BENEVITA shines with new freshness

The aim of the SWICA BENEVITA app is to find a balance between the areas of nutrition, exercise and well-being. The content is designed to motivate users to adopt a healthy lifestyle, which is rewarded with premium discounts on selected supplementary insurance policies and digital vouchers.

Up to now, users have been able to climb to higher levels with challenges in order to benefit from a wider range of services. When analyzing feedback, it turned out that this level system was too complex for some users. And for those who were already active or healthy, the app offered too little incentive.

With the new bonus program, users collect points and redeem them for premium discounts or digital vouchers. They also have the opportunity to donate to charitable projects together with the BENEVITA community.

With the update and the new version of BENEVITA, there is no longer any need to log in and solve challenges every day. Not only has the core of the bonus program been completely overhauled, but steps and active minutes can now also be tracked, allowing points to be collected automatically.

This is an unusual step, as many companies normally consider a high open rate to be a success factor for an app. The more often users open the app, the better. This KPI has been completely removed with the update. SWICA is thus showing that the BENEVITA app is not primarily about the company and key figures, but about the well-being of the users. Promoting a healthy lifestyle and keeping users glued to the screen at the same time? That’s not sustainable in the long term.

The app now also has a self-declaration option. Independent of the challenges, which usually consist of reading a text or watching a video, users can now declare their own personal activities. This helps to motivate them to make their everyday lives healthier, regardless of the app challenges.

The app also offers additional inspiration for a healthy life, with exercise and nutrition tips as well as tips on mindfulness and stress reduction. “We want to pick up users and point out blind spots,” says Robin Waibel, Managing Partner at Bitforge. So for someone who already gets enough exercise, the app can provide inspiration for additional meditation exercises. Or someone who has a healthy appetite may feel motivated to go for an evening walk.

Collaboration between the users, the business unit and usability, i.e. the design and development team, was important when revising the app. All the input from the various areas had to flow together and be revised and adapted in new feedback iterations. We also brought the design team on board at an early stage to ensure that the design of the app – in addition to all the technical innovations – also found its place.

But what has contributed significantly to the success of this release is the close relationship between Bitforge and SWICA. “With Bitforge, you always have the feeling that they are part of our team, part of SWICA,” says Delia Zita, Product Owner at SWICA, “For BENEVITA, they always think outside the box.” This close collaboration has ensured optimal coordination of all processes and all stakeholders and thus a smooth release.

As the last major update to the app was around nine months ago, testing was a challenge. As almost the entire content of the app had been turned upside down, we put the entire app through its paces before release. We relied on detailed requirement engineering and logic boards to ensure that all screens were thoroughly examined. The release process itself was also carried out in close collaboration with the dedicated SWICA team. It had to be clarified at an early stage which timelines had to be adhered to and which steps were necessary in order to be able to publish the app at the desired time.

And even after the release, the work is not yet done. For the days following the release, it is necessary to provide sufficient time and resources for monitoring. This includes analyzing the crash logs, for example. Even if an app has been thoroughly tested before release, there is never 100% certainty that everything will run smoothly. This makes it all the more important to be able to intervene immediately in the event of an error.

Our expertise and experience in the successful development of apps also proved its worth with the launch of the BENEVITA update. “Keeping the balance is absolutely key for us in all our projects,” says Robin. This necessary balance of user feedback, the wishes and needs of the business units and our expertise in development and design is a tried-and-tested recipe that has once again become a Bitforge success story.

BENEVITA is available in the AppStore and on GooglePlay.

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