Smile - Self Care App
Smile provides 4G LTE mobile broadband services, with data speeds of up to 21Mbps, in all its countries of operation. They aim to become the broadband provider of choice for SuperFast mobile broadband and SuperClear voice services in all current markets – Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and soon in the DRC Their intention is to ensure that each of their over 300 million potential customers have access to fast, reliable broadband services and are able to use these to accelerate development and wealth creation.
Smile launched Africa’s first commercial 4G LTE network in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in May 2013, revolutionizing the way people access information online. Since then, Smile has extended its coverage in Tanzania to 7 regions and also launched commercially in Uganda in June 2013, with coverage expanded to 14 cities. In March 2014 Smile launched West-Africa’s first 4G LTE mobile broadband service in Nigeria with coverage now extended to 8 cities.
By the end of 2015, Smile had the biggest 4G LTE mobile broadband network in Africa and continues to expand its network coverage. In 2016 Smile launched its SuperClear voice, video and SMS services over LTE, enabling all their customers to use one data bundle for SuperFast broadband and SuperClear voice services.
The Challenge
Smile had already developed a very simple mobile application that enabled users to make and receive calls and messages etc. Smile’s infrastructure is strong and rich with features and capacity, but they felt that there was considerable room for improvement in the app.
Smile needed a solution provider that had experience in a wide range of areas – they needed someone with expertise in:
- Digitalization
- Artificial intelligence and conversational chatbots
- Mobile application development in Android and iOS
- Conversational chatbot design, development and support
- Telco Value-added-service (VAS) design, development and support
- Artificial intelligence (Ai), Natural Language Processing and Learning (NLP and NLU)
The Solution
As MM happens to have experience in all of these areas, we were ideally placed to meet this challenge.
Our teams worked closely with Smile to revise and optimize the overall scope for the project and produce a detailed implementation plan. This plan required that we develop and deploy a number of solutions through a phased approach.
The first solution would be the ‘Smile Lite App’ which would be available to Smile’s Android and iOS users in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. This app would provide users with the ability to recharge their accounts through credit cards and vouchers etc., purchase voice and data bundles, share airtime and data with family and friends and more.
As this article is being written, we are in the final stages of testing the Lite App and will be launching the Android and iOS versions with customizations for each of the countries that app will be available for, very soon.
While we conclude work on the Lite App, we have already started work on the next phase of the project – an enhanced version of the app that includes all the features of the Lite App, but adds a communications module that will enable users to make voice and video calls, conference calling and several other features.
As this article is being written, we are in the final stages of testing the Lite App and will be launching the Android and iOS versions with customizations for each of the countries that app will be available for, very soon.
While we conclude work on the Lite App, we have already started work on the next phase of the project – an enhanced version of the app that includes all the features of the Lite App, but adds a communications module that will enable users to make voice and video calls, conference calling and several other features.
