Brands face a new challenge: fighting the hidden enemies of mobile CX. From clunky UX to AI-powered fraud and engagement fatigue, this story unpacks why the mobile app experience is failing and how to fix it.
For over a decade, brands have poured resources into building mobile apps, believing that being “mobile-first” would future-proof their business. But in 2025, with expectations sharper and loyalty more fragile, that assumption is falling apart.
The truth is stark: today’s consumers want apps that work. Apps that make life easier, safer, and more intuitive. And when they don’t? Customers don’t complain. They swipe away.
Three forces are quietly eroding mobile loyalty, even as brands boast about downloads and engagement rates: Friction, Fraud, and Fatigue. They’re not new, but their impact that’s amplified by AI, heightened expectations, and competitive alternatives has become a nightmare.
Friction: The Cost of Clunky Convenience
Customers don’t measure mobile success by design awards or new features. They measure it by speed, simplicity, and whether it saves them time. And too often, the answer is no.
Despite 49% of UK shoppers using smartphones for their most recent purchase, the UK ranks last in mobile engagement among eight major markets, according to the 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index. Yes, apps are built but not necessarily built for real-world, end-to-end journeys.
“Every point of friction, repeating information, switching channels, waiting for an email, is a moment you lose to that higher standard,” says Baker Johnson, Chief Business Officer at UJET. “The immediate opportunity is to embrace the smartphone for what it is: the most direct, powerful, and data-rich option for minimising and improving your CX.”
Some retailers are taking note. shoezone has seen an 8% lift in app conversion rates over its website since launching its mobile app, driven by practical features like wishlists, intuitive filtering, and integrated next-day delivery. Weekly downloads are up 24%.
Road Runner Sports is translating this mindset into physical stores. Its adoption of Aptos ONE, a mobile-first POS system, has redefined frontline service. Store associates can manage returns, view inventory, and complete purchases from a single device, eliminating handoffs and hesitation. It’s not just mobile-first. It’s customer-first in motion.
Fraud: The Hidden Risk Beneath the Surface
Convenience without trust is a short-lived advantage. As mobile apps becomes the gateway to commerce, health, travel, and finance, it also becomes a magnet for threats. AI-powered fraud techniques like biometric spoofing, mobile deepfakes, and bot-driven credential attacks are undermining the very confidence that frictionless CX is meant to build.
“Cyberattacks don’t just impact the digital experience,” warns Jack Kerr, Director, Go-to-Market (EMEA) at Appdome. “They leave consumers with a sense of violation and distrust. In fact, 71% of people will abandon a mobile brand after a breach.”
The trouble is, most brands still treat security as a backend function not a CX pillar. But customers don’t separate the two. One compromise is all it takes to erode trust built over years.
Brands like MandM are rewriting this script. In partnership with Valtech, the retailer has launched an AI-enhanced mobile app that prioritises not just performance but protection. With Google Cloud at the core and Contentstack powering dynamic content, the experience is adaptive, intelligent and secure by design.
It’s a shift from reactive to resilient. And it’s long overdue.
Fatigue: The Overlooked Threat to Engagement
In the pursuit of “stickiness,” many apps have turned into noise machines. Push alerts, loyalty prompts, abandoned cart nudges, each intended to re-engage, but together they overwhelm.
CX fatigue doesn’t stem from too many messages. It stems from too little meaning.
“It’s not just about having an app anymore,” says Sarah Maina, Regional Manager, Middle East & France at AppsFlyer. “It’s about making that app the primary channel for engagement, service, and conversion.”
That means coherence across devices, clarity in messaging, and continuity across touchpoints. But for many brands, mobile still sits on the periphery of a fragmented CX strategy.
Only 13% of UK shoppers used cross-channel shopping features in their last purchase, despite 61% of merchants offering them. And in France, users often fill mobile carts only to convert later on desktop or in-store. The mobile journey isn’t broken. It’s just incomplete.
“People get fatigued from companies that continuously make promises and don’t come through,” adds CX expert Jeofrey Bean. “If you want advocacy, you have to design interactions that come through on your brand promise, again and again.”
One brand doing this with discipline is Next, which is rebuilding its mobile commerce stack from the ground up. Migrating to a native app and overhauling its delivery workflow, the team cleared a full season’s backlog and cut 30 weeks from their roadmap. The message? Fewer projects. More impact.
Build Mobile Apps Against the Fs
None of the “three Fs” are new. What’s changed is the context in which they operate and the cost of ignoring them.
Mobile CX can no longer afford to be an afterthought, a side channel, or a digital twin of a web platform. In 2025, your app is your brand delivering the full promise of convenience, credibility, and continuity, or quietly dismantling it.
That means:
- Designing for clarity, not just visual appeal
- Building in protection, not patching on security
- Delivering substance, not just engagement
It also means redefining measurement. From clicks to commitment. From installs to retention. From messaging volume to message value.
“You need a customer experience intelligence portfolio,” says Bean, “a mix of data, ethnographic observation, and thick insights to understand the human experience behind the behaviour.”
The brands that succeed will build trust, relevance, and restraint into every interaction. Not just to win downloads but to earn loyalty in the most demanding interface of all: the customer’s life. And that’s a promise no push notification can fake.
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