Apps are awesome for every business, but especially for small and medium businesses (SMBs). They have limited resources and overstretched employees juggling multiple responsibilities, so they welcome apps that can automate time-consuming tasks and give them better visibility into different areas of their business.
Our latest survey backs this up. We found that 67% of SMBs have added up to 4 new digital tools to their business portfolio this past year alone. According to BetterCloud’s 2024 State of SaaSOps report, the average SMB uses 42 different apps to run their business, an impressive collection which often unfortunately results in app fatigue.
App fatigue refers to the strain that’s caused by managing too many apps, and it’s a growing issue for over-SaaSed SMBs. Our research also revealed that 91% of SMBs would be interested in exploring or likely to purchase an all-in-one solution that combines the capabilities of multiple apps to save them the hassle of multi-app management.
While app fatigue is a serious threat to SMB productivity, it presents a great opportunity for SMB-serving organizations. Solving this issue for your SMB customers is an excellent way to deliver concrete value and strengthen your overall value to them.
What is app fatigue?
App fatigue is when you get overwhelmed by too many software applications that you use and start to disassociate from them. Although it’s great to have a tool for every task, you can end up with a massive number of apps, each of them sending you notifications and alerts. So many pings and messages can be bewildering. When people experience app fatigue, it causes them to turn off or ignore notifications, or stop using certain apps.
It’s especially problematic when your apps don’t work together seamlessly, so data gets isolated in specific apps and you’re constantly logging in and out of different app accounts. You can end up spending too much time switching between apps, searching for information buried in different apps, and updating the data that each app holds.
App fatigue may even impact new app adoption. The learning curve of such new and unfamiliar interfaces is already steep, and as you start adding more apps, you tend to just give up or not fully explore their functionality. That leaves you with yet another app sending notifications, but you’re not getting the full benefit of its capabilities.
The drawbacks of app fatigue for SMBs
App fatigue is more than just annoying. Managing multiple apps quickly becomes exhausting. Instead of streamlining operations, the sheer number of apps can complicate workflows and create unnecessary stress. While each individual app promises to increase productivity, too many of them may end up dragging productivity down even further.
Many apps are disconnected, or can only be integrated through a complicated process using additional tools like Zapier. Even then, cross-app data flows can often be incomplete or nonexistent, creating data silos that handicap decision making and collaboration. This sucks up more time for app management, and adds complexity instead of reducing it.
Managing a separate user account for each app just compounds the inefficiency, increasing frustration and wasting time.
Most importantly, every added app increases the risk of a security breach. It’s another source of vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit, another data bank that could be breached, and another opportunity for hackers to steal access credentials and threaten business operations.
Top 3 ways to help SMBs beat app fatigue
With app fatigue causing such a drain on their productivity, SMBs are eager for solutions. It’s important to help your SMB customers to streamline workflows and increase efficiency, instead of just adding more apps. Here are steps you can take to assist them in finding the perfect balance of apps.
Showcase how many apps your solution can replace
Help your SMB customers slim down their clunky collection of apps without sacrificing the value they get. Offer an all-in-one solution that can do the job of multiple apps, so that small business owners can enjoy the same benefits in a much more simplified environment.
For example, perhaps your solution can cover several tasks such as scheduling, invoicing, project management, and payment processing, which would neatly cut down their arsenal of apps from four separate apps to just one unified solution.
Bake in extensibility
Extensibility means that you can easily expand existing or modify new capabilities without having to make major changes to the core architecture. Increasing solution functionality without requiring heavy resources allows you to future-proof your solution for your SMB customers. As your solution is built to grow with them, they will have fewer reasons to leverage 3rd party apps to meet their needs.
Partnering with an all-in-one solution provider is an easy way to bake in extensibility. Our 2024 survey of SMB-serving organizations showed that high costs of development is a huge challenge when it comes to developing new SMB offerings. Partnering can lower the cost barrier while producing an efficient and flexible offering.
Ensure your solution integrates with other apps
While no solution can completely replace all the apps your customers are using, it can offer a convenient way to integrate with them. Interoperability, which means ensuring that your solution can exchange data and information with other apps, is a crucial way to help reduce app fatigue. Designing an interoperable solution that works effortlessly with other popular apps helps simplify workflows, remove barriers to data access, and lower tech complexity.
Help your SMB customers find the right app balance
Sometimes less is more, especially when it comes to business apps. By providing a business-focused solution that covers a complete scenario, you’ll do a better job of delivering value to your customers. Slimming down the overall number of apps they use enables them to run their business more efficiently and regain productivity, while eliminating unnecessary 3rd party app fees.
This allows you to increase customer satisfaction, strengthen loyalty, and reduce churn, while growing your share of wallet and overall revenue.
