Difference between B2B and B2C Apps

The very first questions that GEEK Up often asks Enterprises who are in need of application development are “what is the target audience of your business?”, “are you building this application for users or for your internal employees?”.

Understanding and defining the target user or customer will be a key element for everything that goes into the app, from UX/UI design, features, languages, information flow, business process, even even the application name. All must be created based on user research.

The difference between B2B and B2C app is the most common classification that Enterprises need to establish among different target user groups. Apart from the differences, both B2B and B2C applications have their pros and cons. Without knowing about these differences as well as the pros and cons of developing B2B and B2C apps, we will not be able to choose the best one for our Business.

This article from GEEK Up will provide Enterprises with different perspectives on B2B and B2C application development as well as help managers more clearly when making decisions about which applications to invest and develop.

What is B2B application?

Applications for Enterprises are often developed for the purpose of optimizing business operations, simplifying complex operational processes, or meeting specific business needs. B2B applications are used by Businesses to connect with other Businesses, customers, employees and other stakeholders. Mostly these applications are used internally within the enterprise. These include sales applications, inventory management, outlets, and other functions.

The advantages of B2B application

• Give your business more space for scalability and follow a structure. Since these apps are developed to solve a specific problem, you will find the process is quite simple later. When the purpose of the applications is clearly defined, this makes the work of the product development team a lot easier because they know exactly why the application was born
• By making the entire internal processes more efficient, B2B applications can also reduce your customer service costs.
• Helping Businesses improve customers' satisfaction and loyalty by delivering a seamless experience

The disadvantages of B2B application

• Since B2B applications are developed to make a complex process becoming simpler, it requires more work. Specifically, it takes heaps of researches and resources for the product team to create a B2B app. As a result, investment costs for B2B will be more expensive than traditional applications. Most of these applications are packed with features that can contribute to an increase in total investment costs
• B2B applications are focused on specialized users. When combined with high investment costs, apps become a hard sell. In addition, it requires long-term investment with large costs for Marketing activities to sell these B2B applications, otherwise, businesses will not be able to sell
• Because of the complex interface, this has had a negative impact on the usability of users. This means that users need to be qualified to use the applications. Consequently, these apps also have steep learning curves and higher barriers to entry

What is B2C application?

Most of applications that we are using daily are B2C applications. The target of these applications is the end users. The core focus of these apps is to make the users' life easily and help them complete a specific task with minimal effort. Therefore, B2C applications will help users perform a variety of tasks, from making purchases to paying taxes, paying for electricity and water, or serving entertainment needs.

The advantages of B2C application

• B2C app developers tend to focus more on improving the user experience. The product team will add features in an iterative way to engage users. In addition, businesses can also use push notifications, send alerts, display product ads and advertise offers and discounts to attract users' interests. As a result, the app is more likely to become more popular and go viral
• B2C application allows Enterprises to provide 24/7 customer support services. Enterprises promptly and satisfactorily resolve customer inquiries and enable users to solve their own problems. This helps businesses build long-term relationships with their customers. As a result, business revenue increases because it can not only attract new users, but also retain existing users

The disadvantages of B2C application

• The competitive factor is one of the biggest downsides of building a B2C application. With more than nine million apps already on the app stores and thousands of new apps added daily, your Business apps can easily get lost in the ocean of other apps. Even if Enterprises try to create a lot of advertising before launching their app, the app can fall into oblivion after just a few weeks. Or Enterprise can attract thousands of new users but they will soon abandon the application when the next bright object hits the market
• Most users tend to make app download decisions based on reviews and ratings. Achieving higher ratings and good reviews for Enterprise's apps is not easy. Users will be more inclined to abandon an app if it doesn't offer a new or unique feature that no other app offers. That's why an app and software development company is always looking to add new features

B2B and B2C App - 3 Significant Angles that Businesses should aware

Let's look at several key differences between B2B and B2C apps to give you more confidence in deciding which type of app to develop. On the other hand, this will help managers know how to choose and work with a product partner to build a digital product, which can realize the product idea right from when it is very vague to become a impactful product, provide a positive user experience and help businesses achieve their business goals.

1. UX/UI Design

B2C: Diversified users include distinct characteristics in different industries. The need to use the product comes from inside users’ motivation so the product must not only meet their need but also ensure the convenience, simplicity, ease of use and comfort. Avoid using jargon and instead use familiar language. There are too many choices in thousands of apps, users will leave the application with a complex experience and switch to another one that is simpler

B2B: These products have the goal of supporting users to complete their work-related tasks, thereby helping businesses optimize their operating processes. The users’ motivation comes from the employees’ responsibility to the business, thus, they will prioritize completing the right and accurate tasks over the quick and easy factor. At this point, the UX/UI factor will be less important and designers freely use technical/specialized terms.

2. Updated Frequency

B2C: UX plays an extremely important role for B2C apps since the app’s success is measured by 3 big metrics, including: number of Downloads, Daily Active User and User Satisfaction. B2C applications are considered as a tool to help businesses achieve revenue goals, so these products must continuously improve, fix errors and innovate to increase businesses’ competition.

B2B: With the goal of optimizing the business operation process, the product team needs to prioritize the accuracy and uniformity factors to attract users to use the app regularly instead of seeing this as a mandatory requirement coming from the company side. In addition, the platforms must ensure stability and be able to "scale-up" with the enterprise.

3. User Psychology

B2C: The app is used almost daily, so it is influenced and dominated by the user’s emotional factors. This factor is influenced by many other aspects such as: season, trend, color, mood… Therefore, design solutions need to create positive emotions for users.

B2B: The user’s psychology of utilizing the app because of their responsibility to the business, so the priority of completing the work correctly and in time is always a prerequisite. Design solutions are not too eye-catching or too focused on user emotions, but designers should ensure professionalism, minimize possible errors and create pleasant navigation.

Conclusion

There are many differences in building apps for B2B and B2C. Therefore, before investing in a long and expensive app, collaborating with a trusted product partner like GEEK Up will help you implement projects quickly and efficiently.