Interview by Informa with Hyundai about Rogerthat
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Recently Hyundai equiped all authorized dealers in Belgium and Luxemburg with a personalized customer service application on the Rogerthat platform.
Hyundai dealers excited about their new mobile communication channel via Rogerthat
Yesterday Hyundai BeLux held a dealer meeting for 75 French speaking dealers in Belgium and Luxemburg. One of the topics at the dealer meeting was the introduction of the Rogerthat smartphone services Hyundai BeLux is providing for each of the Hyundai dealers in Belgium and Luxemburg.
Jan Van Haver, After Sales Manager at Hyundai BeLux, warned us that there might be some sceptic dealers that might not be overwhelmed with the introduction of yet another communication channel with customers, this time targeting the smartphones of customers via Rogerthat.
This warning turned out to be void, as the dealers were very enthusiastic about the steps Hyundai BeLux is taking regarding mobile automation via Rogerthat. Instead some of the dealers were already thinking along with their importer, seeing lots of opportunities to engage more with their customers.
To get started quickly Hyundai BeLux rolled out the Rogerthat services without integrating the software to internal systems, something they plan to do in a second phase. In the first phase, integration with the dealers happens via regular email. Dealers receive Rogerthat interactions via email, and can provide a response by just replying to those emails. Replies are delivered to the customer’s smartphone in relation to the interaction they started, making it a seamless experience for the customer.
One dealer remarked that customers will expect answers quickly via this mobile channel. Matthijs Keersmaeckers, Business Development Coordinator AS at Hyundai BeLux, answered that this is 21st century customer support. Customers expect answers to their questions quickly regardless of the medium through wich they are communicating.
Today the Belgian Dutch-speaking Hyundai dealers are being introduced to their Rogerthat service.
Presentation:
Hyundai dealer meeting presentation in French
Hyundai dealer meeting presentation in Dutch
Created, designed, deployed & published a mobile service in 3 hours.
This article tells the story how I created a mobile application for an existing web API using the Rogerthat platform.
Intro
A while ago, Toon Vanagt -a former colleague- introduced me to his new startup data.be. His goal is to lower the barriers for businesses to access accurate data of other businesses. See http://data.be for more information on his product. Recently they also opened up their database via a REST api (http://api.data.be). I told Toon (Toon Vanagt, co-founder of data.be) that creating a service for Rogerthat that uses his API, would be very simple. The next day he sent me an API key for his cloud based service, so I could hack something together as soon as I had some time to spend. Last sunday evening at 8pm that time had come.
Ready, Set, Go: Service homescreen
November 25, 2012 8:00:05 pm
I started with having a look at the API documentation of data.be (https://api.data.be/) to examine what functionality the service should contain.
Their api currently offers three services: validate a VAT number, check the status of a company & get some basic information (name, foundationdate, address, status, …) about a company.
Okay this meant I had to create a homescreen with three icons.
I needed about 10 minutes to identify the functionality and to add matching homescreen icons as displayed in the screenshot on the left.
References:
How to create a homescreen
Look & feel: we need a screen branding
November 25, 2012 8:10:35 pm
To give the data.be service the same look & feel as the data.be website, I had to create a screen branding. A screen branding is a reusable definition for look and feel which you can create in HTML. The HTML together with the related css files and images can be uploaded as a zip into the Rogerthat service configuration panels.
To get started, I opened the data.be website in the chrome browser. Using inspect I removed some content in the data.be website so I could take a nice screenshot of 320 pixels wide containing logo and the background they use.
The width of the screenshot (320px) is important because lots of devices have a screen width of 320 pixels or a multiple of it (iPhone 640px).
To complete the screen branding, I created the HTML in which I configured how the screen branding should behave:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<meta property="rt:style:background-color" content="#285a7d"/>
<meta property="rt:style:show-header" content="false"/>
<meta property="rt:style:color-scheme" content="dark"/>
<style type="text/css">
body { padding: 0px; margin: 0px; background-color: #285a7d;}
#background img { width: 100% }
#background { width: 100%; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 5px; }
#message { margin: 0.5em; }
#message span { font-family: Arial; font-size: 1.2em; color: white; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="background"><img src="data.be.header.png" /></div>
<div id="message"><span><nuntiuz_message/></span></div>
</body>
</html>
Notice the meta tags which define how Rogerthat displays the screen branding.
