Digital startups face all manner of challenges, and identity is no exception. However strong the service offering, if registration and login processes detract from the user experience, sales and retention can suffer – and for any new business, particularly in competitive digital spaces, that can spell the end. Fully 43% of OTT media apps were abandoned less than a month after being downloaded last year – and there are now questions over the extent to which disjointed user experience, in which people are confronted with multiple different interfaces when switching between services, is to blame. Users are increasingly intolerant of inconsistency, with implications both for the viability of digital services and user security.
“Consistency is a top priority for consumers,” explains one digital entrepreneur; “90% of consumers say they expect a consistent experience across every platform. It’s not just a nice-to-have; customers are willing speak with their dollars. 89% of companies expect holistic customer experience will be the main basis of competition in the coming years.” User frustration can also have ripple effects online. One analyst points out that early user experience flops can sound the death knell for new entrants, even where quickly addressed. “Negative reviews weren’t such a big deal earlier, but today, they pack a more powerful punch. Our world is connected – we have generations that have grown up with access to the web from early on.” It’s not enough to learn on the job – those kinks need to be fixed before the first users have a chance to grow weary of them.
What’s needed in this age of ever-increasing numbers of online accounts, then, is simplicity in how we access them. Only one in ten users are now willing to accept a diffuse experience, and research by GSMA Intelligence indicates that 87% have abandoned online purchases where required to go through new registration processes. Market research indicates that the average consumer has upwards of 90 online accounts, which leads to password re-use across multiple accounts, only compounding security risks. Thankfully, the mobile industry can help here, by providing the consistency required. What users need – and demand – is a single, secure means of identifying themselves, without needing to remember multiple details, carry different devices, or adjust to different interfaces. And as digital market leaders like Microsoft and Google have confirmed their intention to end reliance on passwords, now is the time to give it to them – for the sake of both the users themselves and the services they use.
A new case study from Turkcell illustrates how the pan-industry identity solution Mobile Connect is helping startups to grow in Turkey, by offering a simple and consistent means of logging into online services. By pairing users with a device they carry about their person as a matter of course, Fast Login (Turkcell’s solution designed in alignment with Mobile Connect) allows them to access services swiftly in the same way across platforms – without requiring them to give out their mobile number to third party services, which is an unpopular option, nor use social media logins amid concerns over data privacy. 65% of digital startup Kimboo’s users now use Fast Login, and that number is set to grow as users grow to expect the seamlessness on offer – social media logins have decreased on Kimboo from 100% to just 5% in less than a year. “Our customers are very happy to use it, and it’s driving our business forward,” explains CEO of Kimboo. “I think the day we start using Mobile Connect exclusively as our login method is not in the distant future.”
Quiz app Haidi, too, has switched from one-time passwords via SMS to Fast Login, and hasn’t looked back – its user numbers have surged since removing the extra step it required of them. “Connectivity with Turkcell was completed in a day,” says Hadi Founder Emre Ulusoy, “and once users confirmed they were happy, we rolled out Fast Login through Mobile Connect. It has delivered a simple customer experience and has contributed to strong growth. We will finish the year with one million unique registered users and levels of participation are high with five million uses over the past five months.” There are few digital startups who would not envy the success these outfits have seen since adopting Mobile Connect. The same is plainly true for identity as for so much else in the digital world: if you streamline it, they will come.