Context

Successful app-development partnership delivers huge boost to app uptake

Having worked hand-in hand to bring it’s app back to life, Dootrix and Confused.com have forged a close working relationship. Now Dootrix provides a retained team to help Confused.com build its app into a feature-rich experience whose popular appeal has become central to the brand’s future.

Downloads up 400% Monthly Active Users up 900% Ratings: 4.5-5 Stars

The Client

Confused.com’s app was first launched with a fanfare in 2013. There was strong uptake and users liked its quick-quote functionality. However, over time, the app was side-lined. It wasn’t meeting customer needs and it needed an overhaul of its technology so that it would be easier to develop and maintain. Confused.com briefly considered shelving the app, but opted instead to redesign it and bring it up to date

Initial app development project to create intuitive user experience

Microsoft recommended three potential partners and Confused.com chose Dootrix. Dootrix proposed building the new version of the app with technology that complimented Confused.com’s existing tech stack (initially using Xamarin, and due to move to .NET MAUI) so that not only would it integrate more readily with Confused.com’s back-end infrastructure (built heavily on Microsoft Azure), but it would also allow the brand to bring the project in-house if and when it chose to.

The process involved re-imagining the entire customer journey and drew on extensive behavioural analysis. The result was an intelligent, intuitive user experience.

Dootrix executed a series of detailed API and back-end data integrations. The team also developed ‘My Garage’, an in-app dashboard of value-adding services for customers, including reminders for MOT and tax renewal.

The initial project was six months. Dootrix enhanced the app end-to-end, enabling customers to get insurance quotes quicker than ever before.

“It looked good. It worked well. It was released onto Apple and Google’s app stores and there was strong uptake,” says Dootrix’s CTO, Kevin Smith.

The Solution

Expanded app development partnership with a retained team

The updated app worked better and looked better, however its scope was still limited. The Confused.com team saw the potential to offer a much wider range of the company’s services via mobile. Dootrix helped them make their case and the company took a strategic decision to put resources into developing the app. Judging the collaboration with Dootrix to have been a success, Confused.com decided to expand it, moving from a project basis to a more flexible partnership, retaining a Dootrix team that included mobile engineers, designers, QA and project management.

For several years now the app has been driven by customer demand. Working in close collaboration, the Confused.com and Dootrix engineers have measured the engagement that’s been driven by different features and have tried to give consumers more of what they like. This has required a willingness to experiment. Prior to working with Dootrix, Confused.com hadn’t previously found a technology consultancy that provided software development services sufficiently flexible to be able to accommodate this approach.

“We have a good team at Dootrix, a strong, technical team who could grasp what we wanted to do quickly,” says Kristian Parr, Head of Engineering for Confused.com. “The budget needed careful management, and we didn’t always have detailed specifications for what we wanted. We’d want to do something, test it and then, when needed, try something else. Dootrix was happy to work in that way.”

“Dootrix was flexible and pragmatic, while also being very diligent. We were able to figure it out together as we went along. They were much more focused on getting us to a place of success rather than ticking off boxes.”

As Katie Hearn-Cross, Confused.com’s Senior Product Manager for returning customers, puts it: “Dootrix is an extension to our team. We've had a really positive experience with them. It has worked really well.”

Outcomes

App development delivers indispensable business tool

In recent years the app has become an indispensable companion to the company’s website, rather than an attempt to recreate the website on mobile. Dozens of new features have been added.

“We've evolved from an app where you can get car insurance quick quotes to being a handy tool in your pocket,” says Hearn-Cross. “We send you reminders for all of your different policies. You can get a quick quote for both your car and home insurance. And we will send you reminders when your tax is due and when your MOT is due for example. And further developments mean you can also see your MOT history in advance of your next test.”

Confused.com experimented with an offer which gives app users a free coffee every month and is looking for additional ways to make the app even more compelling.

“As we’ve added more features into the app, the interest from our customers has grown,” says Hearn-Cross. “It may have started out as almost a proof of concept, but as a business we soon realised that this is a really good tool that delivers something that is of value to our customers.”

The Dootrix team has also tackled other technical challenges, such as offering multiple levels of access: for new visitors, for returning visitors and for logged-in existing account holders.

“Amongst our successful partnerships, this is one that really stands out,” says Parr. “Dootrix have been with us for five, six, seven years now. And they're still part of the team, as they always have been.”

If you’d like a proper technology partner that’s focused on getting you to a place of success, get in touch

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