Are you ready? Mobile will change your business in 2015.

Are you genuinely surprised at how mobile device usage has grown in 2014? According to Forrester Research, which published a blog article via the Huffington Post, mobile has become one of the most disruptive technologies for businesses in decades. Why? It has completely shifted customer expectations. 

Today, customers expect brands and businesses to meet their needs immediately, on their own terms. Forrester believes that companies which treat mobile as a fundamental shift to their business processes rather than simply an additional communications channel will emerge as winners in 2015 and beyond.

Forrester goes on to provide some do's and don'ts for addressing mobile in 2015 (and you can read the full blog here), but we'd like to highlight a very common mistake that many companies make. That is, thinking that if you build a mobile app, your customers will download it, and once they do, they'll use it and depend on it as much as you'd like them to.

The truth is, not everyone likes and uses mobile apps. According to Forrester's research, "few consumers download apps for brands unless they engage with the brand frequently, and few apps have enough unique services to draw all of customers in." In other words, unless your mobile app is exceptional, most customers will not use it often. And you can't rely solely on one mobile app or mobile website to serve your customers. 

That's one reason why we developed and launched our mobile location service for companies that have a substantial number of cell phone callers trying to reach their nearest store or location. Sure, if the company has a mobile app, customers who have the app can use it to find the nearest location. But what about mobile callers who don't have the app, or worse yet, have the app but don't use it?

That's where mobile location routing comes in. The service can locate the actual physical location of the caller and automatically send him or her to the most appropriate location. In our experience, companies can't bank on customers using their mobile apps as much as they hope.

So what does that mean for 2015? Think "mobile ecosystem" rather than "mobile channel." Forrester goes into more detail about how this can be achieved. For the full scoop, take a moment to read the full blog. Then, get inspired to make mobile work for your company next year!