The Challenge
Picture managing device insurance product information across 10,000+ retailers scattered throughout India. During my previous corporate role, our company was technically powering insurance products for multiple OEMs, and we were facing a classic fragmentation problem. Each OEM had different device SKUs, insurance plan prices, features, and coverage details – all scattered across multiple sources with no unified information hub.
The issues were compounding fast. Retailers had limited product knowledge about various OEM offerings, which directly hurt insurance sales opportunities. Competition was intensifying, the retailer count kept growing, and everything was being managed through manual processes that simply couldn’t scale.
Since our company was powering this insurance technically, it was our responsibility to resolve this problem to increase insurance sales and, in turn, our profit. Without a unified way to engage, train, and provide updated OEM product information to retail partners, we were losing potential revenue.
What We Built
Mobile-First Engagement Platform
Working with our internal development team, we managed this project from a business perspective, ensuring retailers had smooth onboarding to a comprehensive mobile app designed specifically for retailer engagement. The app was well-defined with excellent visibility, relevant content, and comprehensive features. This wasn’t just another communication tool – it was developing a complete ecosystem for training, rewards, and community building.
Core Features That Made the Difference:
- Feed Sections: Real-time updates and company news
- Groups: Regional and OEM-based retailer communities
- Product Features & Pricing: Unified OEM device insurance information with SKUs, plan prices, and coverage details
- Interactive Elements: Polls, comments, likes for engagement
- Quizzes & Training: Gamified learning about device insurance products
- Video Training: Visual product demonstrations and insurance coverage tutorials
- WhatsApp ChatBot: Instant support and product query resolution
Strategic Business Management Approach
We didn’t just build an app and hope people would use it. The project was managed from a business perspective, ensuring smooth retailer onboarding with intuitive functionality that retailers would actually want to use, backed by relevant content and comprehensive features that provided real value.
Collaborative Development Process
Regular alignment meetings ensured we stayed true to brand guidelines whilst incorporating real insights from the sales team. This wasn’t a tech team building in isolation – it was developing a complete ecosystem through collaboration between technology, content, and business expertise.
Implementation & Results
Project Scope:
- Timeline: 5 months from concept to full deployment
- Scale: 10,000+ retailers across India
- Focus: Device insurance products across multiple OEMs
- Teams: Cross-functional collaboration with internal development team
What Happened
The platform delivered exactly what was needed for the business. Retailers finally had a centralised hub for everything they needed – training materials, product updates, community discussions, and direct support access across all OEM device insurance products.
More importantly, the engagement metrics proved the concept worked. App downloads, daily active users, monthly active users, and engagement rates all exceeded initial projections. Better product knowledge translated directly into improved insurance sales, increasing company revenue. We saw reduced usage of other communication channels as retailers migrated to the new platform.
The overall impact positioned our company as an industry leader in retailer enablement technology. We went from struggling with fragmented OEM information to providing a unified platform that significantly improved business performance.
What We Learned
Mobile-First Wins in Retail
Retailers are busy people who need information on-the-go. Building for mobile from day one, rather than adapting desktop experiences, made all the difference in adoption rates.
Community Beats Broadcasting
The most successful features weren’t the ones where we pushed information to retailers – they were the ones that let retailers connect with each other. Groups, polls, and comments created genuine engagement.
Gamification Drives Learning
Quizzes and rewards turned product training from a chore into something retailers actually looked forward to. Fun-based learning delivered better knowledge retention than traditional training methods.
Continuous Feedback Enables Success
Regular retailer feedback sessions helped us identify features like WhatsApp ChatBot integration that significantly improved the user experience. Building feedback loops into the process was essential.
