Field Service Mobile Apps for a Government-Backed Telecom Provider
Customer
The Customer is a US telecom company driven by the mission to provide the safety and convenience of cell phone services even to those who can’t afford them. Offering wireless telecommunication to low-income clients for free or at reduced rates since 1980s, the Customer now gets the governmental financial support. As of 2016, it operates across 16 states and is constantly expanding its servicing area.
Challenge
The Customer requested two applications: the one to optimize field sales and allow employees to sign contracts on client’s site, and the other to automate the process of eligibility documents recertification. ScienceSoft received a high-level project description and was told to meet a tight delivery schedule.
One of the major challenges was to align the solutions with the minimum wage policies and eligibility for the Customer’s services that all vary from state to state.
Solution
ScienceSoft’s team worked to elaborate the project specifications and managed to deliver the solutions in the shortest timeframe. In just 2 weeks, the team developed both iOS apps and their back-end.
App 1: Virtual operator
The application allows a salesperson to fill out a form to sign up their client for the company’s telecom services. Each client’s information including personal security numbers is safely transferred to the back-end and instantly verified. If the data is marked as valid, the company’s employee can give their client a cell phone connected to their network right away.
App 2: Recertification app
The application helps the Customer’s specialists check if those who are already signed up for their services still legally qualify as low-income and are therefore eligible for discounts. The application involves working with a device camera: field specialists take snapshots of clients’ certificates, upload them for verification, get instant response and act in accordance to it.
Results
The cooperation proved to be successful, and the Customer, satisfied with the mobile development services, chose to continue collaborating with ScienceSoft. Currently, our developers are working on an online enrollment system for the Customer’s website.
Technologies and Tools
Backend: PHP, Symfony2, Beanstalkd, MySQL, Nginx/Apache2, Capistrano, AWS (EC2, RDS, ELB, Route53)
Mobile frontend: iOS9, iPad, Objective-C, CoreData, JSON, Push notifications, AFNetworking, MagicalRecord, Fabric