Creating the screenshots, writing the HTML and packaging them together into a zip took me another 20 minutes. Off course the fact that I had done this before, and that I had a couple of other screen brandings laying around was actually an advantage.
After uploading the screen branding, I configured the home screen to use it. You can see the result on the left.
References:
How to create a Rogerthat screen branding
Finally, it is coding time!
November 25, 2012 8:30:35 pm
All right, as a developer this is the part I like the most. Now I had to add code somewhere, so that the user gets some screens after he presses the icons in his homescreen. This can be done through integrating with our api. The last few years I started using Google App Engine to create online services. So I created the integration between the APIs of Rogerthat and data.be in a Google App Engine app using Python.
First created a request handler that handles callbacks originating from the Rogerthat cloud when the user uses the data.be service in his Rogerthat app.
# Service identifier key, blanked out with stars for the example because this is a secret
SIK = "******"
# Key of the branding, also blanked out
BRANDING = "******"
class DATADOTBEServiceHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler):
def post(self):
self.response.headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/json'
# Check whether the request can be authenticated as coming from the Rogerthat cloud
# regarding activity of the data.be Rogerthat service
sik = self.request.headers.get("X-Nuntiuz-Service-Key", None)
if sik != SIK:
logging.info("Denying request with SIK " + sik)
self.response.set_status(401)
return
call_json = json.loads(self.request.body)
method = call_json["method"].replace(".", "_")
error = None
result = None
if hasattr(self, method):
try:
result = getattr(self, method)(call_json)
except Exception, e:
logging.exception("Error occured while processing request.")
error = str(e)
json.dump({'id': call_json['id'], 'result': result, 'error': error}, self.response.out)
def test_test(self, call_json):
# Is called by Rogerthat to test if the callback apis are reachable and function as expected.
# See http://www.rogerthat.net/developers/getting-started/#How_to_test_your_service
return call_json["params"]["value"]
This is the basic setup I use in all my Rogerthat integration processes. It actually automates my integration with the Rogerthat callback apis so that I only need to focus on the implementing the methods that I need to implement for a specific service.
Creating an application on Google App Engine, adding this first request handler, deploying it to Google, and validating the setup from the Rogerthat service panels took me another 20 minutes.
November 25, 2012 8:51:15 pm
When the user presses the icons in the service home screen, I get a poke callback (see poke api callback documentation), so in order to react on this with a form in which the user can enter a VAT number, I need to implement this method:
class DATADOTBEServiceHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler):
...
def messaging_poke(self, call_json):
tag = call_json["params"]["tag"]
email = call_json["params"]["email"]
logging.info("Received poke from %s with tag %s" % (email, tag))
if tag in ("is_vat_valid", "company_status", "company_info"):
return get_vat(tag)
def get_vat(tag):
return dict(type='form',
value=dict(message="Voer het BTW nummer in dat u wil controleren:",
form=dict(type="text_line", positive_button="Valideer",
positive_button_ui_flags=1, negative_button="Annuleren",
widget=dict(max_chars=15,
place_holder="BTW nummer",
value=None)),
flags=64, alert_flags=1, branding=BRANDING, tag=tag))
The result of this method looks like this: 
This took me 30 minutes to get right.
Note: this example shows API usage which is at the time of writing not yet documented in our reference documentation but will be very soon.
