Innovation
The new My Swisscom App had to be launched from the home office due to the current situation - a first for Swisscom. A field report and a brief technical insight into the new app.
Dreiii, zweiiii, eiiins, Gooo Liivee", I shouted, unshaven and wearing trainers, in my living room on 26 March 2020. That was the unspectacular go-live of the new My Swisscom App, which we had all imagined would be a little different.
Alain Berset and Daniel Koch would definitely have been proud of us - but nobody saw us except the 78 participants in an online call. Yes, we launched the new My Swisscom App during the Swiss lockdown - from the home office. A first for Swisscom. As the current situation meant it was not possible to use the usual short business channels via the office desk, I joined and left countless team calls that day and had countless conversations across Europe on various channels. My home office suddenly became a "mission control centre". Fortunately, the mission ended successfully!
Conclusion: The corona crisis has forced us to adapt. Swisscom's flexible working culture, digitalisation and the best network in Switzerland have made this possible. But now let's take a look behind the scenes: How is the new My Swisscom App structured? What makes it so special?
The app is a so-called hybrid app. This means that our native app part is kept relatively small. Basically, we have built a framework and display web content within this framework. "Oh no, not another "fake app" that only displays websites", you might accuse us. But not so fast. We have wrapped our entire online customer centre in so-called Angular Web Components and can therefore display all the content that we display on the website in an app without jumping out of the app. This means that we build or optimise part of the online customer centre and can use it for desktop, tablets (web responsive) and apps. So we don't have to build everything three times, but only once and can use it three times.
This concept has worked so well that we are currently experimenting with reusing the online customer centre that we are building for our customers for our internal systems as well.
As efficient as this solution is, there is a flip side to every coin. So what challenges do we face?
A website design and an app design are of course not exactly the same thing and are used in completely different contexts. For example, some of our customers check and pay their bills from the comfort of their desktop via e-banking on a Monday evening after dinner. Others, however, do this with the My Swisscom App on the go while waiting for the train. In other words, they both do the same thing, but the situation they find themselves in is very different. This means that the user interfaces have to be adapted to the context and situation of our customers. While fold-out menus work well on the desktop, for example to display all billing details and proof of connection, you quickly lose the overview in an app. The information needs to be organised differently there, for example in tabs.
It was not always easy for us to find a solution that utilised the same technical basis and could be used for a website and an app at the same time. The aim was not to build an isolated solution just for the app, because the app is part of a holistic IT infrastructure. Nevertheless, we endeavoured to offer the best user experience. However, in order to fulfil both objectives - efficient IT infrastructure and the best customer experience - we ultimately adapted the app's user interface in some areas and customised the navigation.
But enough of the many words: it's best to download the app yourself and discover the many new ways to manage your customer relationship with Swisscom and find the easiest way to reach us. For our part, we are constantly expanding the app - stay tuned.
Click here to go to the landing page of the My Swisscom App: www.swisscom.ch/myswisscomapp
Product Owner for the My Swisscom App
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