Swisscom info and facts
Berne, 13 June 2016
Business regards agility as a success factor. Thanks to digitisation, physical processes can now be automated, and products and services can be produced faster and more cost-effectively. However, the main way in which companies are able to set themselves is through customer experiences. These must be shaped in a deliberate manner. During this process, prototypes help to present ideas in a way that is easy to understand and to find out at an early stage whether or not they work or how they can be improved and refined. There is just one problem: it is often hard to find enough colleagues, specialists or selected customers to provide qualified feedback within a reasonable period of time. But with Swisscom’s new feedback tool Looping, this obstacle is easily overcome. “A good prototype is key to success,” says Michael Baeriswyl, Head of Software as a Service at Swisscom, with confidence. “Looping allows prototypes to be quickly evaluated and made tangible, and shortcomings to be identified and resolved at an early stage. The tool also connects participants to one another in a feedback community. It breaks down barriers between companies, departments and hierarchies, and assembles feedback from designers, consultants, salespeople, technicians and marketing specialists.”
Looping works according to the principle of Software as a Service (SaaS), runs on the Swisscom Application Cloud and can be scaled freely as the community grows. The application is very simple: the visual representation of a prototype is uploaded – and Looping takes care of the rest. The tool prepares the survey, sends this to the participants on the mailing list, gathers the feedback provided and delivers the evaluation 48 hours later. It is up to users to choose who will be asked to provide feedback: a broad community, experts in a particular field within this community, individual colleagues or selected customers. Possible areas of application are prototypes for websites, apps, displays, posters or videos.
Looping has been used successfully at Swisscom for over a year. The idea behind the tool was thought up by Michael Baeriswyl and two colleagues during an Innovation Week. This quickly evolved into a complete web application. Since then, the community has continued to grow: it now has more than 1,800 employees, who have uploaded more than 700 prototypes and provided 20,000 pieces of feedback. Other companies have already recognised the added value offered by Looping, and its users now include AXA Winterthur, Coop, Die Mobiliar, Die Post, SBB and more.
Looping is aimed at companies with 50 or more users in any industry and is already available to use in Switzerland, the EU and the US. There are five different subscriptions to choose from. The price is based on the number of employees and customers who use Looping, at a rate of between CHF 4 and CHF 6 per user per month.
Read more about Looping from Swisscom