Customer-obsessed businesses will take personalization to the next level in 2016. By the end of 2016, Forrester forecasts that 4.8 billion individuals globally will use a mobile phone, and as that number continues to grow, customer-obsessed business leaders have vast opportunities to deliver great customer experiences via mobile.

 

Mobile moments — a time when consumers picks up their mobile devices to get what they want in that moment of need —  are the next battleground where to win, serve, and retain customers. Many executives believe they should manufacture and own these moments through their native branded iOS or Android apps. While this is, of course, one way to serve their best and most loyal customers Forrester research found that consumers use fewer apps and concentrate the vast majority of their time in just few apps.

 

Mobile experiences are too static today and leverage too little consumer context. As customer expectations of convenience escalate in 2016, the pressure will be on firms to tap new technologies to serve customers in context where they already are – not where brands find it convenient to serve them. Firms must look to use context both to assemble and deliver experiences dynamically on their own and third party platforms.

 

In particular, we expect alternative ecosystems beyond Android and iOS to emerge. With consumers using fewer or more integrated apps, new mobile platforms that offer a more relevant experience such as WeChat in China or Facebook Messenger in the US are quickly accumulating power as the owners of vast audiences and rich data about those consumers.

 

In 2016, these ecosystems will grow as brands look to serve existing customers in context and developers flock to platforms with large audiences. While Facebook, Google and Apple lead in the US, don’t count out Microsoft in the Enterprise, Amazon in the home or US market entry from large ecosystem players in China.

 

To read more of our 2016 mobile predictions, click here.

Other authors include: Julie Ask, Nicole Dvorak and Michael Facemire.