Project Type: Customer Self-Serve Application

Customer: Orange

Platform: BlackBerry

Project Overview:

Everything Everywhere is the largest mobile network operator in the UK and is a joint venture between Deutsche Telekom and France Télécom. Formed in 2010, Everything Everywhere now runs two of Britain’s biggest brands – Orange and T-Mobile.

This project for Orange allows customers to review and manage their accounts via their handsets. One result is a large fall in call centre enquiries and substantial cost savings to the company.

When Orange wanted an application to add the Your Orange (YO) service to Blackberry devices, Blackberry RIM recommended they talk to Penrillian. The first version was developed successfully in just months, with an upgrade incorporating additional functionality already planned, with future versions to follow.

“The Penrillian project team were superb in bringing our team up to speed. We all got together face-to-face, went through an existing app and set the project on the high development level we wanted.”

Hannah Beal, Device Self Serve Specialist, Your Orange

The Challenge:

The YO team asked Penrillian to develop a 'future-proofed' customer self serve application that can be updated and expanded regularly. The team had a clear vision of the functionality, look and feel required. It turned to Penrillian for guidance on making the best use of Blackberry-related technology and user-interface (UI) features. Because the development period from initial ideas to market was short, the project was ideally suited to Penrillian's flexible Agile Development Methodology.

Objectives:

• To widen user access to Your Orange self serve mobile services.
• To make full use of the strengths and features of Blackberry devices.
• To include and enhance the user experience seen on other platforms.
• To further increase functionality, user interaction and visual appeal.
• To deliver sound, flexible software capable of being continually upgraded.

“Penrillian helped us in areas like using the Blackberry menu page. It was not something we had not explored before. It was very interesting to see how that mixed with our original ideas.”

Hannah Beal, Device Self Serve Specialist, Your Orange

What we did:

Everything Everywhere was already running successful Your Orange apps on Apple, Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms. The Your Orange team wanted to replicate the quality of this experience onto Blackberry devices, while adding extra features for pay as you go, and pay monthly contract and small business customers.

The Agile development methodology offered an extremely flexible route for exploring and fine-tuning creative ideas quickly. The Your Orange team began by outlining their aims. Penrillian then advised on the potential use of Blackberry-specific features and produced early software demonstrators for trial and feedback.

The Your Orange team wanted to offer a series of special options, including the choice of changing Orange's Magic Numbers directly from the handset – once again cutting costly call-centre traffic. Penrillian also made it possible for pay as you go customers to enter top-up voucher numbers directly into their device.

In addition, main account-holders can review other mobile numbers listed on their account, which is popular with families. Another innovation popular with users was a series of security preferences allowing device access to be protected by a user-number, password, or the use of a PIN.

Hannah said “The highlight for me was probably week four. This was the first time I looked at what Penrillian had done and it really looked like an app with full iconography on the splash screen. It was really good to achieve that so early on in the project.”

Results:

Orange now has a complete suite of Your Orange applications operating across all major platforms. In addition to technical innovations, it’s system for Blackberry devices includes a number of creative user-interface, layout, icon and branding features. The Your Orange team expects to upgrade the service further as its strategy for customers continues to develop.

“Agile worked really well. The quality of the final product and its features far exceeded my expectations. We had weekly software releases which gave us something tangible to look at. Every one was on time. Fantastic. We kept some ideas back for Version 2. I'm already looking forward to doing it again.”

Hannah Beal, Device Self Serve Specialist, Your Orange

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