More than two-thirds of consumers, who left a brand because of poor mobile application loading times, said a loading time of six or less seconds was acceptable, according to a global study.

Slightly more than half of those respondents demand a load time of less than three seconds, added the study ‘Software: the New Battleground for Brand Loyalty ‘commissioned by CA Technologies, a leading software company.

More than 70 per cent of consumers ranked ‘perform tasks with little difficulty’ and almost 80 per cent ranked applications that have ‘easy to use features’ as top drivers of their decision to utilise or purchase an application.

Out of users who had a fair or poor experience, 10 per cent said that they would leave a brand forever because of issues with security.

“Consumers no longer view applications as nice-to-have novelties. They now have a huge impact on customer loyalty,” said Diyaa Zebian, regional director Mena, CA Technologies Middle East and North Africa.

“As businesses navigate a new, always-connected reality that produces vast amounts of ambient data, they must react by delivering a personalized, secure and engaging application experience.”

There is a disconnect, the study revealed, between how well businesses decision makers think industries are able to provide application technologies, and how well consumers believe the same industries are actually delivering. Specifically, businesses think application delivery is largely better than consumers do -- a difference of 15 per cent in financial services, and 14 per cent each in information and technology and government administration.

The study also highlighted how applications have become a crucial meeting point between consumers and organizations. According to the survey, 49 per cent of consumers are using applications to bank and 48 per cent use applications to shop; and more than half of respondents say they would be willing to use applications to perform tasks like paying taxes, managing healthcare or even voting in elections.

“In order to tap into the growth potential of the application economy, businesses and governments must make software more than just a part of their business – it must become their business,” said Zebian.

“And to do this, they have to let their customers lead; listen to them, understand their needs, and apply the same rigor and predictive analysis to application development and deployment as they would to determine the best location for a retail store.” – TradeArabia News Service