SMOC.AI
Re-engineering to Transform a Reward-Based Marketing Platform into a User-Friendly, Functional, and Conversational Solution
3
Rounds of investment
200+
Partnership companies
Norway
Country
MarTech
Industry
About the client
Brands face a tough challenge to attract and retain audiences in the digital space, where consumers are constantly exposed to a flood of content from various sources. But what if you could reward your target audience for their attention?
SMOC.AI, a Norwegian startup, has a unique approach to marketing by prioritizing attention over clicks. The idea of their product is to provide incentives to consumers for engaging with a brand’s content or promotional materials to increase conversions in real-time. Rather than passively consuming ads, individuals are offered something of value in return for their time and attention.
SMOC.AI delivers rewards in an intelligent chat-like conversation format, which enables a dynamic and personalized experience. These rewards can include exclusive offers like additional items with the first purchase, discounts on future invoices, promo codes, upgraded subscriptions, or gift cards. Alternatively, companies can choose rewards from SMOC’s partners, and they can create their own currencies to let customers purchase products.
Challenge
To validate the concept of a reward-based conversation-driven platform, SMOC’s team created an MVP. But it was not scalable enough to accommodate future growth. They searched for a company that could tackle the technical problems and enhance the platform. That’s where EVNE Developers came in.
We improved the platform's scalability by addressing the technical debt, redesigning the user experience, and adding new features, while gradually changing the architecture to overcome the existing system's limitations. Our efforts resulted in a full-fledged reward platform that has become highly sought-after by brands like Dominos and Norwegian.
Solution
While the ideal solution would have been to rewrite the platform entirely using modern development approaches and tools, the project constraints made this option unfeasible. Instead, a decision was made to gradually re-engineer the system in collaboration with the client’s team. This involved addressing technical issues step by step and gradually replacing outdated modules with new ones.
By taking this incremental approach, we were able to navigate the project constraints and effectively improve the platform’s performance, scalability, and user experience over time.
Below is a brief overview of the main challenges during the project and how we overcame them.
Process
To enhance the existing platform, we chose a straightforward approach: identify problems, investigate their causes, and devise solutions.
During our code audit, we uncovered several key issues within the rewards platform:
1
Flawed architecture: The platform suffered from architectural flaws, lacking proper organization which resulted in slow response times and inability to scale.
2
Slow performance: The front end of the flow creation studio was static (constructed using HTML and CSS). It could not update in real-time based on user interactions.
3
Poor UX: The platform lacked intuitive design, had unclear navigation, and made it hard to accomplish desired goals.
Transformed the chatbot into a no-code solution with improved UX and functionality
SMOC.AI provides a predefined conversation format for users to interact with their customers, drive action, and offer rewards. This format is called a flow. Users can create flows using the no-code SMOC flow studio.
This studio has a hierarchical structure with about 2500 elements that offer extensive variations based on user replies. It was crucial for the studio to be user-friendly and intuitive for setting up predefined chat flows. But the existing version of this functionality was too complicated for a typical user, so we decided to redesign it to make it more user-friendly. With the goal to simplify and streamline the user interface, we revamped the design of the studio and then implemented it on the front end.
It was a significant challenge for our developers to deal with the large volume of data, settings, and interactivity of the studio and the multitude of variations and dependencies between elements. But we dealt with it effectively and added several advanced features:
Result
As a result of these enhancements, we created an automated and predefined chat flow triggered by various user actions, such as entering a web page, clicking links from emails, SMS, or messaging services, or interacting with ads. These flows serve clear sales and engagement objectives, including lead capture, survey or quiz completion, user referrals, or customer onboarding.
We built a platform that serves as a universal tool for managing electricity costs. It provides the following features:
Surveys
Users can send surveys to customers, enabling them to gather valuable feedback and insights.
Automated translation
All elements within the studio can be automatically translated in real-time into any language, facilitating global accessibility.
Referral program
We implemented a referral program that unites flows between two different bots from separate companies. For example, an airline bot can promote a taxi bot, and vice versa, allowing users to earn parking minutes or miles.
Embedded chat
Users can embed the chatbot into websites or apps, attach it to emails, share it via links, and even integrate it into display ads, expanding its reach and accessibility.
A/B testing
Users can identify the top-performing SMOC flows, making it easier to fine-tune and optimize their chatbot interactions for optimal outcomes.
Wallet
Every time a company gives a reward to a customer, they see it in their wallet.
With its user-friendly functionality, the platform now empowers companies to effortlessly create chat flows, drive meaningful interactions, and achieve their goals.
Reengineering the dashboard for reward flow reports in an iterative manner
The dashboard is one of the central components of the SMOC platform. It allows users to monitor conversion rates and access in-depth analytics for all their flows.
We recreated it step by step. The old dashboard lacked REST API, which made it hard to create a reactive front end that could update dynamically based on user interactions. It also had poor business logic resulting in slow performance when updating the statistics. Besides, ensuring backward compatibility (which means the new software can work smoothly with old data, settings, and dependencies) was a huge challenge.
To maintain continuous delivery and meet the client’s requirements for a working product, we implemented workarounds such as using iframes to display old data on the new dashboard. This approach allowed for an evolutionary transition from the old dashboard to the new one while ensuring uninterrupted service with 100% uptime.
Through this iterative process, we were able to improve the dashboard’s architecture, enhance its responsiveness, and address the performance limitations of the existing system, ultimately providing a more efficient user experience.
Enabling customer data collection for personalized rewards with data privacy in mind
To ensure personalized and effective rewards for customers, the platform relies on high-quality customer data. By collecting this data, companies can gain valuable insights into customer intents and preferences, enabling them to tailor their offerings accordingly.
We introduced the capability to collect customer data throughout the entire customer journey within a flow. This data is then stored in the SMOC customer preference graph, allowing users to access a comprehensive view of their customer’s preferences and behaviors.
With this data at their fingertips, users can create customer segments, enabling targeted and customized rewards for different customer groups.
Additionally, we integrated the platform with popular CRM systems such as HubSpot, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics 365. This seamless integration allows users to synchronize the collected customer data with their systems, ensuring a cohesive and unified approach to customer relationship management.
Value Delivered
Our work on enhancing the SMOC.AI platform brought forth several significant outcomes for the client. The key value delivered includes:
User-friendly interface
Our team improved the SMOC platform’s user experience by making it more user-friendly, intuitive, and easy to navigate.
3X conversion rates
The SMOC.AI platform now offers advanced features and capabilities, empowering users to create personalized chat flows and achieve 3X conversion rates.
Scalability
By revamping the platform’s architecture we ensured scalability and accommodated future growth.
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