November 25, 2012 9:21:05 pm
At this time the functionality to validate a Belgian VAT number was 50% finished. When the user presses the icon in the menu, the callback handling this request results in a screen asking the user to the enter the VAT number. The next step is to accept the input of the user, validate the VAT number and send back a screen with the results of the validation. To implement this, I added the next piece of code:
class DATADOTBEServiceHandler(webapp2.RequestHandler):
...
def messaging_form_update(self, call_json):
logging.info(json.dumps(call_json, indent=4).encode('utf8'))
answerid = call_json["params"]["answer_id"]
tag = call_json["params"]["tag"]
if not answerid == "positive":
# The user pressed the cancel button
return
if tag == "is_vat_valid":
# The user entered the VAT number after pressing the icon to validate a VAT number
return validate_vat(call_json)
def validate_vat(call_json):
vat_orig = call_json["params"]["form_result"]["result"]["value"]
if not vat_orig:
# nothing was entered, send screen to enter VAT again
return get_vat(call_json["params"]["tag"])
# sanitize input
vat = "".join((c for c in vat_orig if c in "0123456789"))
# callout to the data.be API to validate the VAT number
result = urlfetch.fetch("https://api.data.be/1.0/vat/%s/validity?api_id=***&api_key=****" % vat)
# validate result of the API call
if result.status_code != 200:
logging.error("Failed to validate vat:\nstatus=%s\nerror=%s" % (result.status_code, result.content))
return dict(type='message',
value=dict(message="%s is GEEN geldig BTW nummer." % vat_orig,
answers=[], flags=1, alert_flags=1, branding=BRANDING, tag=None))
logging.info(result.content)
# parse result of API call
result = json.loads(result.content)
if not result["success"]:
return dict(type='message',
value=dict(message="%s is GEEN geldig BTW nummer." % vat_orig,
answers=[], flags=1, alert_flags=1, branding=BRANDING, tag=None))
# prepare result screen
if result["data"]["valid"]:
message = "%s is een GELDIG BTW nummer." % result["data"]["vat-formatted"]
else:
message = "%s is GEEN geldig BTW nummer." % result["data"]["input"]
# return result screen
return dict(type='message',
value=dict(message=message, answers=[], flags=1, alert_flags=1,
branding=BRANDING, tag=None))
Adding this piece of code took me another 25 minutes.
November 25, 2012 9:45:15 pm
After 1 hour and 45 minutes I was ready with the first functionality. Luckily the two remaining features were very similar, so I could reuse quite some code to implement them as well.
The 1 hour and 15 minutes remaining, I used to add those 2 remaining features as well as adding a nice description for the data.be Rogerthat® service, and do some testing, before declaring it ready.
At the end I was really proud of my accomplishment, creating a mobile application on Sunday eve, which was functional, looked nice and works very good.
November 25, 2012 11:05:08 pm
Done.
To try data.be Rogerthat service I made, just search for data.be in the services tab of the Rogerthat app on your iPhone or Android app or via the Rogerthat web version accessible at https://rogerth.at
Hyundai rolls out over 100 Rogerthat mobile services for its dealer network in Belgium and Luxemburg.
Over one hundred professional car dealers are part of the official Hyundai network in Belgium and Luxembourg. They are trained by Hyundai and well-equipped to provide the best service. The dealer network is well-known for its excellent customer care and outstanding technical skills.
Hyundai is planning to extend its customer service to the smartphone. Customers will be able to schedule appointments, get emergency help, plan service interactions, get in touch with salespeople, schedule a test drive, get reminders for planned interactions and get invitations for Hyundai events, deals or discounts.
All members of the Hyundai network use software for planning customer interactions, scheduling appointments, ordering parts, etc. Bringing this functionality to the smartphone requires a user experience tailored to the smartphone, and not just a downsized web site. Apps were invented for this very purpose.
However, creating a smartphone app for every individual member of the Hyundai network would be prohibitive from a cost point of view, and result in an inflexible and hard-to-manage set of over 100 apps for iPhone, 100 apps for Android, … Yet the individual car dealers want to maintain their individuality, and be free in how they communicate with their customers, which services they want to bring to the smartphone, and which sales and marketing actions they plan.
Using the Rogerthat platform, the individual members of the Hyundai network each have their own service inside one single Rogerthat smartphone app. Hyundai customers interact with their dealer through the Rogerthat platform. This brings tremendous benefits:
- Every Hyundai car dealer has its own individual smartphone offering.
