Technology company Dynamic Technology Holdings' (DTH) investment in Swarm Loyalty has enabled the specialists' developer to launch a newer version of its mobile loyalty and customer marketing application. According to the company, the new version of its mobile loyalty platform will enable clients to create and deploy a smartphone-based loyalty app in two weeks.
Swarm MD Rowan Vlaming says the new solution inverts the notion of the time-consuming, uber-expensive application development cycle on its head.
"Smartphone apps are very powerful tools for brands, but companies often hit a brick wall when it comes to getting their ideas off the ground - and more importantly into their customers' hands - because the traditional process of developing an app from scratch can be prohibitive," he says.
According to Vlaming, the company has been building its mobile loyalty platform for several years, and with the help of the DTH investment have retooled it to meet the increasing demand of rapid adoption from clients. "Without losing any of the functionality that made the original application different in this market, along with adding in a number of new features, we've been able to streamline the process of creating a branded app for new clients - or modifying our existing clients' apps - so that new clients can have a working product in hand in a fortnight."
Aside from faster time-to-market, the new application platform includes a loyalty and vouchering engine that allows for more flexibility in the types of campaigns that can be run on the platform, 'gamification' engine that challenges customers to try new products, visit different stores and change their shopping behaviour, then rewarding them for doing so. Front-end improvements include the ability to edit messaging and notification types for the app, and promotional codes for non-point-of-sale campaigns, such as events.
"These features can be automated and are integrated with the retailers' existing point-of-sale systems so there's no complicated learning curve," says Vlaming.
Vlaming says one of the biggest drivers for the platform upgrade was making the platform more accessible to single-store, single-branch brands. "Loyalty apps are most often associated with larger brands that operate national, multi-branch franchises, which also spreads out the higher cost of bespoke software development to make it more affordable. We've had a number of smaller brands and independent stores approaching us for a similar solution because of the inherent marketing value and direct customer communication features our app enables, so it was important for us to 'democratise' the solution as much as possible to make it more appealing for a wider audience" he adds.
DTH is a software and technology group employing over 700 technology professionals, business leaders and support staff across the UK and South Africa. The company says the investment is part of their long-term strategy to invest in promising start-ups and that Swarm is well positioned as a beneficiary. "It is part of our strategy to incubate and develop promising start-up software development companies to significantly grow their market share in South Africa and abroad," said Chris Wilkins, CEO of DTH.
"What Swarm has achieved in such a short space of time is nothing short of remarkable," says Wilkins. "This makes them integral to our expansion strategy, particularly in the rapidly-changing post-Brexit UK market, where the company solution is not only completely transplantable, but will also give UK brands a faster, better, more full-featured loyalty solution than anything else currently available and at a much lower cost point."
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