maintain their apps in top shape with a strategic combination of all types of app maintenance. Contact us today to learn how we can help you.