Case Study | Mobile App Redesign & Chatbot Development
Custom Mobile Application Redevelopment utilising Xamarin alongside a Chatbot Implementation
Published: 1 November 2021
Business Challenge
Dis-Chem Pharmacies wanted an improved and innovative way of engaging with its customers online. Dis-Chem especially wanted to increase the number of users on their mobile application and to increase the conversation rate on tasks in app, such as requesting prescription medicines. Dis-Chem wanted a fresher look and a more customer engaging platform.
They also wanted customers to enjoy a more memorable experience with Dis-Chem in the digital world, while at the same time, ensuring there were less drop offs when using the digital platform. Dis-Chem’s customer centricity needed to be reflected on the digital platform, giving a better service to their customers in a manner that is beneficial to all parties.
The old paradigm of engagement in the mobile application was a long and challenging process for customers. This resulted in many customers dropping off, and then either not returning, or not completing the journey required to use the mobile application to its full potential.
The Solution
This project involved re-skinning Dis-Chem’s mobile app, which needed a new look. Tangent also proposed using chatbots as a method of engaging with customers.
Tangent had the opportunity to design a new, more user-friendly app that would decrease the drop-off rate and make for a memorable experience. Chatbots are user-friendly and appeal to those who are at ease with using technology. Smart phone users intuitively know how to interact with chat applications due to the proliferation of chat/messaging apps in society.
One of the unique challenges that is brought to the table on chatbots is the nature of the very problem being solved. A chatbot is an autonomous AI and interaction with an autonomous agent can be very jarring for a human.
The design and development team had to create a chat experience that mimicked engagement with a human agent while making it clear the user was engaging with a bot.
Customer experience considerations included the tone of the language, response times and even the name of the bot. It’s critical to remember how, when the chatbot is engaging with a customer, that you still need to reflect human mannerisms and patterns of engagement for it to be an intuitive engagement. This included introducing artificial pauses in the conversation to create the illusion that the ‘person’ on the other end, was ‘typing’ or ‘thinking’.
Another challenge arose in that through utilising chatbots; one has to careful consideration to the language used specifically the instructions and questions given to the user. It has to be made very clear to the user what type of information you require. Chat User Interfaces (CUIs) do not restrict the input from the user in the way web application or forms do.
Business Outcomes
The utilisation of chatbots was a unique way to achieve Dis-Chem’s objectives. Tangent Solutions did not deploy it in the traditional chat bot scenario where users could opt-in if they chose for guidance or support purposes. As part of the process flow it was part of the on boarding process for the user as well as part of the process when ordering prescriptions in-app.
The re-skinned mobile application launched early in 2019 uses a blend of Xamarin Native and Xamarin Forms. Xamarin Forms allowed the development to reduce the complexity of the application and reduce the build and testing time.
The Tangent mobile team delivered an exciting new user interface to showcase the true flexibility of the Xamarin Forms framework. By using chatbots, engagement requirements became shorter which resulted in fewer customer drop-offs. The measured conversation rate in app increased by 25%.
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