- Through the Rogerthat self-service panels, each member of the Hyundai network can select which services they offer on the smartphone, how they communicate with their customers. This is a very flexible system helping them to differentiate themselves from each other.
- When Hyundai Belux does a software update, the Rogerthat services of every car dealer are updated automatically.
- No need to build and maintain one app per car dealer, resulting in significant cost savings.
The Hyundai car dealer services will become available in the Rogerthat platform at the end of 2012.
Belgian political party CD&V selects Rogerthat mobile application platform to interact with voters
Lochristi, 28 augustus.
In de aanloop naar de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen van oktober zal de CD&V zijn mobiele campagne voeren via het Rogerthat communicatieplatform. Deze smartphone technologie werd integraal in Vlaanderen ontwikkeld en is aan zijn opmars bezig binnen Europa en in de Verenigde Staten.
Kris Peeters, Minister-President van Vlaanderen, getuigt:
Aan de hand van interactieve quizzes en enquêtes laat CD&V de burger mee het beleid sturen. Deze smartphone toepassing laat de kiezers zelf politicus-voor-een-dag spelen.
Deze samenwerking bewijst dat CD&V veel belang hecht aan hoogtechnologische innovatie in Vlaanderen. ”
CD&V ontwikkelde zijn smartphone dienst bovenop het Rogerthat smartphone platform om een aantal redenen:
- CD&V kan heel eenvoudig en heel snel zelf mobiele functionaliteit aanmaken en wijzigen, zonder dat hiervoor software ontwikkeling nodig is
- Interacties kunnen gestart worden door de gebruiker of door de CD&V
- Out-of-the-box integratie met QR codes voor het verkiezingsdrukwerk
- Gestructureerde communicatie zorgt voor een veel efficiëntere manier van dataverwerking
- In 1 keer beschikbaar op verschillende smartphone types
- Veel lagere ontwikkelingskost
Het Rogerthat platform biedt veel andere mogelijkheden voor de organisaties en overheden zoals het automatiseren en gebruiksvriendelijker maken van klantendiensten, het plannen van afspraken, het vereenvoudigen van communicatie met klanten en medewerkers, het uitvoeren van real-time enquêtes, het opvolgen van patienten, het uitzenden van herinneringen, enz…
The Belgian provincial and municipal elections of 2012 will take place on October 14. Christian-democratic party CD&V will run its mobile campaign using the Rogerthat mobile communication platform. This smartphone technology was developed in Belgium and is rapidly expanding throughout Europe and the Americas
Kris Peeters, Minister-President of Flanders, testifies:
Through a number of interactive quizzes and questionnaires, the CD&V allows the citizen to impact the policy. The Rogerthat CD&V application lets the voter play politician-for-one-day.
This cooperation proves that CD&V values hi tech innovation in Flanders”
The Rogerthat mobile application platform allows companies and organizations to offer its services to mobile users. The Rogerthat platform makes it very easy to build a smartphone frontend.
CD&V chose to develop its mobile offering on top of the Rogerthat platform for a variety of reasons:
- Through the Rogerthat drag&drop self-service panels, CD&V can very easily develop or modify mobile functionality, without the need for software programming.
- CD&V can initiate an interaction with a user
- Out-of-the-box integration with QR codes, which can be directly used in printed posters or flyers
- Structured communication and user responses allows for very efficient data processing
- Immediately available on multiple smartphone types
- Much better TCO than building a custom smartphone app
The Rogerthat platform offers many more possibilities for organizations or governments such as automating customer service, appointment scheduling, simplification of communication with customers and employees, running real-time questionnaires and polls, follow-up of patientes, sending reminders, etc…
Car Dealer Audi NAM Zuid Gent selects Rogerthat platform for improved customer service
Car dealer Audi NAM Zuid selects the Rogerthat platform to improve its customer service through smartphone-based appointment scheduling, service planning and sales interaction.
For some time Audi NAM Zuid was thinking about using the smartphone for extending its customer service and after-sales offering. However, building a dedicated smartphone app seemed complicated and expensive, since it requires a large upfront investment of time and money, without being certain how the mobile offering will be used.
