For a prominent client in the telecommunications sector looking to give customers across various African countries a modern experience, BBD created a light-weight mobile application that offers a unifed digital self-service platform and improved customer experience while reducing call volumes and decreasing the time-to-market on new
Objectives
- Implement a single, lightweight mobile app that ensures a consistent and seamless user experience across various African markets, leveraging the foundation set by the South African mobile app
- Prioritise the optimisation of the app for entry-level Android GO and KaiOS devices, ensuring accessibility and usability for users with varying technological capabilities
- Design the app with flexibility to cater to specific nuances in each targeted market, accommodating diverse cultural, linguistic and multi-currency requirements
- Integrate features allowing for the use of multiple languages and currencies, enhancing inclusivity and user convenience in different regions
- Facilitate complete flexibility in structuring and presenting product offerings across markets, all while adhering to best practices in the behavioural patterns of mobile users
Benefits
- Unified experience across markets while achieving county-specific nuances and data sovereignty
- Improved performance and customer experience
- Expanded market reach
- Reduced customer service call volumes
- Reduced time-to-market for new features
- Modern digital self-service experience for customers across the African countries
Core functionality delivered
When a leading telecommunications provider was looking for a mobile app to service customers across multiple African countries using their South Africa app as the base, they turned to their development partner, BBD, who had delivered the original mobile app.
Because our client was looking to service all targeted markets off a single mobile app, the team opted to employ a single code base which enabled them to deploy multiple instances of the app using the same code base while still catering to the nuances of each country and ensuring local data sovereignty laws were abided by.
Working closely with the in-country and design teams, the BBD Product Design, UX Design and development teams worked in a collaborative, Agile fashion to deliver the mobile app through both the design and full development phases. This collaboration means that there was a rapid and efficient delivery cycle as any identified issues could be resolved before development began.
Ultimately, the app created a new channel for the client’s African customers, allowing them to benefit from a modern digital self-service experience, improved performance and decreased time-to-market on new features and functionalities, while remaining accessible to a user-base on low-end phones with little to no smartphone functionality.
Approach
From a technical perspective, the native web app made use of a single code base which catered to KaiOS and Android Go and contained the target functionality. The benefit of this approach is that it allowed the team to quickly add new features and deploy any bug fixes once across all platforms in all countries, without having to navigate an app store deployment.
Native shells were created for KaiOS, Android and iOS to implement their respective capabilities and frame-in the web app which was optimised to run as a PWA (Progressive Web App) and employed caching techniques that improved performance and user experience. PWAs are apps built with web technologies that run via a browser but give the experience of a native application. Utilising this technology helped ensure that the app was as light weight but feature-rich as possible, no matter the device a user has.
To simplify integration, and reduce delivery timelines for the client, the BBD team additionally made use of a backend-for-frontend layer using a super graph which is essentially a microservice architecture for GraphQL (aka a quarriable API). A technical win, introducing a backend-for-frontend meant that not only was performance and optimisation enhanced holistically, but interfaces could be standardised, allowing users in each country to have the same experience and customer journeys.
The mobile app additionally supported both touch and non-touch (keypad) devices and was designed and built to run on a range of form factors including feature, mobile, tablet and desktop. Finally, internationalisation was catered for by making use of the i18n standard coupled with the use of localised language maps. BBD’s Product and UX Design teams took a collaborative and inclusive approach in facilitating business stakeholders from four distinct African countries to collectively shape a unified brand experience. Recognising the importance of accommodating in-country nuances, our team organised tailored discussions and workshops that provided a platform for stakeholders to share insights, cultural preferences and local requirements.
The facilitation process played a crucial role in fostering understanding, aligning objectives, and harmonising diverse perspectives. By actively involving the stakeholders in the design decisions, the BBD team ensured that the final product resonated with each unique market while maintaining a cohesive brand identity. This iterative and inclusive approach not only enriched the app’s user experience but also played a pivotal role in meeting tight project timelines, allowing for efficient decision-making and consensus-building that contributed to the successful and timely delivery of the project.
Impact of BBD’s partnership
BBD’s partnership yielded a transformative impact by collaboratively working with our client. Within tight timelines, we successfully designed and launched a robust yet lightweight mobile app, tailored to the diverse landscapes of multiple African countries. This app not only navigated country-specific nuances and data sovereignty laws but also achieved significant outcomes, including decreased service call volumes. It effectively met the client’s objectives by providing a unified self-service experience on a modern, digital platform. Additionally, the product design considerations contributed to a reduced time-to-market for new features, ultimately enhancing the overall customer experience.
