Case Study: Digital Experience and Mobile
SITUATION & CHALLENGE
An American beverage and foods company known for having a stellar customer experience at its brick and mortar store locations wanted to explore a new channel: in-office delivery for online purchases.
The company decided to trial its new delivery service model at a large high-rise building and needed a technology solutions partner to develop the online order-and-pay application it needed to serve the nearly 10,000 people working in the building’s offices. The application was intended to be a minimum viable product (MVP) that would serve as a proof-of-concept from which to learn about the market as well as test and improve processes.
The company initially outsourced the application to an overseas vendor but quickly grew unhappy with the relationship. With looming milestone deadlines, a total project length of only four months, and time already lost on the first vendor, the company needed application development expertise it could count on. Because of prior satisfaction in partnering with AIM Consulting for its mobile apps, as well as the inherent knowledge AIM brought of the company’s processes and culture, the company asked AIM to take over the project.
SOLUTION
AIM was able to rapidly ramp up the project, providing leadership as well as both UX design and development resources to ensure a smooth transition and execution.
An AIM product owner helped to scope the project and provide strategic planning to support the application’s complex ordering and payment capabilities. AIM Consulting also provided all of the UX design for the application. AIM recommended a single-page Responsive Design web application as the intended customer would be ordering from mobile devices as well as company PCs. AIM’s UX team worked closely with the client throughout the design process, from initial sketches to final comps, to deliver a design for the application that was slick, modern and on-brand.
Working cross-functionally with several of the company’s key development groups, a small, extremely high-performing Scrum team then developed a fully responsive MVP order-and-pay application within a very tight timeline. AIM’s flexibility and expertise in agile, as well as knowledge of the client company’s mobile apps, enabled the project to smoothly flow through the initial scoping, design and development. In addition, it was the first development project to undergo and pass the company’s new and very thorough architecture-review process.
Features in the 1.0 MVP release of the online order-and-pay application included the following:
- Sign in/account creation, which included building selection delivery location, a feature new to the company and requiring changes to the back-end and API
- Food and drink menus including item customization features
- Ordering capabilities, including adding/removing/editing items in a shopping cart
- Payment and delivery functionality integrated with existing client payment systems
- Analytics for the company to gather insights on customer ordering and purchasing habits
The location chosen as the trial ground for the company’s new delivery channel was a landmark building that required deep levels of approval for construction of the physical service location, resulting in a delay of the launch date. The additional time allowed AIM to conduct large-scale beta testing that included the entire cross-functional program team so that the end-to-end process could be trialed. AIM also made enhancements to features, including:
- Digital tipping
- Order history with a re-order option enabling the customer to select previously ordered products, eliminating the requirement to customize the same order every time
- Extended analytics
Finally, although the application only needed to be a proof-of-concept for one building, the application’s architecture was built to scale to up to ten buildings so that the company would be able to expand the service to future locations.
RESULTS
AIM Consulting was able to help the company trial a new delivery channel with only minimal investment to rapidly build and test a proof-of-concept technology solution. The trial delivery service launched without a hitch. Using the application’s built-in analytics tools and careful review of customer ordering patterns and other measures, the company can now gather the market insights it needs to determine the best course to expand and evolve the channel.
