In June 2011 we were approached by several Samsung excecutives to brainstorm about ways of using mobile apps as a vehicle of constant communication with independent dealers for mobile operators.

After a few hours and different ideas, we thought that it would be really helpful if all independent dealers have access to the complete Samsung catalog, along with all the official sales guides, everything off-line, ready when they need it.  However, the Caribbean is a special market, where not all phone models are available in all territories and carriers.  Besides, although Spanish is spoken in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the rest of the Caribbean Islands speak English, French, Dutch, and even some dialects.  This meant that what we offer will have to be available at least in Spanish and English, but at the same time be easy enough to maintain.

TaínoApp is a perfect fit for this scenario.  We installed a WordPress instance and configured two top-level categories for each language.  Inside each of these categories, we placed the different categories for each phone type, in Spanish and English.  All sales guides are added to WordPress as Galleries, associated using custom fields.  We also cleverly used some other WordPress features such as post tags to reuse information across different markets and operators.

The whole project was started as an experiment (code named GalaxySmart) to be used by Claro in Puerto Rico, and was launched at their yearly convention in Puerto Rico.  Samsung had made t-shirts with a huge QR-Code that pointed to the download of the App, and had people walking around wearing them.

This campaign was a huge success, and today, Samsung pushes all sales guides from their Miami office, making them immediately available to sales agents in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobaggo, for mobile operators like Claro, Orange, BMobile, Lime and Digicel, and every time a new phone model is made available to a particular market, sales agents already have all the necessary information to properly answer the questions a customer may have.

“TainoApp helped us go to market quickly and efficiently with the sales content for all of our mobile service personnel and partners across the Caribbean. Additionally, it gave us the added flexibility of updating our information seamlessly, always keeping our customers up to date with the latest in Samsung innovation and their GalaxySmart. What started as an experiment in one market, thanks to TainoApp, has expanded throughout the Caribbean, having set the bar for all of Latin América.”

- Gerardo Molina, Senior Manager for Claro Caribbean at Samsung Electronics

We are honored for the opportunity of being part of this project and its continued success.

Ricardo Alcocer - Co-Founder and Head of Architecture