A Mobile App That Creates An Innovative Hospitality Experience
A unique approach to improve the profitability of bars and restaurants
The entire hospitality industry faces, among other challenges, the challenge of getting people going out again, when people used to randomly go out for a drink or have a bar-hop experience. The new dining experience after the pandemic is impacting all of us, and owners of bars and restaurants have been forced to improvise new ways of thinking.
This is the context, as of mid-2022, of a new mobile app that was born in Toronto: Lynq.
The app was developed pre pandemic to make restaurants more profitable, and has grown in relevance post-pandemic.
Lynq was created with two major goals in mind:
To help the local restaurant industry continue their recovery from the pandemic.
Focused as a rewards program for consumers, this new app offers appealing incentives for those interested in returning to indoor dining.
Synergo partners with Lynq in developing a new dining experience. As a Toronto start-up, Lynq partners with Synergo Group, a top mobile and web development agency in Canada, to design and develop a new dining experience. A dedicated team at Synergo, working with the latest mobile technologies, helped develop an iOS and Android app that creates an innovative hospitality experience for end–users and owners of bars and restaurants alike. The app was intentionally designed to create a seamless experience for both the restaurant and diner without any obligations or sign up fees.
“Within four months of working with Synergo Group, the company has established a more stable environment and improved its UI/UX. The team is highly professional and easy to work with. They manage the project efficiently and genuinely care about the success of the company and their products.”
Mark Jones
Founder Lynq
Overview
Lynq is a Toronto-based startup with a unique approach to improving customer experience and profitability for restaurants and bars. By using Lynq, customers are able to automatically earn cash back when they spend with their regular credit card. The process is seamless as Lynq works with the credit card networks. The customers simply connect their credit card to the Lynq app, use the card at a Lynq partner location to earn, and redeem their cash rewards.
The collaboration between our team at Synergo and Lynq started when the client was looking for a team to take over the development of the mobile app and get it ready for launch. They had collaborated with other development teams for the mobile app but were not pleased with what was delivered. One of the owners was also directly involved in the development process, guiding the team with the product vision & mission, and wanted to focus on more strategic priorities.
The client aimed for a team that understood their goals and could handle the mobile development process with little or no involvement from the base team. Synergo was perfect for this product.
The challenge
The Synergo team managed to:
– Implement critical fixes;
– Add new and important functionalities to deliver a great experience;
– Deliver an improved app that was ready to be launched in the store.
Our challenge was to fix critical issues and develop essential features Lynq needed to have before launching in the store. The Synergo team started by assessing the product needs in a few meetings with one of the owners which gave us a head start about the business goals, the vision and end users’ behaviors. That led to creating a development team designed to solve the issues on the table and propose new improvements.
Working agile, we then devised a plan and implemented user stories based on the main priorities.
While working on the current issues, the team encountered other possible threats and improvement points. Nevertheless, we never strayed from the product goal, and our new suggestions were discussed and prioritized during the weekly meetings with the base team.
The client appreciated that our team always focused on the tactical features that provide value to the end users.
The solution
One of the first challenges we encountered and solved succesfully was a sync issue with a 3rd party API. The sync issue was causing delays between the promotion intervals set by the merchants and the calendar in the system. Let’s say a merchant wants to offer 10% cashback to their customers between 3-5 PM, and the calendar plugin shows the time without considering daylight saving. The team soon realized it was a problem caused by a plugin inside the platform and the custom code written on top of it. The plugin and the code were updated using React Native.
A vital functionality our team implemented was the diversification of the rewards system. When we started to work on the app, the cashback rewards were limited to 10% during a promotional interval and 1% during regular hours. This new functionality allowed restaurants to also offer customers rewards based on the amount they spent at their restaurant or bar. This meant that users could get 5% cashback outside the promotional hours if they spent more than X dollars. It was a functionality that gave users more incentives; therefore, our client aimed to have it implemented before launch.
Technologies
The services we offered: Frontend & Backend development, UI/UX for Mobile. We work with the latest technologies on both mobile and web applications, like React Native and based on the final product we develop, and always having in mind the end users, we implement the best suitable solutions, including the integrations required to high standards.
The Team
“Their predictability was noteworthy. They focus on getting the job done well. Synergo asks questions about what we want to build in order to understand and solve the broader problem. That’s really valuable. You don’t get that from many contractors.” the client says.
Our team had one Senior Software Engineer, a Mobile Developer, a Backend Developer, and a Project Manager. During the development process, we also collaborated with two DevOps Engineers. Together they maintained good communication with the client, always asked questions, voiced their concerns, and delivered a product that the client was happy to launch to the world – read more in Toronto Star.
