The Challenge
We were tasked to develop a mobile app for Google that trains retail employees how to best sell Google products, named Google Train Up. The challenge was on finding a way to incentivize the employees to participate in the mobile app training, given they were not getting paid for this training. We also had to ensure when updates were made to the pre-existing Google Train Up web browser, the corresponding app was also updated.
The Process
We collaborated with the Google Quality Assurance (QA) department, their design department, Google’s project manager for this app, and their back-end team, by acting as a programming augmentation. In the end, the cross-team collaboration was successful as we were able to adapt to the various teams’ processes, project management style, quality assurance requirements, and design needs. We adapt to Google’s work styles and were flexible with the needs of Google’s’ various departments. To add to this, we also provided valuable user-experience direction, which the Google design team appreciated during the challenging times of developing this mobile app.
The Solution
To motivate retail workers to use the app and allow themselves to be trained on how to best sell Google’s products, we implemented gamification that allows users to gain prizes (such as discounts on software and hardware Google products) at the end of every training game. To drive further user participation, we used push messaging, reminding retail employee users to take advantage of the Google software and hardware discounts offered when participating in the training app.
We developed the app so it would be used internationally, being made available in 10 languages, and 4 dialects of English (American, Australian, British, and Canadian).
The Result
Within the first few weeks, tens of thousands of users downloaded the app! It became really popular among retailers and their employees. Google commended us not only for the development of the app, but also for the tremendous effort of meeting their tight deadlines and collaborating with various teams from their company.