Johan De Vos, After Sales Manager at Audi NAM Zuid, testifies:
“When we learnt about the Rogerthat platform for flexible smartphone communication with zero setup effort, we were interested immediately. It became obvious that having our own smartphone app is completely unnecessary, is inflexible and would carry a high maintenance cost. Using the Rogerthat platform, we can offer smartphone-based customer service in a very simple and flexible way. Customers can make appointments, get in touch with our sales reps, get information or report problems.
The perfect flexibility in creating and modifying the communication flows, without having to create and distribute a new version of the smartphone app, allows us to iterate over the communication process, and finetune it continuously. We can learn from our customers what works and what doesn’t. Using the Message Flow Designer, we can do this by ourselves, without the need for software programming or IT integration.”
Audi adds and finetunes one customer interaction at a time. They started with appointment scheduling, then added offering mobility solutions such as a replacement car, and customer satisfaction surveys. Rogerthat gives them an interactive channel to provide news, send promotions and invite customers to events.
Hestia Managed Services selects Rogerthat Platform to automate alerting and escalation workflows
Hestia Managed Services is the market leader for ICT infrastructure maintenance and hosting services in Belgium. Hestia offers 24/7 secure network and server monitoring, health checking, fault resolution and problem escalation services, managed from the Hestia Shared Service Centre. Hestia has a large on-call workforce which is responsible for monitoring and managing the ICT infrastructure of Hestia’s customers. Hestia’s automated system alerts on-call personnel when an anomaly has been detected.
Traditional e-mail or text (SMS) based alerting has a number of shortcomings such as unreliability, lack of interactivity, and lack of control by the sender. Hestia replaced their traditional alerting system with the Rogerthat Platform. This allowed Hestia to improve their operational excellence, respond better to alerts and resolve issues faster.
Wim Kelchtermans, head of the Hestia Shared Service Centre, testifies:
It is critically important that our on-call personnel immediately takes action when a problem is detected in the ICT infrastructure of one of our customers. We cannot afford losing valuable time.
Rogerthat allowed us to offer a better service to our customers by solving a number of important problems in our day-to-day operations.
First, alerting our on-call personnel just by the sound of an SMS text message or an e-mail alert, implied the risk of missing alerts. This required us to send multiple messages. Using Rogerthat, this problem no longer exists since our monitoring infrastructure can remotely control the alarm sound and repeat interval of alert messages.
Second, it was not possible to detect whether an SMS text message or email actually made it to the smartphone of the recipient. This means it was not trivial to determine when to escalate an alert. Rogerthat avoids this problem by notifying the sender when a message has arrived on the phone of a recipient.
Another problem with the SMS or e-mail based approach is that our personnel had to log in to our alerting dashboard before they could update the alert status. Rogerthat facilitates this by embedding interactive buttons in the alert messages, which can control server workflows in a secure way.
Finally, our monitoring service can remotely “lock down” Rogerthat messages that are no longer relevant for an on-call person. This is impossible with SMS or e-mail, which typically leads to a large number of unread messages. The on-call person then manually has to delete these obsolete messages and therefore risks missing relevant messages.
About Hestia Managed Services
Hestia Managed Services is the market leader in Belgium for ICT infrastructure maintenance and hosting services. Hestia offers 24/7 secure network and server monitoring, health checking, fault resolution, and problem escalation services managed from Hestia’s Shared Services Centre. Hestia’s expertise can be used to complement your existing in-house support team. Hestia deploys strict procedures, based on ITIL. This makes it possible to offer the best SLA in the industry.
Hestia monitors more than 1,000 devices of 30 customers. Hestia processes up to 12,000 alerts every month. Hestia is a member of Uptime Group.
About Mobicage
Mobicage is a Belgian software startup. Their flagship Rogerthat Platform is a multiple-choice messaging platform for 2-way communication between organizations and persons. Rogerthat Messenger uses workflows to automate the communication with your employees and customers. An open source plugin to integrate the Nagios monitoring framework with Rogerthat Messenger is available.