Creating a Native Virtual Assistant App for a European Lottery

As part of their strategy to digitalize and reach more users by creating an omnichannel experience, our client conducted a rigorous eighteen-month three-stage tender procedure. Scalefocus’s mobile development expertise, evidenced by our Google Developers Certified Agency status, played a key role and we were selected as their technology partner among twenty international companies. 

Starting a five-year collaboration, the Scalefocus team and the National Lottery worked on fully transforming the legacy mobile solution, which had very limited capabilities focused mainly on checking game results and was inefficient in driving additional revenue. We set out to develop native Android and iOS mobile apps that would serve as a virtual personal assistant to all retail users and, as legislation evolves, go a step further to target online players. The Lottery’s ultimate goal was to increase profits by engaging current users more actively and by reaching new players. To this end, they had to provide:

• 24/7 access: the ability to play anytime, anywhere

•  easy-to-use, interactive and enjoyable user experience

• regular and personalized game alerts

• fully customizable digital play slips

From the start Scalefocus and the National Lottery established a culture of trust and open communication. We conducted bi-weekly workshop and feedback sessions in complete synchronization with the business case requirements. To create the ultimate virtual player assistant, our team worked on transforming the legacy solution, which was characterized by subpar user experience, poor app store rating and a high number of crashes. We deployed native Android and iOS mobile apps with flawless UX and integrated them in the company’s ecosystem. 

Our meticulously tailored development approach featured multiple exit points as well as daily alignment and management of other vendors to ensure the highest product quality. We conducted frequent internal and external user testing and modified features in accordance with user feedback. Along the progress of the project we performed in-depth research and generated customized solutions for each new objective. Within months after handover, we achieved over 20% improvement of the lifetime store rating and decreased the number of crashes exponentially.

As 2020 faced people and business alike with one of the biggest health crises in history—the Covid-19 pandemic, Scalefocus and the National Lottery had extensive discussions and implemented readjustments to functionalities that would have required players to go to retail outlets. These were put on hold and quickly transformed to avoid clusters of people. The global crisis impacted the way we plan future releases and will continue to shape how we design functionalities in the future.

Key features

• Omni-channel login and registration

• POS locator through Google Maps and Places integration

• Multiple-platform release of the new Viking Lotto game in just 2 weeks

• Successful launch of a virtual bet slips creation tool

• Designed with secure multi-factor authentication method

• A high percentage of real-time manageable content via the custom Management System

• Local database and caching enabling top performance and fully functional offline mode

• Smooth UX with complex animations and detailed onboarding information

• Very high unit tests coverage and automated UI tests